Review: The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

Name: The Housemaid
Series: The Housemaid #1
Author: Freida McFadden
Publisher: Bookouture
Format: Kindle (through Kindle Unlimited)
Genres: Adult, Psychological Thriller, Suspense
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️ Behind Closed Doors (mostly Glimpses & Kisses)

Rating:

Synopsis: Goodreads
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…

Review:

When I asked people on BookTok who were clearly fans of Freida what books do they recommend starting with… They all had different answers. Except, The Housemaid was always in that list. And so when I was looking for something to read on my work lunch breaks that wasn’t a fantasy (because this was at the same time I was finishing The Throne of Glass series), it felt like an obvious pick to read The Housemaid. I gave a friend three books, she put them in an order and that’s the order I read them in.

So, The Housemaid. What did I think of it? I think this was a brilliantly written suspense thriller, that was fast paced that threw me for a loop in the second half. Just when I thought I had figured out what was going on and what was going to happen I realised I was half way through and there was no way… And then Freida hit me with a line that made me second guess everything. If you follow me on Goodreads you’ll have seen the ‘surely not’ status, followed by the ‘oh come on’ status as I realised what I thought I knew was by no means the full picture. Shame on me really for thinking I had it all figured out half way through!

I learned of the existence of the phrase (genre?) ‘popcorn thriller’ recently and my understanding is that a popcorn thriller is supposed to be a fast paced suspense thriller that is entertaining, light on the disturbing stuff, and even if you’re not a fast reader, it should feel like it could have been read in one sitting… To me, The Housemaid perfectly encapsulated that. If I hadn’t have chosen to read this as a lunch time read – where I only have an hour – I absolutely would have read this in one sitting.

The only reason I couldn’t give this a 5 star rating was because I felt like something else was needed with the ending… I could see how we got where we got, but I think it would have benefited from just a bit more (and a bit more of a team up – if you know, you know – leading to the eventual ending)… But that is all I struggled with. It really was a great read and it had an excellent twist!

If Freida consistently writes like this and The Intruder – I may have discovered a new auto buy author! Definitely need to give pause and read some more of her stuff before I decide… the question is, what will I pick up next of hers?

Reading With Tyler