It's hard to call a book a thriller when nothing really happens. It was honestly pretty boring, and there was barely even a mystery in it. This one definitely fell short for me.

The housekeeper is described as a thriller, but I found it less than thrilling. Other than it being a character study of a woman named Anne Morgan who has an obsessive personality. She seems to have it all, a successful, handsome boyfriend, an elite job, until all of a sudden she doesn’t. She then becomes a housekeeper where things start to unravel.

This is the perfect set-up for a psychological thriller, because anyone could turn out to be the bad guy. Click on the link below to read my complete review.

I could not get into this book I tried multiple times and only got about 20% before I stopped. I don’t know exactly what is wrong. Maybe it’s the writing m, characters, plot or all of the above.

Sorry, I never did write a full review for the Literary Hoarders site, but I did thoroughly enjoy the book - promoted reading it on social media often - Twitter, Litsy, Facebook.

3.5 to 4 stars. a really good read ! Obsession, betrayal, strange cult upbringing and a family hiding all kinds of secrets plus a crazy amount of delicious food descriptions ! Look for this one coming out at the end of February!

good psychological thriller in the vein of ruth ware

In the introduction to The Housekeeper, Suellen Dainty challenges her readers by questioning the canard that a neat house leads to a productive life:

What is it about cooking and cleaning that seems to iron away (at least temporarily) even the most overwhelming of anxieties? Time and again, in those moments when my life starts feeling out of hand, I have found myself drafting to-do lists, scrubbing dirty dishes, and wiping down every surface I can reach. But does trying to impose order on external surroundings really quell our inner demons?

Sous-chef Anne Morgan, the heroine of The Housekeeper, has a life that has gone seriously awry. Dumped by her chef boyfriend of two years, she’s jobless, demoralized, and increasingly dependent on the cheerful, life-changing daily platitudes of house-management seer Emma Helmsley. The unconscious mind can sometimes foretell that life is about to spin out of control—Anne’s nights are disturbing.

The sheet was dotted with spots of blood. I must have scratched myself during the night again. My pillow was clammy with perspiration and my quilt was twisted around my legs like a straitjacket. A prick of nerves ran along my spine. I thought I’d gotten over all that.

Given Anne’s night terrors and unsettled life, is it any wonder that she is drawn to household and time-management gurus? She seeks, “Order, Discipline. A place for everything and everything in its place.” The Housekeeper opens with the thoughts of the most important household management writer of all time: Mrs. Beeton.

What moved me, in the first instance, to attempt a work like this, was the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement

—Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, 1861

It’s a riposte to Suellen Dainty’s query: “But does trying to impose order on external surroundings really quell our inner demons?” It seems that quite the opposite may prove true—when newly-hired housekeeper Anne Morgan uncovers and begins to clean up the messy detritus of the Emma Helmsley household (Emma being the Martha Stewart of England), the “dangerous consequences of long-buried secrets” unfurl. Dainty delicately but implacably lays the groundwork of The Housekeeper’s crucial examination: how does the past impact our present and future.

Emma said that often when people were scared about the future or lacking confidence in their jobs, they retreated into the childish part of themselves, the time when they were scared of the dark or frightened to be on their own. That was a mistake, said Emma. It held you back and stopped you from being happy. She wanted people to imagine one part of themselves as a nurturing parent, someone who would take care of the other part of themselves who was an unhappy child. This made me think of my own early years with Gran and the unremembered time before that. I’d never been keen to play psychological detective games with my own past, and people who droned on about their childhood invariably bored me.

The mystery of her past is an arena that Anne returns to again and again, particularly as she segues from avid Emma Helmsley fan to a member of the household. Emma and her writer husband Rob are savvy media professionals, very busy and, as Anne discovers, very much in need of an efficient, meticulous housekeeper. Suellen Dainty captures their essence in a devastating sketch.

Both of them had the untroubled, slightly vacant look that I associated with effortless superiority and moneyed ease. Together they were more attractive than apart. Rob’s darkness made Emma’s fair skin and hair less bland and predictable, and her pale, fine features lightened what might otherwise have been a sallow cast to his face. He moved towards her and touched her shoulder. It was an affectionate gesture, but not an intimate one; just enough to make me feel an outsider.

That outsider status is the crux of being a servant, isn’t it? Mrs. Beeton states that, “The housekeeper must consider herself as the immediate representative of her mistress,” but silently, behind the scenes, a keeper of “messy little secrets.” As secrets emerge, The Housekeeper imperceptibly shifts into psychological thriller mode. Dainty’s precise details of everyday life enrich a psychological canvas for a story that’s impossible to put down.

I did not finish this book as I did not engage with this story at all.

I would like to thank Suellen Danity, Atria and Netgalley for giving me this book for my honest review.
Review By Stephanie
The Housekeeper was a mild thriller. I am a big psychological thriller fan so when I read the description of this book on netgalley I was like yes please. I figured out the “who done” it part a little too early for my liking but the book still kept my attention to finish it.

