Psychological thriller.
Millie desperately needs a job so she can earn some money and stop living in her car. When Nina Winchester offers her a position as a maid in a beautiful home, she jumps at the chance. But, Millie is hiding a dark secret. Nina is also hiding something.
Andrew Winchester, Nina's husband, is charming and so handsome. Millie avoids showing how attracted she is to Andy so Nina won't be upset with her. Cece, the child, is a brat, but Millie tries her best.
Enzo the gardener tries to warn Millie of danger, but she needs this job!
I knew what was going to happen before it did, but I still enjoyed this thriller. ( )

The unexpected twist alone is worth the read! ( )

suspense fiction. The first half of this book is like: Something is wrong here. Something is wrong here. Something is terribly wrong here. Don't go in the attic! But then the second half reveals the twistiness, and actually it doesn't disappoint. Very suspenseful if you are looking for a quick read; set on Long Island.

Also recommended: Alice Feeney's Daisy Darker. ( )

Meh! I was so looking forward to reading “The Housemaid” by Freida McFadden - a supposedly psychological thriller involving a mysterious housemaid, an eccentric rich couple and a huge mansion. What could possibly go wrong?!

And at first, things were looking good: Ex-convict Millie gets hired by Nina whose sole occupation seems to be being wife-to-Andrew. During the first part of the book Nina comes across as one part weird, three parts excessively psychologically cruel and two parts unhinged.

Mille, who has supposedly recently been released after 10 years (!) in jail is in dire circumstances, living in her car until she becomes Nina’s live-in maid/victim. Still, instead of being pretty much broken she unrealistically comes across as a pretty happy person…

Cecilia, Nina’s child from a one-night-stand, is inconsistently portrayed as petulant and entitled in the first part but makes a miraculous and totally unbelievable “recovery” later on.

Part one consists completely of Millie’s point of view and consists of short, punchy chapters that definitely achieved their goal of keeping me pretty much glued to my Kindle. Just one more chapter - till deep into the night!

After about a quarter of the book I thought this was an exciting, suspenseful, easy and light read, well on the way to a five-star review.

Sadly, though, when one character mentioned “danger” I immediately saw a major twist coming… Ok, true, much of part one was already a bit on the wild side and somewhat over the top but still enjoyable.

Along came part two which is mostly from Nina’s point of view. Here’s where the cookie started crumbling: With the twist revealed here already anticipated, I wasn’t exactly surprised by the story.

In part three, I also wasn’t surprised to see a somewhat bizarre and grotesque revenge fantasy evolve. Things became even more shallow and lurid. Where the story was going became pretty much obvious and even more predictable than before.

Yes, just like McFadden intended, I sympathised with Millie’s course of action but considering her fears, I had a rather hard time believing she would really be doing what she did. It was still worth my reading time although the book started feeling really, really flimsy.

What finally and definitely cost this novel the fourth star I might still have awarded was the final scene with Nina’s mother-in-law (intrinsically, it made sense but it just wasn’t from this world anymore…) and the epilogue (cringeworthy to the highest degree or simpler in German: "Fremdschämen", borrow that one, English language!). Both these scenes were both so deeply nuts and entirely predictable at the same time that I’m going to avoid this author for the foreseeable future…

If you want to read a quick throw-away thriller devoid of real substance, this might still work for you.

Three out of five stars - at least this mad revenge fantasy of a novel was somewhat entertaining.

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Mastodon | Instagram | Pinterest | Medium | Matrix | Tumblr

Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam ( )

Millie has been living in her car since she was let go from her previous job, and she's desperate for work. When she interviews for a position as the Winchester family's housemaid, she figures she won't make it past the background check. But somehow she does.

Unfortunately, Nina Winchester, who was perfect and welcoming during the interview, becomes an absolute nightmare after Millie is hired. Nina somehow manages to make massive messes in short periods of time, and she seems ready to blame Millie for everything. Her young daughter is a spoiled brat.

The job provides Millie with a room of her own, but it's a tiny, stuffy space in the attic, and for some reason it only locks from the outside. The job's one saving grace is Andrew Winchester, Nina's husband. Millie has no idea how Nina managed to get a great guy like him to fall in love with her, but he's a loving and attentive husband, clearly better than Nina deserves. Millie finds herself falling for him, but she knows he'd be horrified if he knew her secret, the reason why this horrible job is her very last chance at something like a decent life.

I try to keep thrillers on hand for when I'm in the mood. This was an impulse purchase that I knew would probably have issues, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway.

Quite a few aspects of this were very predictable. At the same time, it was also incredibly stupid. There is absolutely no way that the ending would have worked out as nicely as it did. Millie certainly wasn't smart enough or careful enough for the stuff that happened in the epilogue to actually go well.

And Evelyn. Ugh! It made no sense that she'd say that out loud to someone she didn't even like.

That's all I can say without spoilers. On the plus side, this was definitely the book I needed in order to decompress after the very emotionally complicated book I read just prior to it. The emotions this left me with were not complicated at all.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )