The Housemaid: An absolutely addictive psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist

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I turn away from the window to look at Mrs. Winchester’s smiling face. I still can’t quite put my finger on what’s bothering me. There’s something about this room that’s making a little ball of dread form in the pit of my stomach. Disgusted and terrified of this naked threat, Ruby then learns of the mysteries that haunt Highwood Hall, and why no maid in the past 21 years had stayed for longer than a year or two at the place. And I was so sure I knew where this was going! Don’t you just love when a good twist slaps you right in the face! Plus that prologue featuring a police investigation that clearly suggests a dead body has been found. She gets disturbing mail threats depicting her dead. And more disturbing mails which depict threats to the rest of the Bertie family. And things about the family has so many secrets to uncover. The house just haunts it seems. The Bertie family members are quite interesting but quite bizarre.

The Housemaid Series by Freida McFadden - Goodreads

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of The Housemaid by Freida McFadden in exchange for an honest review. What It Is About So, if you are looking for your next thriller for lazy afternoons in a warm early summer weather with a glass of cool lemonade nearby, here’s a good option. The simple narration, good pacing and the general vibe – all perfect to kill some time with, especially if you don’t expect from your thrillers to be perfectly plausible, life changing experiences. Hidden Pictures’ Todd Lieberman and Alex Young will produce the film, with Carly Kleinbart overseeing the project for the company and also serving in a producorial role.Chelsea Kujawa and Erin Jones-Wesley are overseeing for Lionsgate. And it was Jason Weltman who negotiated the deal for the studio. Additional television credits for Sonnenshine, who is also a WGA and Independent Spirit Award nominee, include The Vampire Diaries and Outcast. She’s best known to date on the feature side for penning the horror-drama The Keeping Hours, produced by Blumhouse and directed by Karen Moncrieff, which won the Audience Award upon its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival.There's a general atmosphere of unease at Highwood Hall, from the narrow tunnels laced throughout the sprawling house, to the abandoned north wing, rumoured to be haunted. It's easy to imagine the secrets hidden within these walls, like the secrets I hold close. I think it’s fair to say the bulk of the novel focuses on the relationships between these three people, highly dysfunctional and tormented in their own ways. At times humorous and at other times quite dreadful and worrying, the interactions they have with each other are what moves the story forward and, personally-speaking, I never got tired of witnessing them. House of Twists and Bends 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.

The Housemaid Series in Order by Freida McFadden - FictionDB

Every day I clean the Winchesters' beautiful house from 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 also like when my thrillers have some of that rich-people-problems element. Hey – if a murder is about to occur, why not place it in a beautiful villa? If there’s one thing the vast majority of thrillers have in common, it’s their clear designations of the various characters. The protagonists, even if they are flawed in various ways, are invariably the good guys, while the villains are precisely-identified and written in such a way as to draw our ire towards them, respecting classic conventions. After being abandoned as a child by her mother, Ruby (the author doesn’t mention her name much and I really needed to know) decides to interview for a job as a housemaid at the last place her mother worked. This story morphed into a spinetingling The Most Dangerous Game style cat and mouse game, and I was living for it! It was completely unexpected, creepy and satisfying.Though he might be relegated to more of a secondary role with no chapters dedicated to him, Andrew Winchester still remains an integral piece of the puzzle, and his presence in the story is often used to maximum effect. As a matter of fact, I’d say he too is a main character, adding another layer of complexity to the dynamics between the inhabitants of the house. What at first seemed like a blessing slowly turns into something akin to a living nightmare. Her mistress Nina, our second main character, seems to take delight in driving her insane, apparently creating messes only to watch Millie clean them up. What’s more, she keeps telling strange lies about her own nine-year-old daughter Cecelia, all while driving her husband Andrew to the brink of total despair. Maybe I’m just getting rusty. But, even though I caught pretty early on a general direction the story was heading and even though the storyline was something you could already see many times in psychological thrillers, there was still enough twists and revelations I didn’t see coming, and I couldn’t be any happier about it!