Anne has no family so when someone enters her life she clings to them with all her might, so when her whole world came crashing down on her she was looking for something to cling to… and that is the daily affirmation emails she gets daily from Emma Helmsley. She cyber stalks Emma on Instagram one night and she sees a post that changes her life…….when Anna becomes Emma’s housekeeper she totally implants herself into Emma’s life and becomes obsessed with Emma’s husband and children…EKK right! To save from spoilers I will stop writing now!

The housekeeper was touted as a “nail biting psychological thriller” but in my opinion is a journey of self exploration and a look at karma at it’s best.

Anne Morgan is a chef who immerses herself in her work. Her life revolves around the restaurant and that involvement goes beyond the food. She is having a relationship with the owner and head chef of the restaurant Anton but after years of working and being together he has moved on to richer prospects. When he dumps her unexpectedly her life is thrown into shambles. She cannot face going back to work and hearing the the snide remarks.

After weeks of self pity she finally gets up the nerve to find a new job but she cannot face the restaurant world. She had found solace in daily affirmations from the blog of Emma Helmsley (England’s Martha Stewart) and found a job ad for a housekeeper for the famous family. She accepts the position as their housekeeper and grows close to the couple and their two children, becoming somewhat of a family. But blood is thicker than water, and when their professional aspirations come before the relationship she has built with them she is once again in a foreign place.

Will she stand up for what she believes in or push her feelings aside for a job she loves?
3⭐️’s

The Housekeeper by Suellen Dainty was not what I was expecting. This novel, although marketed as a thriller, read like a piece of contemporary fiction. I continuously felt like I was waiting for something big to happen.

The novel focuses on Anne Morgan. A woman who has it all: a successful, handsome boyfriend and an elite job in a restaurant. Until, all of a sudden, she doesn’t. After her boyfriend leaves her for someone else, Anne ends up becoming a housekeeper to one of her idols, Emma. Emma writes a lifestyle blog that Anna religiously follows. Perfect on the surface, as Emma begins working with the family, she begins to find all their secrets and realizes that even the most prominent families have things they want buried….

This one suggested it its synopsis on Goodreads that it is “nail biting”. This was not the case. It is not a psychological thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It is very slow paced and truly, not a whole heck of a lot happens. I must, however, applaud Dainty for her writing skills; although the plot missed the mark for me, I was engaged in her writing style. I had no problems getting through this book; it just was not what I was expecting.

I was also a fan of the characterization; I really like Anne and Emma. I loved the development between Anne and the family as she begins to obsess over them. I also loved her struggle to find her identity of her birth father. It was these little “extras” that kept me reading, long after I stopped hoping something exciting would happen.

If you are wanting a thriller that will keep you flipping the pages and on the edge of your seat, this will not be your choice. However, if you want a well-written piece of fiction that will engage you, then, by all means, The Housekeeper would be a solid selection.

The Housekeeper is a page-turning read. I felt for Anne and wanted her to be happy even when I wanted to shake her to wake her up to the negativity she is surrounded with. Her ex is such a loser, but he is nothing compared to the sociopaths she ends up working for. I enjoyed the slowly-unraveling mystery as well as the satisfying ending. Suellen Dainty is very talented, and I look forward to more from her.

Unfortunately this one was so very boring. I was expecting a thriller that would just keep me wanting more with every page I read. What I got was a bunch of boring dribble that left me struggling to want to even flip to the next page

I chose this book for no other reason than the fact that the author has the same first name as me. Suellen (spelled the same way) is not all that common so I immediately felt an affinity toward her. As far as the book goes, I felt it was a mediocre thriller/mystery. About halfway through I pretty much lost interest in the characters.

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THE HOUSEKEEPER BY SUELLEN DAINTY

Published: February 28th, 2017

“I am the housekeeper, the hired help with a messy past who cleans up other people’s messy lives, the one who protects their messy little secrets.” When Anne Morgan’s successful boyfriend—who also happens to be her boss—leaves her for another woman, Anne finds herself in desperate need of a new job and a quiet place to recover. Meanwhile, her celebrity idol, Emma Helmsley (England’s answer to Martha Stewart), is in need of a housekeeper, an opportunity which seems too good to be true. Through her books, website, and blog, Emma Helmsley advises her devoted followers on how to live a balanced life in a hectic world. Her husband, Rob, is a high profile academic, and her children, Jake and Lily, are well-adjusted teenagers. On the surface, they are the perfect family. But Anne soon finds herself intimately ensconced in the Helmsley’s dirty laundry, both literally and figuratively. Underneath the dust, grime, and whimsical clutter, everyone has a secret to hide and Anne’s own disturbing past threatens to unhinge everything. For fans of Notes on a Scandal and The Woman Upstairs, The Housekeeper is a nuanced and nail-biting psychological thriller about the dark recesses of the human mind and the dangerous consequences of long-buried secrets.”

First, I would like to say thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for sending me a copy of this book early!

I’m sorry to say but I barely could get through this book. I got stuck multiple times, especially before 50% completed. This book is described as a thriller. I don’t see where or why this could be a thriller. There are some parts in the beginning that were interesting, but going through I kept dragging and dragging. This book could’ve easily taken me a few days to read, maybe even less. It took me weeks to finish because I couldn’t find the motivation to complete this book with this story line. I didn’t like really any of the characters and it was hard to connect with any of them. I’m sure that if I didn’t have to complete a review of this book, I probably would’ve labeled it as did not finish.

