Today’s book review is for The Housemaid, (The Housemaid, Book 1) by Freida McFadden, an adult psychological thriller novel about a young woman who becomes a maid for a wealthy couple.
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Book Synopsis
“Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…
Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.
I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.
I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.
But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.
They don’t know what I’m capable of…
An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down! From Goodreads.
“There was something about that room that was very scary, but if I somehow manage to get this job, I’ll get past it. Easily.”
The Basics
- Category: Psychological Thriller
- Tags: Psychological Thriller, Thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Adult
- Author: Freida McFadden
- Publisher: Bookouture, April 2022
- Where to Find: Amazon, Walmart, Target
- Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
**Spoilers Ahead**
The book begins with a body… Discovered in a home’s upstairs attic, we don’t know whose body it is or who police are questioning about it. Before finding out details about the investigation or the corpse, we’re sent back in time three months before the incident.
“He has no idea this is just the beginning.”
So Let’s Get Into it…
The rest of the book is broken up into three perspectives, starting with Millie. Millie is homeless, jobless, and an ex-convict. We aren’t told why she was in jail, only that she was there for ten years and is now in her late-twenties. Millie applies for a job as a live-in housemaid for the extremely wealthy Winchesters family and is hired. The Winchesters reside in a huge house with multiple guest rooms, but Millie is told she’ll be living in a small room in the attic. She doesn’t like the room, but anything is better than living in her car.
Millie immediately feels apprehensive, with her unease growing every day since the day she started. The gardener tries to warn her about something, but he only speaks Italian and broken English. Nina Winchester, the person who hired her, seems as if she is deliberately trying to make Millie’s job difficult. Nina has severe mood swings, and everyone says she is crazy. The story Millie hears is that Nina had a mental breakdown and is delusional. She allegedly tried to drown her own daughter in the bathtub, then attempted suicide by swallowing painkillers. Millie did not know any of this before accepting the job.
“Even though I had resigned myself to minding my own business about Nina’s mental health history, I can’t help but wonder. I work for this woman. I live with this woman.”
As the story unfolds, Millie sympathizes more and more with Nina’s husband Andrew. His wife is manic, and he is unhappy in his marriage. Andrew is kind to Millie and apologetic for his wife’s behavior. Millie grows closer to Andrew and develops feelings for him. He reciprocates the feelings and tells Nina he wants to separate from his wife so he can be with Millie. Yay! Millie wins and gets the hot, wealthy man – but in the second half of the book, we find out that things aren’t all as they seem…
“And I smile. My first real smile in almost eight years. I can’t believe I finally got rid of that asshole.”
Now we are told the story from Nina’s perspective. Andrew is actually a manipulative abuser hiding behind a kind façade. Once married, Nina would be punished and locked in the attic if she did anything that Andrew deemed wrong. She tried to escape, but he successfully convinced everyone that Nina was crazy. After almost 8 years of abuse, Nina came up with a plan to escape. She was going to manipulate Andrew into falling in love with someone new… and that someone was Millie.
“But that’s not why I hired Millie. That’s not why I gave her a copy of the key to the room. And that’s not why I left a bottle of pepper spray in the blue bucket in the closet. I hired her to kill him. She just doesn’t know it.”
The story is fast paced, and I had to know how we got to the scene teased in the beginning . I read this book in a day – I just couldn’t put it down!
“The only person I can trust is myself.”
So… Bookmark or Bin it?
Conclusion: Bookmark it
I really enjoyed this book. I don’t think it’s the most thrilling of the thrillers out there, but it was fast paced with an excellent twist I didn’t see coming. This is the first book of three in The Housemaid series. I’ll definitely be reading the next two!
Fun Extra Tidbit
The author, Freida McFadden, is a practicing physician specializing in brain injury. She has written many books and even has her own merchandise.
Thanks so much for reading my book review for The Housemaid, (The Housemaid, Book 1) by Freida McFadden! Now it’s your turn! Have you read this novel or any others by Frieda and if so, what are your thoughts? Please feel free to share in the comments below!
Happy reading 😊
1 Comment
Your posts are always so informative.