by Freida McFadden
Published in April 2022, Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid quickly gained popularity in the thriller and women’s fiction spheres, winning the 2023 International Thriller Writers Award for Best Paperback Original Novel. The second book, The Housemaid’s Secret, hit shelves in February of 2023, snatching up the 2023 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Mystery and Thriller. The third and final instalment, The Housemaid is Watching, dropped just last month, presenting a timely opportunity to review the story’s beginnings.
Introducing
The Housemaid succinctly can be a challenge. Millie is a freshly
released ex-con barely scraping by when the opportunity to work as a live-in
housemaid falls into her lap. However, her bedroom locks from the outside, her
employer Nina makes illogical and contradictory demands, and the gardener warns
of danger, but can’t speak enough English to say more. To complicate matters
further, Nina’s husband Andrew is a long, tall drink of water to a woman fresh
from ten-years’ incarceration in a women’s prison, and Millie struggles with
her thirst.
Honestly?
I liked it, but it was not without flaws by any means.
Millie
is desperate for a job and will take anything, red flags be damned. Why?
Because her parole relies on her being self-sufficient and law-abiding.
Nina
wants to hire an ex-con. Why? Because she needs someone desperate, who will act
as the unwitting fall guy.
The
plot demands an ex-con but it sure isn’t reflected in Millie’s
characterisation. In fact, later in the novel when Nina becomes the narrating
character, her own diary-style narration is near identical to Millie’s. There
is little to differentiate their voices in terms of tone or language or
emotion.
To get
into real spoiler-territory, I found the plot possessing large holes. Nina and
Andrew Winchester live in a mansion described as large as a city block, with
expansive garden grounds left up to Enzo, the non-English speaking gardener.
However, this alleged mansion has just three bedrooms and one tiny attic room
which serves as Millie’s quarters. The smallness of this ‘mansion’ was quite
distracting but I understand that it was written like this specifically to
force Millie into the attic room, as the other rooms are the master suite, a
child’s room, and the guest room. Once again, the plot demanded the number of
bedrooms, but it was at odds with the picture of wealth being painted.
There
were many small inconsistencies that distracted me. Millie asks Nina to fix the
attic window, which is painted shut, complaining of stuffiness as a guise for the
service. On the inside, however, Millie mentally notes that the attic is
actually as draughty as all hell. However, for the remainder of the book the
attic is described as genuinely stuffy, and the window never gets serviced, and
this glaring inconsistency bothered me. I believe the author likely wrote the
line about the attic being draughty before realising that the plot necessitated
stuffiness as (spoiler!) the attic is sound-proofed.
Getting
deep into spoiler territory now, the inconsistences of Andrew’s
characterisation were a real source of frustration. Andrew is the big bad of
the novel, a terrible abusive husband with some sort of saviour complex. When
he meets Nina she’s a down-on-her-luck single mother and he sweeps her off her
feet with courtship and riches and marriage before the other shoe drops: if she
is not perfect in any way she gets locked in the attic for days at a time as
punishment. For example, when her roots grow out she’s locked in the attic and
forced to pull out her own hair for freedom. In some twisted way Andrew’s
punishments always fit the perceived ‘crimes’; I really enjoyed delving into this
awful justice system and found it to be the greatest height of the author’s
imagination.
However,
Andrew is not consistently written. Nina fakes migraines, allowing the house to
fall into squalor to force Andrew to accept a housemaid, which she springs on
him as a surprise one day. She plans to treat Millie awfully, to prod Andrew
into his favoured role as the saviour of young women. Then, when Andrew
divorces her, she will be able to escapes with her daughter but her plan does
not match up with Andrew’s character. I could agree that in Andrew’s twisted
mind, he is a loving husband and would allow Nina to rest from these migraines,
but we’ve been shown the depths of his abuse in Nina’s story, depriving her of
food and water and inflicting insane physical prices on crimes. As such, his
complacent acceptance of the squalor of the house, of being surprised by a
live-in housemaid situated in ‘Nina’s room’ (the attic), of Nina’s failing
personal hygiene standards – none of it matches with his totalitarian and
controlling character. He is shown to have consistently punished Nina for
‘embarrassing’ him or failing to keep up a perfect appearance and yet he never
blinks an eye as Nina purposefully smashes things and abuses Millie to paint
Millie as the damsel in need of saving.
All in
all, too many plot holes and characterisation-missteps are brushed aside for
the sake of the plot for me to really recommend this book and yet, somehow, it
was still a satisfying read. Andrew’s comeuppance is delicious and though there
were parts of the aftermath that I found a little beyond the realms of
believability, The Housemaid was somehow still an enjoyable read. What
can I say? I love an abuser getting what they deserve and the way it plays out
was dark enough to pack a punch.
So, if
you find yourself a little peckish one day, this might just be the summer-snack
for you. It’s easy to digest and will hit the spot, just don’t expect Michelin
stars from a toasted sandwich.
