“Then again, plenty of men are idiots.”
― Freida McFadden, The Housemaid
As a dedicated fantasy and romance reader, I’ve been dying—pun not intended—to start reading thriller and horror books. After hearing about Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid series for years and being promised twists I wouldn’t see coming, I finally picked up this book to see if it lived up to the hype.
I was compelled to read Millie’s story—a former convict who takes a job that is clearly a nightmare. The book unfolds as she recounts the events leading up to the murder scene we encounter on the first page, and I was eager to see if the twist would truly blow my mind. While there were some shocking revelations, the reliance on certain clichés left me wanting more.
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The Housemaid Full Summary
This recap contains spoilers.
The story starts with a prologue where a woman is being interviewed by a detective in her own house about a body that was found in the attic. Then, the story jumps to three months earlier.
Millie, Wilhelmina Calloway, is fresh out of prison. She’s just lost her job at a bar on bad terms, and unless she finds something soon, she’s going to go back to prison for a parole violation. Luckily, she lands a housekeeping position at the lavish Winchester home. Nina Winchester, the lady of the house, seems eccentric but harmless—at first. Millie’s tasks are to cook, clean, and occasionally take care of their young daughter, Cecelia. She’s given a creepy attic room that gives her a bad feeling about this situation because the room only locks from the outside, it has claw marks behind the door, and its only window is painted shut.
So, things are weird from the get-go.
Nina is borderline unhinged—one moment generous, the next accusing Millie of losing her notes. Andrew, her handsome husband (no, literally, it’s mentioned how gorgeous he is like a million times), is charming and sympathetic. And Enzo, the silent Italian gardener every single housewife drools over, is quiet, seemingly doesn’t speak English, but he tells Millie the first day she encounters him that the Winchester house is dangerous.
As tensions rise, Millie starts to suspect that Nina isn’t just neurotic—she’s terrified.
As Nina abuses Millie, Andrew and Millie get closer. One night, when Nina is out of town, driving Cecelia to camp, Andrew and Millie see a show together, then spend the night in a hotel, sleeping together.
But Nina isn’t stupid—when she returns, she plays her hand. Millie’s criminal past is revealed over dinner, and Andrew, suddenly cold, doesn’t defend her. Nina knew all along.
Nina accuses Millie of stealing her clothes and threatens to call the police. Andrew defends Millie and throws Nina out. We think they’re happy. But they’re not.
The POV switches right here from Millie’s to Nina’s. Nina is in a luxurious hotel. She’s not sad. She’s thrilled that she’s gotten away from her abusive husband.
Through flashbacks, we learn the horrifying truth: Andrew preyed on Nina when she was a single mother and married her. When Nina seemingly misbehaved, he locked her in the attic and left her with various punishments, like spraying herself with pepper spray or pulling out strands of hair to an exact count. Andrew punishes her for every behavior he deems unacceptable, torturing Nina. To stop her from leaving him, Andrew drugs Nina and Cecelia the first time he locks her up in the attic. Nina wakes up to the bathtub running, finding Cecelia in the tub nearly drowning. Police arrive at this exact time, making Nina look like she’s having a mental breakdown and about to drown her daughter.
After that, Nina endures the torture.
Nina confesses Andrew’s abuse to Enzo, thinking he doesn’t speak English. However, he does, and we find out that Enzo’s sister died at the hands of an abusive husband, and Enzo was too late to help her. The two of them make a plan to get her and Cecelia out, and it falls apart when Andrew finds out.
Then Nina hatches another plan—finding a replacement. When she encounters Millie and finds out she has a prison record for killing someone who was sexually assaulting her best friend, she makes up her mind.
Nina intentionally makes Millie’s life a living hell, victimizing her in front of Andrew just like her boss did to her. Eventually, Andrew falls in love with Millie, kicking Nina out of the house.
Nina gets away. She and Enzo sleep together. Nina is about to leave for California, but Enzo convinces her that leaving Millie in Andrew’s hands isn’t right.
We do find out that Nina’s intention had been to have Millie kill Andrew.
