“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!
Book Information: Print Length: 339 Pages. Publisher: Bookouture. Publication Date: 26 April 2022
#1 Amazon bestselling author Freida McFadden is a practicing physician specializing in brain injury who has penned multiple Kindle bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. She lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.
To hear Freida talk more about herself in the third person, visit her website: https://www.freidamcfadden.com/
My Review:
I seem to spend more time shopping for new books, reading reviews and recommendations than actually reading the books so when The Housemaid started appearing regularly on my online book club I bumped it to the top of my TBR pile and started to read it. I am often wary of these “over hyped” books that everyone tells me I must read because it’s brilliant etc… but in the case of The Housemaid it’s 100% true.
This is the first book I’ve read by Freida McFadden and I’m delighted to see that she has a huge back catalogue of psychological thrillers so I will definitely be buying them.
Millie has recently been released from prison where she served a long sentence for a crime which isn’t revealed at first. Now living in her car, she applies for a job as a live-in housemaid for a rich couple, Nina and Andrew and their 9 year old daughter, Cecelia.
Millie is delighted to be given the job and moves in to the family’s huge house immediately. However, not everything is quite as it seemed at the interview as Nina, who was immaculately dressed, friendly and houseproud seems to have had a personality transplant and becomes more and more unhinged thoughout the story. She starts to show some serious bat-sh*t crazy behaviour towards Millie, making Millie’s life a living hell, however as Millie isn’t prepared to go back to sleeping in her car with no job she puts up with Nina and her spiralling demands especially as she starts to develop feelings for Andrew.
I do love a twisty jaw-dropping psychological thriller and this book ticks every single one of my requirements for a 5 star read. I didn’t see any of the clever plot-twists coming and genuinely had no idea where the book was going as all I cared about was turning those pages and devouring the storyline.
This really was an unputdownable book and one that I will be recommending for a long time. 5 shiny stars and a place in my Top Ten Books of 2022.
