The Housemaid is the thriller that seems to have put Freida McFadden on the chart of literary prominence currently, and it’s actually pretty good.

Wilhelmina Calloway, who thankfully goes by Millie, is desperate for a job after a long stint in prison, and a position as a live-in maid with the Winchester family seems to be her ticket to a better situation. Nina Winchester appears to be at least a reasonable boss until she starts exhibiting signs that suggest that she is flat-out crazy. Millie’s options are limited, so she tries to make an increasingly puzzling and alarming situation somewhat bearable. What Nina and her seemingly dreamy husband do not know is that Millie does have a breaking point, and she may be more dangerous than they could ever imagine..

McFadden does know how to ratchet up the suspense and keep a reader engaged. Her prose is actually quite engaging, and it’s fun to see what twists she has coming.

Sometimes, the revelations rely a bit more on coincidence than I would like. I will try to avoid any real spoilers in this blog for the seeming few that have yet to read the novel. Also, it felt that the reader has to wait quite a while for some new nugget of useful information as to why some of these behaviors are occurring.

McFadden switches first person perspectives in this one, which actually works here. Fortunately, she does it by sections so one is not constantly having to adjust mentally to these shifts.

There are times when the story seems to drag a little, but I enjoyed the experience overall. I have read other McFadden novels before and have yet to be truly disappointed. Sometimes, the resolutions to her plots stretch my credulity a little more than I would like in this genre, but it’s not too distracting. In fact, I find these moments more amusing than maddening, so I guess McFadden can stay in the game as far as I am concerned.

Anyway, I have been aware of the popularity of this book for some time, and I did find it enjoyable enough to likely do add more McFadden novels to my shelves.

Well, as customary to this blog, I will give a brief glimpse at the next reading indulgence. Doctor Who novels are still being produced, so I thought it would be time to return to the doors of the TARDIS with a new one featuring the First Doctor. Paul Magrs has returned to the franchise with his contribution, Doctor Who: Dracula!

Never Lie by Freida McFadden is an outlandish and improbable thriller that is a pretty entertaining ride for those willing to suspend their disbelief.

A newly married couple are in the market for a new house and arrive during a blizzard to an isolated manor that was once owned by a prominent psychiatrist who has been missing for a few years. Tricia and Ethan are trapped at the manor, which is curiously still completely furnished. Tricia finds a secret room containing a cache of cassette tapes that have the sessions with Dr. Adrienne Hale recorded. Tricia has an opportunity to see if the solution of the doctor’s disappearance is contained within these recordings. More old secrets and lies are about to be exposed, and Tricia learns that not everything is going to stay as buried as deeply as she hoped.

McFadden has become one of today’s most popular thriller writers, and she does have quite an imagination. However, she does rely pretty heavily on some very common tropes of the genre. Also, there is quite a lot of implausible coincidence that can be a little exasperating. Sometimes, the characters are not that believable. As mentioned before, the suspension of disbelief can feel a little taxing.

Still, I did enjoy the novel. There are some clever twists that kind of surprised even me. McFadden is not really an extraordinary writer, but she gets the job done. She might just be the ultimate popcorn writer of today. If it pays the bills, who am I to complain?

McFadden may be a bit overrated, but she at least avoids being just flat out bad, which is an impressive achievement in today’s literary climate.

This is only the second novel I have read by her, but I work in a bookstore these days, so I am aware of her popularity. I do like that she writes a lot of standalone novels, so I can dip in and out of her works without worrying too much about continuity. There are actually a lot of series that I don’t read in order, but I do recognize that it an advantage that McFadden has with her bibliography.

McFadden is at least fun to read, and I am certain that it will not be all that long before I am perusing her section on the bookshelves.

My next read has been in the queue for a while. I have been putting it off because it seems to be a daunting volume by Edward Rutherford. I am looking forward to trying it because it isn’t my usual genre of enjoyment, and I like to test my mettle a bit when it comes to my reading choices. It is also about one of bucket list destinations for travel. It is well past time that I learn the intricacies of London as only Edward Rutherford can tell it.

The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden is an interesting and competent thriller about how far a mother can go to protect her son even if she is not sure of his innocence of a horrific crime.

The Cass family seem to be a typical American family. The older son, Liam, is a popular, charming teen-ager, however the Erika Cass has picked up a strange distance in him. Liam may be a dangerous sociopath who is getting too old her his mother to control. When one of his classmates goes missing, Erika fears the worst, especially when the police show up on their door.

This has been a plot that has had a few iterations over the years. The seemingly perfect child who is more dangerous than he appears is kind of overused. McFadden is a competent writer though, so it’s no worse than anything else with this type of story.

It’s told in first person with most of the narration alternating between the mother and a classmate of Liam’s who has a pretty intense crush on him. It’s a pretty quick read, and McFadden does well with ratcheting up the tension throughout. Unfortunately, her plot twist isn’t that hard to predict, but it’s still a pretty good read for us thriller aficionados.

Vince Flynn was a novelist who died several years ago, but his creation Mitch Rapp lives on with the continued writing talents of Kyle Mills. Mills has moved on from the series since writing my next read, but Rapp is not going anywhere as another writer steps up to continue. I have one more Mills installment to read, and that would be Code Red.