Books Like The Housemaid

Why Each Pick

Verity by Colleen Hoover

The closest match in tone. A struggling writer moves into a wealthy family's home to finish an injured author's book series and finds a manuscript full of disturbing confessions. Like Millie, Lowen is a vulnerable outsider living under someone else's roof and drawn to the husband. Colleen Hoover is darker and more explicit than McFadden, with graphic sex and violence, including harm to children.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The classic behind every new-woman-in-the-big-house thriller. A young bride arrives at Manderley and lives in the shadow of her husband's first wife, watched by the cold housekeeper Mrs. Danvers. It shares The Housemaid's power games inside a wealthy home, but it is a slow-building 1938 gothic novel, far less graphic, where dread comes from atmosphere rather than cliffhanger chapters.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The thriller that made dangerous marriages a genre of their own. When Amy Dunne disappears on her fifth anniversary, her husband Nick becomes the suspect while her diary tells another side. Like The Housemaid, it keeps you guessing about which spouse to believe. Flynn is sharper and more satirical about marriage and the media, and the book is longer, at 432 pages.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Another quick thriller built around one big reveal. Painter Alicia Berenson shoots her husband and never speaks again, and psychotherapist Theo Faber takes a job at her psychiatric unit to get her talking. It is set in a London hospital rather than a family home, but it shares McFadden's fast pace and short chapters. Like The Housemaid, it is best read knowing as little as possible.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

For the secrets behind expensive front doors. Three mothers in an Australian seaside town become friends as playground politics and private troubles build toward a death at a school trivia night. It shares The Housemaid's interest in what goes on inside wealthy homes, but it is funnier and more social, told by many voices, and slower to reveal its crime. Content note: domestic abuse.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

For an outsider whose past makes everyone doubt her. Rachel, a heavy drinker, watches a couple's home from her commuter train every day and sees something shocking shortly before the woman disappears. Like Millie, she has reasons no one takes her seriously. Three women narrate in turn, and it moves more slowly, with suburban London in place of a single Long Island house.

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

For the claustrophobia of being stuck inside a house. Anna Fox, an agoraphobic psychologist who drinks too much, spends her days watching her neighbors and is sure she sees a crime across the street. No one believes her. It is a homage to Hitchcock films, built around one unreliable witness rather than an employer and a live-in job, and it runs longer, at 449 pages.

The Maid by Nita Prose

Another maid who sees the wealthy from the inside, in a much gentler book. Molly, a hotel maid who loves order and routine, finds a rich guest dead in his suite and becomes the prime suspect. Her literal way of reading people is part of the puzzle. It is closer to a cozy whodunit than a dark thriller, for readers who liked The Housemaid's setup but want less menace.