by Freida McFadden

Hello everyone! I’ve been bad at posting (not that anyone has noticed) but I’m still admitting it, even if it’s just to myself… I’ve been incredibly busy with life and have had a hard time managing to sit down and enjoy a book, however, when we were out running errands the other day, Husband humored me and went with me to the bookstore where I picked up the third installment of the Housemaid series. And let me tell you, if you liked the first two, you’ll like this one too.

Our Housemaid heroine (or anti-heroine?), Millie, is now all grown up, married, has her own kids and is moving into her own little paradise in the suburbs. Her hackles rise almost instantly when she meets the next-door neighbor, Suzette, who is beautiful and so very condescending and passive aggressive from the first words that come out of her mouth. One thing I love, but kind of hate, about McFadden’s books is that she is SO good at making extremely unlikeable characters to the point where I feel myself getting anxious because the situation is so frustrating and the character is so horrible. From giving congratulations to Millie for being pregnant (spoiler alert: she’s not pregnant) to flirting shamelessly with Millie’s husband, I could not stand that character.

Another neighbor, Janice, is introduced to us and she’s unlikeable too, just not quite as much as Suzette. She keeps her son on a leash until he steps safely on the bus, implies that Millie’s kids are not having a healthy childhood since Millie works, and also happens to mention that Suzette is bad news. Janice tells Millie that a young boy was snatched off the street in this area just a few years ago, and that Millie needed to keep her kids within her eye sight at all times. From here, Millie is caught between dealing with her two crazy neighbors, her marriage, and realizing something is terribly wrong with her son.

When Millie’s son, Nico, starts acting out, fighting, and withdrawing, Millie is starting to fear that something bad has happened. Enzo, Millie’s husband, is spending far too much time in Suzette’s backyard doing “landscaping”, even at 10 o’clock at night and Suzette hasn’t stopped with the blatant flirting. There is something very nefarious happening here and when Enzo comes home covered in blood and Suzette’s husband has been found dead, Millie (especially with her colored past) must figure out how to save her family and prove that her husband (hopefully) is innocent.

As with all McFadden’s books, the obvious answer is never really the right one, so you must read it to get the shocking conclusion of who actually killed the neighbor. This book was definitely a bit different than the first two as Millie is not in her vigilante stage anymore and is just trying to live a quiet, normal life. Even so, I really enjoyed it and managed to finish it in one afternoon. I don’t really have any cons to this book, I really enjoyed it, it was easy, quick, twisty, and had a surprise ending. If you haven’t read the first two books, sorry for any spoilers, but PLEASE read them!!

Overall rating: 8/10!