The Housemaid's Secret

Series: The Housemaid (2 of 2)

By: Freida McFadden

Narrator: Lauryn Allman

ASIN: B0BGXYL3BZISBN

Publisher: Bookouture

Publication Date: 02/20/2023

Format: e-book

My Rating: 5 Stars ++ (ARC)

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“Don’t go in the guest bedroom.” A shadow falls on Douglas Garrick’s face as he touches the door with his fingertips. “My wife… she’s very ill.” As he continues showing me their incredible penthouse apartment, I have a terrible feeling about the woman behind closed doors. But I can’t risk losing this job—not if I want to keep my darkest secret safe…

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…

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…

This absolutely explosive and shockingly twisty sequel to international bestseller The Housemaid will keep you racing through the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose, The Woman in the Window and Gone Girl will be totally hooked! This book can also be enjoyed as a standalone.

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#TheHousemaidsSecret

THIS PERFECT HOME HAS ONE RULE.

DON'T LOOK BEHIND CLOSED DOORS...

My Review

"Millie, the heroine, is back, better than ever. Twisty, crafty, and humorous—this is one powerhouse of a series!"

Freida McFadden, the queen of psychological thrillers with a twist, returns following The Housemaid with the highly anticipated follow-up, THE HOUSEMAID'S SECRET.

What happens behind closed doors?

Cleverly plotted, complex and multi-layered, Millie discovers that she is not the only one whose life is built on secrets and lies and comes face to face with a master manipulator. Will she be able to turn the tables?

It all started with a simple cleaning job. Now it might end with her blood mopped off the cabin floor. This is how the book begins and then jumps to three months earlier.

Picking up from book #1, Millie finds a new cleaning job but loses it quickly when the woman's child, Olive, starts calling Millie mama.

Millie has an apartment in the South Bronx with some freaky sleazy neighbors. She has accomplished quite a lot since the last book. She and Enzo (love him) have helped women and victims escape abusive relationships. However, he had to return to Italy to take care of his mom, and she had not heard from him. They made a perfect team and she misses him, but clearly, he was not coming back. It has been a year. Enzo knew about her past and she did not have to pretend around him as she did with Brock.

She has also gone back to college to get a social work degree. She will be able to help people and stay within the confines of the law. Enzo encouraged her. For now, she is doing a part-time bartending gig but needs to make more money. That is rather difficult with her prison history.

She has been dating Brock for the last six months, an attorney from a well-to-do family, but he does not know about her past, nor is she planning on telling him. He is perfect, except for a heart pill he takes daily for a condition he developed as a child.

However, he is putting pressure on her to move in with him. That would solve her housing problems, but she just cannot give up control of her life. If she tells him about her past, she will lose him.

Millie finally lands a job that is too good to be true. She meets a man named Douglas Garrick, who lives on the Upper East Side just west of Central Park, on the penthouse floor with a doorman. Like $20Million.

The owner is the CEO of Coinstock and seems friendly but Millie cannot stop thinking about the closed door on the second floor. The wife who could not come out to meet her.

She lands the job, but one stipulation is his wife Wendy is sick with a chronic illness and she stays in her room. Millie is not to disturb her for any reason. Tell someone they can't do something, making them even more curious.

But Millie soon cannot keep from thinking about the woman in the room. She hears her crying one day and then sees blood in the bathroom. She must help her. But the last time she tried to help, it returned to haunt her.

What is behind the locked door?

Clearly, this woman is in an abusive relationship and is afraid of her husband. She must help her. Something sinister is going on. She cannot allow this man to kill his wife.

Then the creepy neighbor comes around her apartment and she must protect herself. If only Enzo were here. Then she senses someone is following her.

What is going on between Wendy and her husband? What happens next is not what Millie expects. Now someone is trying to set her up once again. She cannot go back to prison. Nothing is as it appears.

Is Enzo back? Will Detective Ramirez believe her? Someone is dead. Someone else will wind up dead.

Told from the POV of Millie. Then we hear from Wendy's POV around 60% into the book, which is creepy, and flashbacks of four, three, two, one year, and six, four months before to a few weeks earlier to the night of the murder.

Predator or prey? Cat or mouse?

Wow! McFadden does a masterful job of creating in Millie a complex character, making her both scary, sympathetic, and appealing. A balanced thriller with dark humor that will keep readers surprised, pleased, and shocked as Millie unfolds her revenge plan once again!

Loved the Epilogue - three months later!

Revenge drives this twisty jaw-dropping thriller, and the author keeps the suspense high throughout. As always, there is a twist you do not anticipate. Readers will root for Millie as she tries to even the score. How will she ever trust again?

I loved Enzo, and he is a perfect match for Millie. Every time I read his name, I thought of Enzo (plumber) on the show Younger, also Italian that married Diana and loved him as well. I enjoyed this one even more than the first one and hope we get a #3 and more, Millie! I adore this author; the 12th book I have read by her (have not posted all the reviews yet).

Thank you to #Bookouture and #Netgalley for a gifted e-ARC.

@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks

My Rating: 5 Stars +

Pub Date: Feb 20, 2023

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The Housemaid Series

From Book 1: “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! READ MORE

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About the Author

#1 Amazon and USA Today bestselling author Freida McFadden is a practicing physician specializing in brain injury who has penned multiple Kindle bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. She lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.

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