My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice Rating: (closed door)
Title: The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)
Author: Freida McFadden
Narrator: Lauryn Allman
Format: audiobook (Libby)
Pages: 329 Listening Time: approximately 10 hours
Publication Date: 4/26/22
Publisher: Bookouture
Categories: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense
“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!
Content Warning: gaslighting, torture, body horror
+ The narrator did amazing doing the voices for this story! I like how she had an accent for Millie and a different voice for Nina – it helped me distinguish the main characters.
+ I like how this story was a quick read and it is engaging too! The story starts off with Millie’s perspective. She’s the new live-in housemaid for the Winchester’s but she has a mysterious past – all we know is that she used to be in prison. Throughout the story she’s grateful to have a job and a place to live but Nina, her employer is always gaslighting her! The only person nice to her in the house is Nina’s husband Andy.
+ The second half of the story we get Nina’s perspective and I thought it was a fun twist in this mysterious and suspenseful story. The ending is unexpected but I enjoyed this story a lot.
Final Thoughts:
I wanted to read this before the movie comes out and I’m glad I listened to it as an audiobook because it was really entertaining. I like the build up, the mystery and all the suspense at the end, plus the twist!
Book Links:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 
I really enjoyed this one!
I’ve seen this author’s books everywhere on social media, especially this title, but I don’t know why I haven’t been intrigued by it until now. This might actually be the first time I read the synopsis of this book 😂 You’ve piqued my interest in the audiobook though so I might have to see if I can get my hands on it at some point (or even any copy of this book). It does sound like a twisted mystery!
I’ve been seeing on Kindle Unlimited for the past few years, but once they said a movie was coming out I was like, okay let me read it. Definitely try out the audiobook, I thought it was entertaining!