The Housemaid is Watching by Frieda McFadden - A Book Review
Synopsis:
I used to clean other people’s houses—now, I can’t believe this home is actually mine. The charming kitchen, the quiet cul-de-sac, the huge yard where my kids can play. My husband and I saved for years to give our children the life they deserve.
Even though I’m wary of our new neighbor Mrs. Lowell, when she invites us over for dinner it’s our chance to make friends. Her maid opens the door wearing a white apron, her hair in a tight bun. I know exactly what it’s like to be in her shoes. But her cold stare gives me chills…
The Lowells’ maid isn’t the only strange thing on our street. I’m sure I see a shadowy figure watching us. My husband leaves the house late at night. And when I meet a woman who lives across the way, her words chill me to the bone: Be careful of your neighbors.
Did I make a terrible mistake moving my family here?
I thought I’d left my darkest secrets behind. But could this quiet suburban street be the most dangerous place of all?
Genre: Suspenseful Mystery-Thriller
Themes:
- Secrets
- Manipulation
- Murder
When me and my friend Izzy decided to book our first holiday together, we decided we needed to at least read one book together on the holiday, seeing as we’re both book lovers. I introduced Izzy to Freida McFadden’s, The Housemaid series, so it seemed fitting to read the last book of the series together.
The Housemaid is Watching follows Millie and Enzo eleven years into the future, where they are married with two children, Ada and Nico.
The story follows Millie and Enzo as they move into their dream home, away from the city in a fancy neighbourhood to start fresh from their previous lives of housekeeping. Millie has embarked on a career in social work, whilst Enzo continues to pursue his gardening career.
Whilst navigating and unpacking their belongings into their new home, they meet their neighbours Suzette and her husband Jonathan. Millie instantly becomes aware of Suzette’s snarky personality and Jonathan’s very quiet outcast. During their initial interaction, Suzette makes Millie aware of their strange neighbour Janice who can be caught watching out her window, who has a son called Spencer.
Enzo is eventually introduced to Suzette, whose eyes instantly light out at the attractive man before her, where she begins flirting with him in front of Millie and innocently asking for gardening work, in exchange for her promoting his business to her friends.
Millie and Enzo begin navigating their new life, with the help of Suzette’s maid Martha who comes to clean their home. Millie becomes increasingly suspicious of Martha and her intentions after she catches her snooping through their belongings.
Enzo begins spending an increasingly amount of time at Suzette’s home “gardening” which results in Millie to grow suspicious that her husband is having an affair. When Millie reveals her concerns, Enzo reassures her, reminding her that he knows not to get on her bad side.
When taking Ada and Nico to the bus stop, Millie meets Janice and her son Spencer, who is on a leech. The pair arrange play dates between the boys, much to Janice reluctance before she reveals that Millie should be careful with Suzette. Janice also reveals the story of a young boy who went missing and was never found.
When Nico is playing outside, he accidentally smashes Suzette’s window leading Millie to take him over to apologise. They come up with an agreement that Nico must go and help clean Suzette and Jonathan’s home to repay for the window.
When Millie returns home late from work, she discovers the kids are missing and rushes to find Enzo. Eventually they find the kids hiding under the stairs and when they do, they find them shocked and upset.
Millie becomes increasingly concerned about Nico’s behaviour as he’s began acting out at school, where he attacks children unprovoked. His behaviour eventually leads him to being kicked off the baseball team, leading Millie to become worried that he’s inherited her past behaviour. After finding out about Nico’s sudden outbursts, Janice stops Nico and Spencer from spending time together.
Suzette ends Nico’s visits to her home in exchange for breaking the window, but doesn’t explain why to Millie.
Millie, Enzo and Suzette and her husband Jonathan, along with the kids go to the beach after a potential client becomes interested in working with Enzo. However, when they arrive, Suzette informs them that the client has to cancel, leading Millie to be suspicious. Whilst at the sea, Suzette, Enzo and the kids go swimming until Suzette is almost dragged under and drowned by what she claimed was seaweed, that later is revealed as Ada.
When Enzo comes to her rescue, Suzette becomes over dramatic and overly touchy with her “hero” Enzo, fuelling Millie’s belief of them having an affair.
Millie is left embarrassed when she’s unable to pay the repair man, following her cheque bouncing, only to find out Enzo had borrowed money to replace gardening equipment. Janice continues to warn Millie of Enzo and Suzette spending lots of time together.
Millie’s concerns grow further when she is awoken to Enzo sliding into bed, smelling of another woman’s perfume.
When Millie returns home from work, she goes looking for Enzo who she can’t find. When entering Suzette’s home, she’s shocked to find Jonathan with a slit throat and quickly leaves as she hears the approaching of police sirens.
When leaving Suzette’s home, she bumps into Enzo who is bleeding leading her to her own conclusion. Enzo reassured her that his cut is from a gardening accident, before Millie reveals what she saw.
When police begin their questioning, they reveal they were notified after Janice reported screaming from the house, which ends up clearing Millie of her name, but leaves Enzo vulnerable, as Janice has seen him entering the house.
With Enzo being the lead suspect in the murder investigation, Millie contacts Benito from her housemaiding days, who puts her in contact with Cecelia (Nina’s daughter from book 1)
Cece is now a lawyer who promises to help prove Enzo’s innocence, who reveals where the money was for – to help Martha, the housemaid escape her husband.
When searching the house, they find the murder weapon used to kill Jonathan, Enzo’s pocket knife with his initials on. Cece is able to warn Enzo of his appending arrest, who then admits to killing Jonathan.
The story skips to part two which is from the pov of Millie and Enzo’s daughter Ada. In her chapters, we learn that Enzo had gifted his pocket knife to Ada to help her defend herself from the bullies at school, who were pressuring her. We learn the reason for Nico’s strange behaviour: Jonathan was making him stay in the hidden room under the stairs and watching him play with toys, where he would lock him in so he would set himself. Jonathan would then threaten Nico when he wanted to stop by saying he’d kill his family.
When Ada learns of this, she becomes enraged and visits Jonathan to warn him to stop, only when she arrives, she believes she’s home alone and begins snooping around the house and discovers a blood stained bed. Ada is quickly found by Jonathan who attempts to kill her after realising she knows what was happening with Nico. Ada stabs Jonathan in an attempt to escape and quickly leaves before Jonathan can react. Ada leaves through the back door and is able to slip past her father who’s gardening. Ads hides the knife
Enzo reveals that he believed it was Ada who killed Jonathan and attempted to cover for her. When speaking with Benito, they discover that Suzette was aware of Jonathan’s predatory behaviour and that he was responsible for killing the young boy why went missing.
They make a deal with Suzette: she either goes to prison for being an accomplice in the boys murder or that she murdered her husband – learning her to choose the murdering her husband deal.
We learn in the last chapter that Martha killed Jonathan after she returned to their home to find more jewellery to sell to escape her abusive husband.
I was so surprised at how quickly I was able to get through this book, especially since I read it on holiday, where typically, I struggle to concentrate because of the various distractions around a hotel.
From the get go, I didn’t like Millie’s neighbour Suzette and her constant malicious comments that were aimed to be hurtful and backhanded. I remember sitting on the sun lounger and gasping at some of the comments she’d come out with – I remember thinking “the audacity of this bitch”.
With all of Freida’s books, I love that the prologues start at the suspense/middle of the book, where you’re dropped into the middle and are not sure what’s happening, but are equally drawn in to read and find out more.
Through the book and looking at my notes, I only had one question that I believed to be unanswered and that was why were the children so scared when they were found under the stairs, when they willingly went in there. After discussing the book with Izzy, she reminded me that it was because Millie’s daughter was upset that her brother was being mean to her.
Even though I feel like I’m familiar with the Freida’s work, I was still blindsided by the reveal at the end. I wasn’t expecting it to be the housemaid Martha (even though it’s the title), I just thought it was keeping it up with the theme of the first two books because Millie was a housemaid. I can’t say I was exasperatedly shocked though. I think I wasn’t expecting it to be Martha because she left the story quite early on and wasn’t mentioned until she was revealed to be the murderer.
As well as this, I equally was surprised that it was a dual murder in a way and that Ada, Millie’s daughter had a run in with Jonathan. I believed, based on the signs we were given along the way, that it was going to be Nico due to him spending loads of time at their home and with his withdrawn behaviour.
I was initially surprised that Jonathan, Suzette’s husband was a pervert and responsible for the missing boy, but now that I’m reflecting on it, he had always came across off. The way he interacted with Suzette and basically ignored her flirty behaviour with Enzo was suspicious – he seemed like a door mat.
With Nico’s deteriorating behaviour, I was worried that Jonathan was going to have been harming Nico more and I was waiting for it to be revealed. I’m glad that it didn’t go to where I thought it was going to go and even Izzy agreed too!
I was also confused at by Suzette denied flirting with Enzo in the end and tried to say it was all him. Was there a reason for it? Like why was she so bitchy towards Enzo, when she knew about her husbands hobbies?
Anyway, I enjoyed reading this book and reading on my kindle in the sunshine really brought back a huge motivation for reading which I wasn’t expecting!
Can’t wait to venture into more of Freida’s work.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Georgia
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