The Maid’s Diary by Loreth Anne White-a review

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N PAPER / KOBO /

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date March 1, 2023

Kit Darling is a maid with a snooping problem. She’s the “invisible girl,” compelled to poke into her wealthy clients’ closely guarded lives. It’s a harmless hobby until Kit sees something she can’t unsee in the home of her brand-new clients: a secret so dark it could destroy the privileged couple expecting their first child. This makes Kit dangerous to the couple. In turn, it makes the couple—who might kill to keep their secret—dangerous to Kit.

When homicide cop Mallory Van Alst is called to a scene at a luxury waterfront home known as the Glass House, she’s confronted with evidence of a violent attack so bloody it’s improbable the victim is alive. But there’s no body. The homeowners are gone. And their maid is missing. The only witness is the elderly woman next door, who woke to screams in the night. The neighbor was also the last person to see Kit Darling alive.

As Mal begins to uncover the secret that has sent the lives of everyone involved on a devious and inescapable collision course, she realizes that nothing is quite as it seems. And no one escapes their past.

•••••

REVIEW: THE MAID’S DIARY by Loreth Anne White is a contemporary, adult, psychological thriller focusing on maid Kit Darling, former Olympic skier Jon Rittenberg and his wife Daisy, Vanessa and Haruto North, and Vancouver, BC homicide detective Mallory Van Alst.

NOTE: Due to the nature of the story line premise, there may be triggers for more sensitive readers.

Told from several back and forth time lines, and numerous third person perspectives, as well as first person diary entries by the maid, THE MAID’S DIARY follows the search for a possible killer, and a missing body. An elderly woman, with dementia and not much time to live, believes she has quite possibly witnessed a murder next door but when the police arrive the woman is clear headed and knows exactly what she saw. Vancouver PD Detective Mallory Van Alst, alone with her partner Benoit Salumu begin an investigation that reveals an enormous number of clues, lots of blood, intersecting pathways and trails, and several suspects all claiming to know nothing about a murder or a missing body. As Mallory and Benoit begin to ferret out the truth, secrets reveal a decades old crime that has come back to haunt them all.

THE MAID’S DIARY is a story of betrayal and vengeance, power and control, secrets and lies, twists and turns, and an extreme case of ‘gas-lighting’ planned out for years. Loreth Anne White pulls the reader into a thrilling, intense, dramatic, shocking and intriguing story of retribution and revenge-karma as the ultimate target.

Copy supplied by Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy