By: Freida McFadden
“She wants me to stay out of it. Mind my own business. Unfortunately, I’ve never been very good at that.”
The Housemaid’s Secret
*This post contains spoilers for The Housemaid’s Secret
Overview:
It’s hard to find an employer who doesn’t ask too many questions about my past. So I thank my lucky stars that the Garricks miraculously give me a job, cleaning their stunning penthouse with views across the city and preparing fancy meals in their shiny kitchen. I can work here for a while, stay quiet until I get what I want. It’s almost perfect. But I still haven’t met Mrs Garrick, or seen inside the guest bedroom. I’m sure I hear her crying. I notice spots of blood around the neck of her white nightgowns when I’m doing laundry. And one day I can’t help but knock on the door. When it gently swings open, what I see inside changes everything…
The Housemaid’s Secret
That’s when I make a promise. After all, I’ve done this before. I can protect Mrs. Garrick while keeping my own secrets locked up safe. Douglas Garrick has done wrong. He is going to pay. It’s simply a question of how far I’m willing to go…
I am trying to work my way through Freida McFadden’s compendium of stories. She writes thrillers that are easy to consume but not overly corny. I’m going as fast as the Libby app will let me borrow the books.
The Housemaid’s Secret, takes place after the events of The Housemaid. Because of this we already know that Millie is a very capable women. Even capable of murder when necessary. McFadden cannot rely on the same twist because we as readers know that she is not a weak thing. Instead, this knowledge is used against the reader.
When Millie thinks she kills, who she thinks is Douglas, we believe it along with her because we know she has the history of removing abusers. It was fairly obvious that Wendy was up to something the entire time. Did I think that she used her boyfriend to stand in as her husband so she could trick Millie into thinking that she shot her husband? No. I had it in my head that Douglas was keeping Wendy in the apartment because Wendy was dangerous in some way. However, she was only dangerous to Douglas.
Also, choosing to have Millie stay home and not go after Wendy was a smart choice. When Wendy found Marybeth instead of Millie I was just as surprised as she was. Millie kept her promise and didn’t go to the cabin.
What didn’t work as well was the fact that Wendy seemed like she was this mastermind but was quickly discovered by the police to be the killer. She only got away with it for about a day and Millie was never in any danger of going back to jail. Millie didn’t actually have to do anything to get herself out of the jam. She did provide Marybeth with the pills to kill Wendy. However, I think it would have been better for Wendy who only cares about money and power to be stuck in jail for the rest of her life. It would have been more satisfying then her death.
Overall,
This was a solid, quick and twisty story. The twists felt natural and satisfying to the story. I do wish that Wendy had met a different fate at the end but it did not ruin the story overall.
Freida McFadden books are not meant to be great works of fiction but they are still good stories. Sometimes you just want to be entertained and she delivers on this consistently.
Rating: 3/5 stars
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