The Housemaid by Freida McFadden 🔖🔖🔖

First published January 1, 2022 

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The Housemaid is a mystery novel that follows Millie Calloway, a young woman with a criminal past, who is employed as a housekeeper by a rich woman, Nina Winchester, with a seeming mental health condition. McFadden explores themes of discipline and power, victimhood and abuse. 

Trigger warning: This book describes violence, domestic abuse, and attempted death by suicide. (Source: suppersummary.com) 

In this mysterious and suspenseful story, we follow the life of Millie, a woman with a dark past who lands a job as a housekeeper for the wealthy and enigmatic Nina Winchester. As Millie navigates the treacherous waters of the Winchester household, she soon realizes that there's more to Nina's erratic behavior than meets the eye. (Source: booksthatslay.com) 

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This was recommended by a friend and I read it in one sitting, staying up until midnight to do so. That's how I do thrillers, apparently. At least the ones that keep me interested and invested. 

This one did that, even though the character development was overall fairly non-existent. I had a huge piece of it figured out about a third of the way through, the rest of it 3/4 of the way. Still, I had to finish and see how it played out. 

I found great disbelief in the behavior of Millie at times, sometimes saying out loud, "Come on! Don't be so stupid!" She seemed to be a contradiction between smart, determined, stable ... and teen-sex-hormones-make-me-an-idiot. 

I am mixed about the ending. I am not sure I like how the victims freed themselves, yet I may be sadly on a moral high horse. I did, however, like the very very end where we get a glimpse of how this continues to play out for the main character.