The Maid's Diary: A Novel

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Although we shift our victim(s) from the Norths to the Main; we eventually learn it is no one. We learn that Kit is playing the Rittenbergs and acting as both Kit Vanessa and Mia and has been orchestrating the entire “Fake murder” to set up the Rittenbergs. However, due to the encounter and the devasting effects she has had on Jon’s life we are led to believe that he actually did murder her… I also loved how multilayered the story was. There is so much going on. It’s about trauma, revenge and standing up for yourself. My favorite character was Kit (the maid) herself. Her diary entries are short so we really don’t know too much about her, but my heart reached out to her nonetheless. Kit has taken to keeping a diary for what she considers therapeutic purposes. In her diary she writes, among other things, about her experiences snooping in the Rittenberg house while cleaning. A maid loves to snoop in the houses she cleans. When she discovers a secret the occupants of a house she is cleaning is hiding, her life is in danger. The couple living in the house might just do anything to prevent the secret from coming out.

Kit also has a traumatic past that has affected her greatly since she was a teen. She tries to fight down the fuzzy memories and she tries to escape her past by snooping. When she gets new clients and realizes just who the people are Kit takes her snooping to new levels, turns it into something so much more. They have what she lost and nobody is going to be safe. But is Kit safe?Kathryn Croft’s newest psychological thriller, The Suspect, follows one woman’s determination to uncover the truth of her mother’s murder. Kit Darling (née Katerina Popovich) our heroine, cleans houses for a living, snoops into her client’s personal lives for her entertainment while working, and is part of an amateur theater group in her spare time – a women of many talents, who knows how to put together a great show. Meanwhile, a very pregnant Daisy befriends Vanessa at a yoga class for pregnant mothers. The two hit if off and become fast friends. Vanessa invites Daisy and Jon for dinner so they can meet her husband and get to know each other better. A bloody scene is all that remains of the dinner. Vanessa and her husband are no where to be found. Daisy and Jon refuse to cooperate with authorities.

Over the years, there has been plenty of hype for Loreth Anne White books, and while I have been interested in discovering what that hype was all about, The Maid's Diary is my first, and again, I seem to have started with the wrong one. I enjoyed this one; however, that overthinker prevented me from enjoying it as much as I wanted to. 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. As Mal unwinds the secrets at the center of the case, she discovers that no one can ever truly escape their past. Sometimes it even leads to inescapable collisions that will leave devastation in its wake.

Kit Darling makes her living as a maid for wealthy clients in Vancouver. She also admits to having a snooping problem. One day she is sent to a new clients home and upon entering she is stunned by who the clients are. The Rittenbergs. John Rittenberg is a two time Olympic gold medalist in skiing and his wife, Daisy, comes from an extremely wealthy family well known in the area for their ski resorts. Seeing their happy framed photos around the home has triggered many traumatic memories for Kit. Memories that trigger Kit into action. It's time to do a little snooping.... Loreth Anne White is such a thoughtful, talented writer and I’ve enjoyed all the books I’ve read of hers. I still have a few older ones on my shelf that I am looking forward to diving into! The writing is tight and intense. The characters are complex, secretive, and troubled. And the plot is a devious, sinister tale full of twists, turns, lies, deception, manipulation, suspicions, revelations, corruption, mayhem, obsession, and familial drama. White adds a Photographer as a character. From the Photographer we get surreptitious pieces regarding John. The Photographer is another invisible character who adds enormous suspense. Daisy Rittenberg, the enabling wife, provides historical prospective along with what happened two weeks before the bloody crime scene. Daisy in sinister, complex, and manipulative. She’s the perfect ominous character.

This is the second time I've read a book where the baddie goes off the rails because they became infertile after an abortion. Can we just STOP with this? First, abortion is an extremely polarizing topic and I don't want to read about it in thrillers because when is it ever absolutely 100% necessary for the book to be bangerlicious? Kit being gang raped was more than enough reason for her to seek revenge (although now that I think of it – why was her revenge solely fixated on Jon? What happened to the other guys involved?). We did not need this extra infertility due to abortion razzle dazzle. This book is told from the POV of Jess and Lori in alternating timelines. Lori’s POV starts the year before she was murdered and Jess’ POV is in the present as she searches for answers to who killed her mother. I really liked having the story presented this way, as each timeline brings us closer to solving the mystery of who killed Lori. I also enjoyed both of the timelines equally. Mal was my favorite character and I loved following the evidence as she uncovered it. I thought I knew where things were going to go and then something new was uncovered that took things in a new direction. I also loved finding out the secrets of Daisy, Jon, and Kit, and oh, what secrets they were! When the story gets to three days before the murder, the tension grows. White even writes it up to 2 hours before the murder. The twists, turns, lies, deception, manipulations and corruption keep the reader/listener engrossed in the story.The Maid’s Diary is a highly suspenseful, character-driven thriller that takes you into the life of Kit Darling, a young maid whose obsessive compulsion to snoop may finally have caught up with her when her latest wealthy clients, the Rittenbergs, are willing to do whatever it takes to keep their secrets from the past hidden for good. When Jess was two years old, her mother Lori was murdered while they were in the park. Jess has no memory of who killed her mother. The police had a suspect, Nathan French, but there was not enough evidence to convict him. Now twenty-eight years later, Nathan approaches Jess in the street and tells her that he did not kill her mother and has proof of who did. Nathan wants to meet up again with Jess and give her the proof, but before they can meet again, Nathan is murdered. Jess does not know what to believe now. Could the man that she thought killed her mother really be innocent? When Jess searches for answers, she starts to uncover information that changes everything she thought she knew, and she realizes that the person that murdered her mother is closer to home than she imagined.

Although Jane Oppenheimer did a superb job with the narration, I felt that this book would have benefited from multiple narrators. 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. Maid Kit Darling has become rather obsessed with snooping on her brand-new clients. After all, their world is laid out right before her. It’s almost too easy. But one day she sees something she’ll never be able to unsee. Something that strikes rather close to home and could prove to be dangerous to know. That knowledge, however, could be just as damaging towards her clients: a couple expecting their first child. Despite Kit recognizing that this deep, dark, disturbing secret is just waiting to destroy everything in its wake, it could also be rather fruitful information to have. But will she be able to use this secret without getting burned herself? Only time will tell. Beulah Brown is the 89 year old witness, who made the 911 call after being awoken by a scream, shortly before midnight. Her window has a perfect view of the house and property and she witnessed two people dragging a rolled up carpet to a waiting vehicle. However, she has made several 911 calls in the past, and they will have to determine if she is reliable. This dark, powerful, twisty, and intricately plotted thriller sizzles and soars and is NOT for the faint-hearted.

Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl

The story is cleverly written and I found no inconsistencies. It’s obvious that the author is well versed in writing novels. There is a perfect balance between the police investigation of the murder and the people involved in it. Already pretty early on a bombshell is dropped. I think my eyes probably bulged and my mouth was wide open as the penny dropped. People can seem so ordinary on the surface, but scratch the veneer, and there’s always a secret beneath the gloss” Kit, a maid with a cleaning service, has an addiction--snooping through her client’s possessions. She confides in her diary about her addiction and her dark past. When she realizes she has a startling connection to her new clients, her addiction turns into a clever game of vengeance that leads to murder.