🏠 The Housemaid by Freida McFadden — Full Review
⭐ 3 out of 5 stars | Domestic thriller | Trapped, tortured, and twisted
🚨 Spoiler Alert!
We are going FULL SPOILERS here. If you haven’t read it yet and want to be surprised, turn back now!
💭 My Take
Okay, The Housemaid was a fast, wild ride — one of those books you tear through because you need to know what happens. But plot holes? Oh, they’re there. Big ones.
Still, I stayed up late flipping pages, so it gets credit for that.
📝 The Plot — Let’s break it down
👋 Meet Millie
Millie Calloway’s fresh out of prison and desperate for work. She lands a live-in housekeeper job with the mysterious, wealthy Winchesters — Nina, Andrew, and their bratty daughter, Cecelia.
👉 Millie gets a creepy little attic room that locks from the outside. Red flag much?
👉 Nina is a hot mess — one second, she’s sweet, giving Millie her old clothes. The next, she’s screaming, accusing Millie of stealing and making her clean up insane messes Nina made on purpose.
👉 Andrew? Dream husband… or so it seems. Handsome, kind, and always defending Millie. (Uh oh.)
🫣 The cracks start to show
👉 Millie and Andrew get a little too close after a night out in the city. They end up in bed. Millie knows it’s wrong but can’t resist.
👉 Next thing you know, Millie’s locked in that creepy attic room. No phone. No way out. Andrew’s true colors come out FAST.
👉 Andrew forces Millie to balance heavy books on her stomach for hours as punishment — his favorite twisted torture. (Because, yeah, this man is a full-on sadist.)
🔥 Millie’s revenge
Nina’s been playing the long game. Turns out — she hired Millie not just to clean, but to help kill Andrew.
👉 Millie finally turns the tables: she pepper-sprays Andrew (thanks, Nina, for leaving that for her!)
👉 She locks him in the attic room — same torture, new victim. She leaves him for dead, making him pull out his own teeth if he wants food or water. (Why he didn’t use the pliers to smash a window? Don’t think too hard about it.)
💀 The aftermath
👉 Nina returns with Enzo, the landscaper-turned-co-conspirator, to find Andrew’s rotting corpse in that attic prison.
👉 Millie, sobbing, is convinced she’s going back to prison for life. But Nina steps up — she tells Millie to leave and lets the blame fall on herself.
👉 The detective on the case? Oh, he just happens to hate Andrew too (his daughter was once engaged to Andrew and fled after something awful happened). Andrew’s death? Ruled an accident.
👉 At the wake, Andrew’s mom drops this final bombshell: she used to “discipline” Andrew the same way he tortured his wife. She calls Nina brave for doing the same to him. (Yep. Chilling.)
🌅 Where they end up
👉 Nina and Cecelia start fresh in California.
👉 Millie uses the cash Nina sends her to build a new life… or does she? Last we see her, she’s interviewing for another housekeeper job — and she spots the signs of abuse again. She smiles and tells the woman, “I can help you.”
🌟 What Worked / What Didn’t
✅ Fast-paced and super bingeable
✅ Deliciously dark revenge fantasy
❌ Plot holes you could drive a truck through (hello, pliers?? brown roots + 50 lbs??)
❌ Conveniently clueless side characters (Enzo, bro — just say it in English!)
📌 Ready to read it?
📚 If You Liked This, You Might Also Love:
✅ Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
✅ The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose
✅ Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney
👉Check out my blog on the sequel:
The Housemaid's Secret by Freida McFadden.
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