Tag: scary

The Housemaid – Review

It’s been so long since I read a novel and while I was busy with my usual online window shopping, I came across these books and bought them without second thought.  I always buy the books of authors I know about or read about,  this is the first instance I bought books without knowing anything about the author or without reading the preview!

The best thing about having no expectations is that, if it’s good, then I will be mighty happy with my choice of book, but if it turns out bad, I never really had any expectations to begin with, so I won’t be sad either! It is a win-win!

That’s what I had in mind, when I started reading the book…..

Let’s get the review started.

Written by: Freida McFadden

Published in : April 2022

Read on : 14 August 2025

Genre : Psychological Thriller

The novel starts with the police entering an attic and finding a corpse and a woman is being questioned….

Then the narrative shifts to Millie Calloway, who is at the Winchester house, attending an interview for the job as a housemaid. She is an ex- convict, who is out on a payroll and has been fired from her last job.

Nina Winchester, an amiable and lovable person, wearing a full white attire is the interviewer. She hires Millie as a housemaid,  even without references and that sets the pace of the story.

During the interview,  Millie is taken to the attic at the top of the house, through creaky stairs, where she is to stay, while working as an stay-in housemaid. Although she loves the house, Millie finds the attic disturbing. It feels claustrophobic,  there is only a tiny window, which can’t be opened and the door can only be locked from outside!

After the interview, the muscular, over 6 foot something tall gardener Enzo gives Millie a foreboding message, Danger!

Millie suspects that the house must be haunted, but even then, she decides to work there. She has no prospects at any other jobs, she is an ex-convict, who served 10 years in prison!

While she is attending interviews and awaiting call backs, Millie is living in her old and beaten car, as a home! Nina Winchester hires Millie, which in itself is suspicious.

She enters the house and is again warned by the Italian gardener, Enzo. The room in the attic gives off weird vibes, but then, it is better than the car home, anyway. Millie decides to save up as much as she can and leave.

The house, which had been spic and span during her interview,  is now in bad shape and needs serious cleaning.

Millie soon learns thar Nina is borderline neurotic and her moods are as bad as an oscillating pendulum. One minute she is charming, and another minute she is menacing and scary.  Nina, is the wife of Andrew Winchester,  a handsome uber rich young business man, who is apparently in love with his wife, inspite of the trouble she keeps causing him daily.

As Millie starts living with them, she learns that Nina Winchester had been to a “loony bin” and even tried to drown her own baby Cecelia!

Why is Nina always dressed in white? Why do the Winchester’s have peanut butter in the house if little Cecelia is allergic to it? Why does Cecelia always dress in uncomfortable frocks ? Why did Andrew marry Nina?  So many questions intrigued me….

There is also a scene where Andrew and Nina fight at night, a loud crash is heard and Millie suspects Nina hurt Andrew! Even the blood on Nina’s night dress is suspicious. Luckily, he is unhurt.

At one point in the story, even I was scared about what Nina Winchester might do to Millie, since she is young and beautiful and it is clear as day that Andrew  seems to be attracted to her ( by the end of 3 months) Nina is obviously a jealous wife.

Turns out plain looking Nina is older than Andrew and was a working single mom, before she met and married him.

The first part of the story ends with Nina being thrown out of the house by Andrew and Millie is promoted from a housemaid to a girlfriend!

Just when I was scared for the safety of Millie, Freida McFadden throws a juggernaut and demolishes the theory I had in my mind, while reading the book. (Like any reader, I was trying to guess what happens next)

She manages to turn the story on its head and how!

I am stopping at this. You have got to read the book to know the clever writing and memorable characters. For once I was happy reading about both the female characters Nina Winchester and Millie Calloway.

This is one of those novels which gets a 5 out of 5 from me. Good going Freida McFadden!

P.S:

I also bought two other novels in the Housemaid series.

Fingers crossed!

 

 

Of Gaming and Counting Numbers!

Before I jump directly into the topic at hand, I would love to give some flashbacks, put down a solid foundation and build a beautiful structure of a post, like a true blue Civil Engineer I have been.

If I need to tell about my experience as a serial gamer, I should probably start with KONG and the PRINCE, the most unforgettable games I have ever played when I was still a primary school student.

I remember all those beautiful days of my childhood, when I would return home from my school, freshen up, eat some snacks or plain old curd rice and get into playing my favourite game of KONG. Thinking back, my inclination of drawing cartoons as stick figures probably stems from my fascination of the KONG!

The game had an average stick figure, the hero, who had to save a stick figured heroine, who was ‘beauty’napped by the villain, a bulky stick figure. I am not sure, but they must have been stick figured gorillas, because of the posture of both the hero and the villain, which appeared to be bow legged and also based on the name of the game!

It looks something like this. I tried to replicate as much as I can remember.

The hero is at the bottom of the building, moving slowly (since he is bow legged!) and escaping automatic bombs in blue colour, which keep coming from the top left corner, while Kong, the villain keeps moving on the top floor, (jumping bow legged) trying to scare the poor hero.

Initial stage of the game – Kong

Once the hero seems to be making a progress, the villain begins to throw bombs or stones in weird shapes and they manage to break the stairs and pathways, all the while, the hero still needs to escape the steady flow of bombs, coming automatically out of a small structure.

Breaking the stairs and wrecking the way!

I was in 3rd standard when I first played this game. At last, when the hero wins, the girl is in his arms and he carries her at the end. I only played till I won once and then moved on to the newer game of PRINCE.

While KONG was a black and white game (I made the cartoon in colour because, I love colours!), PRINCE was a game in colour. It had a guy, whose style of dressing was like Disney’s Alladin, he ran faster than the stick figure hero in KONG, found magic potions in unlikely places, went through secret passages and sometimes got killed under sharp shutters and thorny walls! Although it was an interesting game, I stopped playing Prince after 5th or 6th level because, the booby traps  got bloody as the game progressed! (I was only in 4rth standard during this game. It was too much)

After that, years have passed and I have played many a games, from Pin Ball machine, Minesweeper, Soltaire to Disney’s Alladin in computer, to Tetris in hand held video game player, to snake game and block game in Nokia 1100,  to Ice Age game where I raised many extinct animals and their families, to Paradise Bay, where I had to make an island livable! I even played many food games, where I make food and feed the customers on time, solved many a sudokus, to finding and making words. The other memorable game is Seeker’s Note: Hidden Objects, which I played for the span of more than 5 years, installing and uninstalling (because of severe neck pain of being a serial gamer!), but thankfully, my progress had been saved by Facebook! (Wait , I remember participating in online snooker matches too, LOL! What fun!)

Some of my gaming madness had rubbed off to GBee, who is also a serial gamer. He enjoys playing different kinds of games, his all time favourite being Angry Birds.

GBee is usually allowed to play on the cell phone only on every Friday, for 1 hour.  On one such friday evening, GBee managed to win a game, I am not sure which one.

The serial gamer wins!

Just as GBee began to shout that he won the game, the baby who was newly learning the numbers thought his anna was asking him to recite numbers and shouted two! I generally initiate KBee to recite numbers by saying ,’one’ he says ‘two’, I say ‘three’ and we alternate the numbers and play. It was funny to see him do the same with GBee thinking he was asking to recite numbers.

Although it was nice to see GBee play games in cell phone and win them, I still think his fun pales in comparison to mine. It is the fun of playing games by graduating from hand-held video game players to computers, to laptops to cell phones to iPads and finally moving to XBoxes and PS4s and then coming back again to cell phones!

What fun!

P.S:

  1. I remember playing a game of a monkey eating bananas as it jumped from one tree to other and even Dave, which was my favourite in our school computer lab!
  2. My dad having an office of his own in the early 1995 has been very helpful in making me a serial gamer. He never stopped me from playing on the computer. Now that I think about it, I had no time limit for playing on the computer. I would play till I was bored! I hope GBee doesn’t find out that I never had time restrictions for playing games, he may curse me!
  3. Whenever GBee is not allowed screen time, he takes that opportunity to draw the Angry Birds levels he has completed, something like this. (That inspired me to draw the KONG game and post it here. Thanks GBee for the inspiration.)
  4. KBee is into puzzles like the origami puzzle game. I do help him once in a while.
  5. I don’t think I have ever seen Mr.Bee play anything except Candy Crush or Snooker! He prefers PS4 to cell phones as gaming platforms.
  6. Taking this post as an opportunity, I would love to thank all the creators of various games I had ever played in my life, till now. Thank you for making them! Cheerio!

P.P.S:

My mom is a gamer too!

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