Cover of “The Housemaid’s Secret” by Freida McFadden The Xavierite
**Spoilers ahead.
It can be difficult to find a book that is hard to put down. Yet, I recently stumbled upon “The Housemaid’s Secret” by Freida McFadden, and found myself finishing the 352 pages in two days.
Despite how much I enjoyed the book, it isn’t one that I would have grabbed on my own. I actually bought it unknowingly.
There is an interesting thing called “blind date with a book” that can be found at certain libraries or bookstores. It’s where you choose a book only knowing the genre, as the entire thing is wrapped in paper and hidden.
“Blind Date With a Book” Bundle The Xavierite
I normally go for books of the thriller or horror genres. It can be difficult to choose one from so many options, so I grabbed a random wrapping labeled “thriller” and went on my way.
“The Housemaid’s Secret” follows protagonist Millie Calloway, a convicted felon, as she tries to make ends meet while finishing college. After being fired from her old job, she is desperate to find another one with her criminal record.
Calloway is able to land a job working for Douglas Garrick, the wealthy husband with a wife who is claimed to be ill. Calloway is to mind her own business and keep up with the housework. What she does not know is that there is a greater plan heading into action, and Calloway plays the main role.
The novel is meant to be a sequel for “The Housemaid.” This worried me a little bit because I had not read this prior and wanted to start the book I had purchased.
One of the unique things about “The Housemaid’s Secret” is that it can stand alone as a novel, not requiring readers to seek the first or third books in the series. While a lot of readers online would recommend reading them in order, it is not required to be able to enjoy the story.
As I was getting into the book, there were a lot of things set up that did not quite make sense right away. This was not due to information a reader would need from a prior book, but there were certain parts that were mentioned repeatedly, but did not get explained until later on.
With this being said, everything that was happening was set up to fit quite perfectly.
There is a specific car with a license plate that Calloway memorizes and feels is following her around. She sees it often, and continues to have the feeling that she is being watched. The person doing the watching remains unknown, though she has her guesses.
It ends up being none other than her ex-love interest, Enzo, who has come back from Italy to watch over Calloway and make sure she is safe. The two split after his move out of the states to care for his mother; Calloway was never given a time he would return and ended up trying to move on due to the uncertainty.
She has instead taken on a relationship with Brock, a wealthy aspiring lawyer who does not know anything about her past. Readers see the way Calloway holds off from letting Brock in, while she knew she could tell Enzo everything and he would be her biggest supporter.
The addition of Brock to the storyline was interesting to see because he did not seem to add anything at first.
Calloway would go on to end up being the prime suspect for the murder of her “boss,” after helping assist his wife Wendy, who claimed the relationship was abusive. Wendy would act the part: she did makeup for bruising, left blood all over the bathroom, would lock herself in her room and never leave, and even threaten to take action herself with a gun.
As someone with a history of helping women out of these types of relationships, Calloway is vulnerable to Wendy’s actual plan: to frame her for the murder of her husband so that she can be rich and go off with her new lover.
Calloway has never actually met the man who is supposed to be her boss. The entire time, it was Wendy’s actual lover. This man would go on to pretend to choke Wendy so that Calloway would shoot a gun to get him off.
While they made the scene look real and set a bunch of other evidence up throughout Calloway’s employment, Calloway did not actually kill anyone because the gun did not actually shoot.
Going back to Brock being pointless, he agrees to meet Calloway at the police station as her lawyer, where the truth of her past comes out, inevitably leaving her.
Yet the only reason I see for him to be a part of the storyline is the pills he had left in Calloway’s apartment. These were the pills that would be used to kill Wendy later on by her new lover’s actual wife.
He could have served to prove Enzo was the right guy for Calloway the entire time, but I did not think Brock’s character was necessary.
The way this all came full-circle in the end was incredible. Readers get a part from Calloway’s perspective, then a part from Wendy’s perspective. For the terrible twists that happen, I went from rooting against Calloway to rooting for her. With all of her secrets and how she went about doing things, she was a hard character to like at first.
Overall, this was definitely a book I enjoyed reading; it was a unique, suspenseful thriller that kept me wanting more.
I would not only recommend this book to anyone who also enjoys reading thrillers, but I would recommend the idea of buying a book you do not know the name of upon purchasing. You never know what you might find.