When Andrew inevitably locks Millie up in the attic, Millie finds the pepper spray Nina has left for her. When Andrew lets Millie out, Millie sprays him with pepper spray and locks Andrew in the room. She tortures Andrew for a couple of days, at first by applying the same punishment he gave to her, then by making him pull his teeth out.
Enzo convinces Nina to come back for Millie, and she does. When she arrives at her house and checks the attic, she finds Andrew dead. Nina tells Millie to run, and she decides to take the blame. However, the detective who arrives at the scene is the father of Andrew’s ex-fiancée, who never recovered from what Andrew did to women, and he sweeps it under the rug, ruling the incident an accident.
Nina sees Andrew’s parents at the funeral. His mother, Evelyn—whom she never got along with and has always been a perfectionist—reveals that she knows what happened to Andrew and is glad someone punished him for not following the rules. It is implied that Evelyn had also locked Andrew in a room for punishment as a child, continuing the cycle of abuse.
Nina and Cecelia move to California. She asks Enzo to come with her, but he refuses. She understands and instead asks Enzo to look after Millie.
In the final twist, Millie lands another cleaning job. Her new employer, Lisa, has suspicious bruises. And when Lisa mentions that Nina Winchester personally recommended her, Millie smiles and accepts the job.
Because maybe Nina wasn’t wrong. Maybe some men really do deserve what’s coming to them.
The Housemaid Characters
Wilhelmina “Millie” Calloway
Millie is the protagonist of the Housemaid. After having years of behavior problems, Milllie is sent to boarding school where she murders a man with a paperweight after finding him assaulting her best friend. Millie goes to prison and is released on parole 10 years later.
She gets a job in Nina Winchester’s house as a housemaid where she cooks, cleans and occasionally watches their daughter Cecelia.
Millie grows close with Andrew after Nina manipulates them into having an affair. When Nina is kicked out of the house, Andrew starts abusing Millie by locking her in the attic to punish her for bad behavior. Millie eventually gets out and locks Andrew in, leaving him to die of dehydration.
At the end of the book Milllie gets another job in a different household where the woman hiring her exhibits signs of abuse and it seems like she’s accepting her role as a protector and dealing vigilante justice.
Millie has blonde hair, has a slim figure and usually wears jeans and a t-shirt.
Nina Winchester
Nina Winchester is Andrew Winchester’s wife. She was a single mother when she met Andrew. The two of them quickly got together. Andrew started abusing her a few months into their marriage by locking her up in the attic days at a time for what he considers bad behavior. He also framed Nina for having mental health problems so she could never leave him.
Nina is resilient, strong and a survivor. After Andrew’s funeral, her and Cecelia move out to California.
Nina has blonde hair, and regularly wears white.
Andrew Winchester
Andrew is Nina’s husband and is the villain of the book. He is handsome, seemingly charming while hiding his abusive behavior. He inherited a company from his father and runs it as CEO.
He locks women up in a room and torture them with arbitrary punishments.
Andrew dies at the end of the Housemaid from dehydration.
Enzo
Enzo is the Italian landscaper. He is kind and handsome. He had a sister but she died when her abusive husband hit her too hard and never woke up. Enzo tries to help Nina escape and watches out for Nina. Enzo and Nina have a brief relationship but after Nina moves to California the relationship ended.
Cecelia Winchester
Nina’s daughter from a one night stand, Cecelia is a young daughter. Andrew does not harm her however she knows her mother disappears when she behaves poorly, so she is reserved and quiet. She’s dressed in frilly clothes she despises. She hates Andrew.
Evelyn Winchester
Evelyn is Andrew’s mother. She is always criticizing and has something negative to say. She wears white regularly and has blonde hair. At the end of the book she thanks Nina for punishing her son revealing she punished him the same way Andrew punished women.
Suzanne
Nina’s fake best friend. When Nina confides in her about what Andrew does, she tells him assuming Nina has mental health problems.