The Housemaid by Sarah A. Denzil | Goodreads The Housemaid by Sarah A. Denzil | Goodreads

And when Millie first steps into that place, even being a maid in that household seems like a dream came true. But too soon it gets painfully clear everyone in that house are somewhat broken in one way of another. But offers that seem too good to be true are usually exactly that, as Millie is about to discover. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden – My Review Trying to make a life on her own after being abandoned by her mother when she was a child, a young woman is accepted as a housemaid for a rich family of Highwood Hall after years of battling addiction and rehabilitation. I know we all have different tastes, and do keep that in mind. But to me, this is how a good, captivating thriller should look like. Millie is desperate to get a decent job, and fast. When she gets a job offer by Nina Winchester to be a housemaid in the Winchester’s beautiful home, she is more than happy to overlook all the small issues that come with the position.I will also try to get the audio copies of them. I listened to The Housemaid on audio (narrated by Lauryn Allman), and in my humble opinion – that’s the way to go about it. I’m sure my enjoyment just wouldn’t be the same if I’ve read it physically. The stately home plays a big part in this story. The images were so vivid in my head as the author really brings it to life. You’ve got to love a house with a history and we keep learning more about what dark secrets it holds. With it being an old house, there are also lots of secret passageways which gave the whole feel of the story an even more edgier feel. I don’t love going up there. I don’t have any crazy phobias about attics, but the staircase leading up there is kind of creepy. It’s dark, and the stairs creak with every step. As I follow Andy up the staircase, I stay close to him. Our proximity to our neighbours make us certain we can ascertain whether or not they are committing some terrible crimes within the confines of their own homes. While most of us might indeed be law-abiding citizens, there are numerous enough cases throughout history of people turning their houses into dens of evil that we must admit one thing: we don’t truly know what our neighbours are up to. In Freida McFadden‘s latest psychological thriller, The Housemaid, we land into such a dwelling, perfectly normal on the outside, but hiding terrible secrets within. As Nina ups the ante in an attempt to drive Millie into total despair and insanity, the latter isn’t ready to go down without a fight. As a matter of fact, she has a bit of a trump card up her sleeve, one she was hoping never to reveal again. The Winchesters don’t truly know who she is or what she’s capable of, and she’s about to show them how deep her claws can really cut. The Complex Rivalries of The Housemaid

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden | Bookclubs

Mrs. Huxley who has been working there for the past twenty three years has been guiding all the workers but something is there about her which is quite unsettling for Howard. But she soon realizes she's made a mistake. The strict housekeeper, Mrs Huxley, watches her every move, emerging from the shadows when least expected. Lord Howard’s son, Alex, takes an interest in her, and as a former addict, she finds herself drawn to him. There’s a general atmosphere of unease at Highwood Hall, from the narrow tunnels laced throughout the sprawling house, to the abandoned north wing, rumored to be haunted. It’s easy to imagine the secrets hidden within these walls, like the secrets she holds close.But then I saw the ARC of her newest book, The Housemaid, and it seemed like just the kind of thriller I usually prefer – chill and intriguing, dramatic and surprising. Just something you can relax and have fun with without overthinking everything. Freida McFadden was a name that kept popping up to me, especially since I’ve gotten much more into thrillers lately. I always had a vague plan to maybe probably see what she’s all about sometime, when I had more time. With the heavy emphasis placed by the author on the psychological aspect of this novel, you might assume there would be little room left to make a thriller out of it. However, Freida McFadden manages to challenge expectations, making The Housemaid one of the more agitated and nail-biting thrillers I’ve had the pleasure of reading recently. The more we learn about the two women, the more their inner worlds become nuanced, and the more difficult it becomes to accurately determine who’s really good and bad between the two of them. They both have their reasons for doing what they do, as well as their fare share of skeletons buried in their personal graveyards. Funnily enough, it almost seems like the more they clash against each other, the more their similarities become unveiled.