The Housemaid

The Housemaid has been on my TBR list for a few years. I finally got around to reading it last week and I hope to soon finish the four additional books in this Housemaid series. 

The publisher's summary:

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 …

Our protagonist is housemaid Millie. Millie was recently released from prison and is having a hard time finding employment. She is a convicted murderer. A week after being interviewed for a job as housemaid for Nina Winchester, Millie gets the good news that she has been hired. The job is a live-in situation and Millie can finally move out of her car. From her first day on the job Millie senses that it was a mistake to accept the position. That same day the landscaper tells her the house is dangerous.

Nina is a classic psycho. She messes up the house on purpose so Millie has more to clean. It was mean-spirited. Nina also accused Millie of misinterpreting her instructions on a daily basis. I thought Nina was the villain but nothing is that easy to decipher in a Freida McFadden book. I wondered what was wrong with her but it wasn’t until the end that I realized what was really going on.

Andrew, on the other hand, is Nina’s debonair, handsome husband. He is always calm and pleasant. Andrew makes excuses for his wife's behavior and supports her fully. No one in the neighborhood knows why he puts up with her. Landscaper Enzo is hotter than hot. He generally dismisses any conversation that Millie starts. For one reason, he speaks Italian and does not know many English words. The Winchesters have a young daughter Cecelia who is just as demented as her mother. Cecelia makes Millie's life even more miserable.

There are too many twists and turns to describe. Nothing and no one is who they seem to be. I believe there was a new twist in every other chapter. This made for a super fast pace. I read that this book was made into a movie but I didn't see it. I am definitely going to watch it ASAP as this plot is amazing. 

To say the ending is shocking is a putting it mildly. I recently learned that the author is a psychiatrist in her day job. I can only imagine that she gets her material from her clients. Otherwise, how does she come up with these plots?  5 out of 5 stars!

Cleopatra

Saara El-Arifi's Cleopatra is the third historical fiction account of Cleopatra's life that I have read in the past month. Many of the characters were already familiar to me when I opened the pages of this book. While the storylines are similar, all three books are different. In this particular novel Cleopatra is the narrator. Her political skills are focused upon instead of her seductive behaviors. The novel was published in February 2026. 

The publisher's summary:

YOU KNOW MY NAME, BUT YOU DO NOT KNOW ME.

Your historians call me seductress, but I was ever in love's thrall.

Your playwrights speak of witchcraft, but my talents came from the gods themselves.

Your poets sing of my bloodlust, but I was always protecting my children.

How wilfully they refuse to concede that a woman could be powerful, strategic, and divinely blessed to rule.

Death will silence me no longer.

This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived.

The story is a memoir, but told by Cleopatra while she is in the afterlife. She has been dead for over two thousand years and is aware of the lies told about her over the millennia. I thought this was an intriguing perspective for the author to write from. Much of Cleopatra's narration refutes what historians have said about her, that she was a nymphomaniac. Of course, the male historians would say that. Cleopatra instead tells us how she chose her strategies for success. While she slept with Caesar and Marcus Antonius, we see how she used them for political gain. Truth be told, she did nothing that wasn't for her gain. 

The opening scene of the book was on the day that Cleopatra became queen. She was still a teen but immediately knew how to behave as a queen as well as how to remain as queen and pharoah. Her father taught her well but it seemed that she was born for her future role. Perhaps that's more guessing on what she was like but for a woman to succeed at being pharaoh Cleopatra must have had the goods to hold onto power as long as she had. That's impressive. 

The novel included Cleopatra's relationships with her siblings. In this retelling of her life we read that she loved her brothers and sister and thought they loved her in return. She was generous to them. When each of them tried to take the throne away from her she was stunned. Eventually she had them killed. The only problem she had was her sister Arsenoe. Arsenoe made several attempts to dethrone Cleopatra. After each loss Arsenoe kept coming back. Cleopatra never agreed to execute her until after the third attempt. I loved her villainous character. Arsenoe was awesome. The author's creation of the brothers characters showed them to be weak with no political skills and easy to depose. 

The ending gives us a different perspective on how Cleopatra's life could have ended. I must say that the author was imaginative with her plot. The book was a fantastic read. I believe all readers will love it too. 5 out of 5 stars.