The Housemaid Review
Overall, I liked this. It was catchy, and I wanted to keep reading. I wasn’t looking for some deep analysis of life or a profound message, so its absence didn’t bother me as much. I was expecting to be moderately entertained and captivated, and the book delivered. Throughout the story, I felt very anxious—both for Nina and Millie—and I was at the edge of my seat, practically screaming at them to run into the book. As a psychological thriller, I think that’s the book’s goal, so I’d say the author succeeded.
The characters were okay. Unfortunately, I struggled to connect with Millie because she would not stop doing the stupidest things every other page. Even though she felt somewhat trapped in this job due to her predicament, and Nina was manipulating her for her own survival, a lot of Millie’s choices were frustratingly irrational. Knowing there was going to be a twist, Andrew was on my suspect list the entire time—his “too-good-to-be-true” looks, wealth, and demeanor were a hard sell.
Nina, though… what a survivor. I was promised a twist, and I got one. I thought at best Andrew was locking women in the attic, and Nina’s mental health was so far gone that she couldn’t do anything about it. It never crossed my mind that not only was she the real abused party, but she orchestrated this entire plan to get herself and her daughter out. While her methods were questionable, I’m not here to blame the victim, and I can’t fault her for being in such a dark place that she’d sacrifice someone else if it meant survival. And in the end, she made the right choice, so who cares if she briefly considered leaving Millie to rot?
The language and writing style were fast-paced, and I liked that it kept me engaged throughout the book instead of dragging with unnecessary filler. However, I wasn’t a fan of how mental health issues were depicted, nor did I care for Millie’s casual racism toward Enzo. I also didn’t love how quickly Nina was willing to justify Millie taking her place simply because she was a criminal. I get that the author was probably making a point about how everyone holds certain prejudices, but I think there were better ways to discuss incarceration and mental health.
There wasn’t a strong message in this book, other than “The rich get away with everything… but not this time” and “All men suck”. But honestly, it wasn’t very believable. Why wouldn’t Enzo go to the police when he found Nina locked in the attic? He could have easily proven she was being held captive. Why wouldn’t Millie show the recording to the cops after she got the upper hand on Andrew? Hell, she could have probably gotten a verbal confession out of him. And I’m sorry—but I don’t think Andrew would ever just let Nina go. Abusers don’t just “move on.” The only answers to these questions are “plot progression,” and maybe I just need to stop overanalyzing and enjoy the surface-level thrill.
I was promised a twist, and while I thought it would be centered around who was actually murdered and who did it, I wasn’t expecting an entire Nina POV section where she walks us through her abuse and her escape plan. That was unexpected, delightful, and positively surprising.
However, I was disappointed that Millie’s revenge was as simple as leaving Andrew to die in that room. I was expecting something grander, like Andrew killing Enzo with the clippers (since they were mentioned so many times as being sharp), or some wild final twist. For how big of a reveal Andrew’s abuse of Nina was, I thought the final twist was underwhelming. And he just… pulled out his teeth? For days? And then died of dehydration? For such a strong buildup, the ending fell flat.
That being said, I felt the tension the entire time. I wanted to keep telling Millie to quit, wanted to tell Nina not to go up to the attic alone at the end, and I was filled with dread when Millie woke up in the cot by herself.
The epilogue was intriguing as well—Millie gets a new job with a different woman who is also being abused by her husband. Is she, like… a vigilante now? That’s interesting, overdone, and completely unbelievable—but also, potentially fun to read.
Overall, I’d recommend this if you’re looking for something catchy, not too deep, but exciting to read. For context, I’ll be reading the sequels at some point when I need a palate cleanser from my usual genres and I’m in the mood for an anxiety-inducing thriller—but not right away! It kept me engaged, interested, and constantly trying to figure out whodunit. While some of the descriptions were insensitive and the plot was unrealistic, I’d categorize this as “thriller candy”—enjoyable in quick bursts and fun to read, but not something that lingers after you finish.
🔪 Do you love thrillers that keep you on the edge of your seat? Have you read The Housemaid? I need to know—did the twists shock you, or did you see them coming? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
📚 What should I read next? I’m always looking for my next dark and twisty read, so drop your best thriller recommendations below!
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