The Housemaid

The Housemaid (2022) is a mystery novel written by Freida McFadden. The story follows Millie Calloway, a young woman with a criminal past, who is employed as a housekeeper by a rich woman, Nina Winchester, with a seeming mental health condition. McFadden is the author of multiple bestselling psychological thriller novels. In The Housemaid, McFadden explores themes of discipline and power, and victimhood and abuse.

This guide is based on the Bookouture Kindle edition.

Content Warning: This book describes violence, domestic abuse, and attempted death by suicide.

Plot Summary

In the Prologue, an unnamed maid worries about being arrested after a body is found in the house where she works. The story behind this incident begins as Wilhelmina “Millie” Calloway interviews for a job as a live-in housekeeper for Nina Winchester, a rich, middle-aged woman. Despite her criminal record, she gets the job and moves into the mansion. She’s given a tiny room in the attic that only locks from the outside and has a window that doesn’t open. Unnerved, Millie requests a key, which Nina gives her along with a new phone.

The landscaper, Enzo, warns her of danger but won’t elaborate. She meets Nina’s handsome husband, Andrew, and her nine-year-old daughter, Cecelia. Millie spends hours cleaning the filthy house before fixing dinner. Andrew compliments her cooking and invites her to join them, but she declines, as Nina seems irritated. During the night, when Millie wakes to use the bathroom, the doorknob sticks, and she starts to panic; she gets the door open but has a sense of foreboding.

Unpredictable and high-strung, Nina oscillates between being warm and friendly toward Millie, giving her old clothes that don’t fit her anymore and insisting that Millie call her “Nina,” and accusing Millie of things she hasn’t done, creating huge messes in the house, and yelling at Millie to clean them up. Cecelia is a spoiled bratty child; the only tolerable member of the family is Andrew, who is kind and appreciates everything Millie does. Millie hears gossip from other mothers and nannies about Nina’s mental health and discovers an “antipsychotic” medication, among others, in Nina’s bathroom cabinet. In addition, she learns that Nina spent time in a psychiatric hospital after trying to kill Cecelia when she was a baby.

Nina and Andrew separately confide in Millie that they’re trying to have a child. Andrew is especially excited to be a father; Cecelia isn’t his biological daughter. However, a fertility specialist determines that Nina can’t have more children, which devastates the couple. The next night, Millie overhears Nina raging at Andrew about how a younger woman would make him happier. To cheer Nina up, Andrew asks Millie to book tickets to a Broadway show; however, Nina gives her the wrong dates and can’t go. Andrew pacifies Nina and, once she leaves, offers Millie the tickets; she has no one to go with, so Andrew accompanies her. They have a great time and drink too much at dinner afterward, so they stay at a hotel in the city overnight. They give in to their mutual attraction and have sex but agree that it can’t happen again. However, Millie soon realizes that Nina knows about her and Andrew. Nina makes Millie’s life hell and even accuses Millie of stealing the clothes she gave her. Andrew defends Millie, confessing that he has feelings for her, and orders Nina to leave.

After Nina leaves, Andrew and Millie sleep together, and he claims that he wants to give them a real shot. In the morning, Andrew fires Enzo, whom he says hangs around the house too much. While grocery shopping, Millie runs into a friend of Nina’s, who reveals that Nina installed a tracking app on Millie’s phone. Stunned, she returns home and spends the day reading. She receives a phone call from a blocked number, warning her to stay away from Andrew, and assumes that the caller is Nina. As Millie packs her things to move into the main house, Andrew comes home. Millie doesn’t disclose the day’s details concerning Nina, and she and Andrew sleep together in her room. She wakes up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and finds herself locked in; her is phone missing, and three heavy books have mysteriously appeared.

A flashback from Nina’s perspective reveals the true events of the past years. Nina is forced to drop out of college and begin working after she gets pregnant after a drunken one-night stand. Andrew is the CEO of the company where she works. A charming, handsome man, he asks her out. After a whirlwind courtship, they marry, but she soon learns that he has hidden sadistic tendencies. He often locks her in the attic and tortures her as punishment for minor transgressions. He drugs her and her baby, places Cecelia in a bathtub, and makes it look like Nina did it, which lands her in a psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of depression and delusions, ensuring that no one will believe her account of things.

After trying to escape, Nina confides in Enzo, who tells her that his sister was in a similar situation and died because of her husband’s abuse. Enzo promises to help Nina escape, and she decides to hire someone to replace her. She finds Millie and, through a private investigator, learns that Millie was in prison for murder—in high school, she killed a boy who tried to force himself on her friend. Millie’s pretty face belies a long history of violent retaliation against people who wronged her. Nina hires Millie to kill Andrew but doesn’t tell Enzo this. Millie is young and pretty, ensuring that Andrew will be attracted to her, and is desperate for a job. She stays on despite Nina’s mistreatment of her. Nina deliberately drives Millie to hate her, framing her as a victim to earn Andrew’s sympathy, and sets up opportunities for Andrew and Millie to be alone together. This culminates in Andrew and Millie sleeping together and Andrew throwing Nina out of the house.

Andrew eventually returns to Millie, who is locked in the attic, and instructs her to balance the heavy books on her stomach for three hours as punishment for not replacing the books she read. He makes her repeat the exercise after she falls short by a minute the first time; when he opens the door, however, Millie pepper-sprays him with a bottle Nina left for her in the room, steals Andrew’s phone, and turns the tables on him, locking him in and torturing him similarly.

Meanwhile, Enzo, who has been watching the house, worries because Millie hasn’t left the house in days; he calls Nina, insisting that they go back to help. When Nina returns, she finds the house empty; assuming that Millie is locked upstairs, she unlocks to door to help and finds Andrew’s decomposing remains. Millie appears, confessing to locking Andrew in for almost six days. She begins to cry, worried that she’ll go back to prison for life. Not wanting Millie to bear the consequences of something she tricked her into doing, Nina asks her to leave.

During the detective’s interrogation, Nina learns that his daughter was once engaged to Andrew. Although she never disclosed what happened, she changed her name and moved away. The detective reveals that the police never investigated Nina’s claims of being locked in the attic because of the pull that the Winchesters had over the department. He rules Andrew’s death an accident and closes the case. At Andrew’s wake, Evelyn Winchester, Andrew’s mother, reveals to Nina that she disciplined Andrew as a child in a similar manner to how Andrew tortured Nina. She praises Nina for stepping up and disciplining Andrew in this way, and then she walks away.

Nina and Cecelia move to California, while Millie lives off money that Nina sends her after Andrew’s death. Almost a year later, Millie interviews for a job at another household, with a woman to whom Nina recommended her. Millie realizes that the woman is being abused by her husband and assures her that she can help her.