I Remember - Noelle Harrison

Barbara's nine-year-old brother Mattie has died in a fire at her home in Ireland, and in her grief, she takes a job as an au pair in London looking after young Matilda Finch. Almost as soon as she arrives, the family announce they are off to the Camargue in France for the summer, taking Barbara with them. Barbara is soon aware that she is one of a long string of au pair's and that the family has problems: Olivia is beautiful but brittle; her husband John stiflingly affable, and their daughter is constantly ill. Barbara instinctively knows that something is wrong.

Over the summer, as Barbara's sexuality is awakened by Pascal, Olivia's brother, she believes she could be falling in love for the first time. Yet when she confides her doubts about the Finch family to Pascal, she realises she has illuminated issues far beyond her own understanding, and that the consequences will be terrible.

Set in the eerie salt marshes of southern France, inhabited by the famous white horses, flamingos and black bulls, I Remember is a remarkable story of deception, passion and ultimate redemption.

'An intriguing and sensual writer, confidently charting out her own distinctive territory'

Dermot Bolger, The Sunday Independent