The Housekeepers: They come from nothing. But they'll leave with everything...

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Underlying the plot is a thread that we won’t spoil for you, but suffice to say the idiom ‘no man ever got rich but there are some who suffered for him to do so’ rings true here.

Book review of The Housekeepers by Alex Hay - BookPage

Mrs King was influential in putting plans together and when she is sacked there is less than a month to go. He studied History at the University of York and wrote his dissertation on female power at royal courts, combing the archives for every scrap of drama and skulduggery he could find.The place is packed with treasures, a glittering symbol of wealth and power, but dark secrets lurk in the shadows. But the execution of the story, with its myriad of characters and subplots fell far short of my expectations.

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay - Fantastic Fiction The Housekeepers by Alex Hay - Fantastic Fiction

I found I couldn’t connect to some of the characters, but found others complex and brilliant and that overpowered the negative. Alex Hay studied history at the University of York before his writing career, which has given this debut author the groundwork needed to pen his first historical mystery novel. Understandably disgruntled with the move, Mrs King enacts a plan of revenge to send a clear message to her previous employers.

But it’s a caper story, which means we don’t need to know their motivations, only whether they can make good on their ambitions. The downside for me is that the story focuses so much on the intricacies of the heist itself that it neglects the development of the characters.