The Housemaid

The Howards don’t know who I really am, but I’m learning all their secrets.

When I was six months old, my mother gave me to her sister. Then she left to work as a maid at Highwood Hall. She never came back for me.

I want to know why she abandoned me. So I retrace her steps, lying my way into the same job she held over twenty years ago.

As I slip through the old corridors of this stately home—uncovering secret tunnels and peepholes hidden behind the gloomy portraits—I’m desperate to uncover the truth. But it won’t be easy. No one knows why I’m really here.

I soon learn I need to keep it that way. Because there’s a chance I’m prying into matters someone wants left buried. A white gift box arrives addressed to me. One tug of the pretty ribbon unveils a twisted scene—a miniature doll version of me lying in a pool of red paint.

Who sent me this threat? The boss’s son, Alex, who proves fond of playing games with the maids? Perhaps it’s Mrs Huxley, the stern housekeeper always appearing mysteriously from the shadows?

All I know is what my mother wrote in a letter before she disappeared: there's something wrong with Highwood Hall…

Rebecca meets Gone Girl in this atmospheric thriller by Sarah A. Denzil, the million-copy bestselling author of Silent Child.