I love ‘governess-lit’ (Jane Eyre, Such a Fun Age, The Turn of the Screw), where the narrator floats in that limbo between servant and guest, and has a special inside view on her host family. Lily King’s debut The Pleasing Hour is in this tradition - the POV is mostly Rosie’s (an American au pair working for a family on a Parisian houseboat in the 90s) with snatches from other characters, and flashbacks to wartime Provence. Rosie has an affair with the father, but this is just one aspect of an intricate portrait of an extended family. It’s more experimental (not a bad thing) than her recent novels, but every time I dipped in I felt like I was stepping on to that houseboat myself.