I give this book 3.5 stars. This is mainly influenced by how the description was misleading. I was expecting a huge thriller with some crazy twists. "a nuanced and nail-biting psychological thriller about the dark recesses of the human mind and the dangerous consequences of long-buried secrets." This book wasn't all that much of a thriller.

Anne Morgan’s boyfriend (and boss) leaves her for another woman, She then finds herself in desperate need of a new job and some new surroundings. Meanwhile, her celebrity idol, Emma Helmsley (England's Martha Stewart), is in need of a housekeeper, an opportunity which seems too good to be true.

With her many books, a website, and her blog, Emma Helmsley advises her many followers on how to live a balanced life in a hectic world. Her husband, Rob, is a high profile academic, and her children, Jake and Lily, are well-adjusted teenagers. They appear to be the perfect family. But Anne soon finds herself in the Helmsley’s dirty laundry, and realizes that underneath the dust, grime, and whimsical clutter, everyone has a secret to hide and Anne’s own disturbing past threatens to unhinge everything.

While it sounded great and I was expecting a page-turning, could not put it down thriller, it was still an enjoyable book. You could consider it a slow burn, but it felt like it was taking forever. There was a slow build and you began to pull back the layers of the story and their secrets, but it didn't have that nail-biting effect on me. Still a good read!

Thanks to Atria for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks Atria Books and netgalley for this ARC.

Out of this world experiences, chilling coincides, and lots of suspense. makes this a awesome thriller

In The Housekeeper the main character needs a change in her life after a breakup with her boyfriend/boss. She slips into the life of a housekeeper for a famous couple. Does she use them and/or do they use her? The one constant in her life is her friend who solidly stands by her as personal and surprising disasters unfold. This is an intriguing and compelling story,

I have to say, this really wasn't the book for me. I feel bad because I wanted to like it, but I just couldn’t. I know that authors put a ton of work into their books, so I’m going to do my best to look at this book critically but also respectfully.

The Housekeeper is about a woman named Anne who has a job as a high profile chef at a popular London restaurant. When she learns her long term boyfriend, the head chef at the restaurant, is cheating on her, she quits her job. Too embarrassed to continue working in the culinary scene, she takes a job as the house cleaner to popular lifestyle blogger Emma and her husband Rob. Eventually she learns that everyone is keeping secrets, but that Rob might be the key to helping her understand her past through helping her find out who her father was.


The Housekeeper was positioned at a “nail biting psychological thriller” and I can’t disagree with that statement enough. Not only was it not nail biting, I wouldn’t even consider it a thriller. It was barely even a mystery. The only outstanding question was who Anne’s father was. She’d never met him and her mother died when she was young, so she never knew. Other than that, nothing happened in the book. The entire first half was Anne leaving her job, starting the new job, and talking about how much she loved the family. There was zero suspense, because there was no aspect of the book that hinged on a big reveal. No murder, no kidnapping, no stalkers…nothing. To be honest, if this hadn’t been a book I’d received from Netgalley, I wouldn’t have finished it, and I rarely don’t finish a book, so that says a lot.

The characters were okay. I liked Anne, but couldn’t stand her “best friend” Jude. She was incredibly negative and unsupportive and constantly criticized Anne for working as a housekeeper. I get wanting the best for your friend, but they didn’t have any conversations that weren’t centered on Jude putting Anne down. Emma seemed off, which made her hard to like. She had no idea what was going on in her children’s lives, and basically pretended to be the perfect homemaker even though she hires someone else to do the cooking and cleaning and is super scatterbrained.

Lastly, the writing felt really hard for me to get through, and I can’t put my finger on why. I normally read really quickly, but here I felt like I was trudging through the book super slowly. The sentence structure was fine, so it wasn’t the grammar, but there was something about the flow and the word choices that just felt off. There were many pages at a time there there’d be no dialogue for 3-5 pages, which felt unnecessary, too. The last 20% of the book was easier to read -there were two “twists” toward the end of the book, but the first was such a small piece of the story and had no bearing on any other event, or even on Anne’s life. It didn’t directly impact her at all. The second was so far toward the end of the book that it felt irrelevant at that point, and felt like it was thrown in to give closure to the story.

This really wasn’t the book for me, so I hope it’s a better fit if you choose to read it. Unfortunately, I can’t say I’d recommend this one. Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book. It was my pleasure to provide an honest review. The Housekeeper has an expected publication date of February 28, 2017.

I received this book for free, Via Netgalley, In exchange of an honest review.

I love thrillers, while this is billed as one, it wasn't thriller enough for me. However that doesn't mean it was a bad book. The pace of the book was consistent. There was no peak really. But it was well written, and I did enjoy reading it. I would read another book by Suellen Dainty (her last name is perfect)

I will say, this book did make me question how "experts" are in real life.. Do dating experts actually follow their own tips? Do housekeepers keep house the same way they do other peoples house's? Do Chef's go home and cook four course meals?