This was such a sweet book, the main character really does get into you heart and I found her voice to be the perfect narrator for the story. Its not the gory or dark type of murder mystery, but it is still just as engaging and relies more on the story itsself rather than gore for shock value. If anything it makes it all the more realistic that there aren't the extreme, unlikely scenarios unfolding chapter after chapter so it is a bit of a slower and gentler pace but..... I still found it totally had me hooked and I actually really enjoyed reading it

I really enjoyed this quirky read. I thought Molly was a great narrator and enjoyed the affection and love between her and her very wise gran. There was real warmth in the friendships that developed as well as some sadness at how she was taken advantage of by people who didn’t try to understand her and her value. A great read I would recommend.

#themaid #netgalley
Wow. Just wow. This is brilliant. Molly the Maid will creep under your skin and into your heart in the first few paragraphs of this book. She’s a wonderful character. Not since Eleanor Oliphant have I felt this affection. This book makes you hold your breathe ... laugh and cry. Writing is amazing. I just didn’t want it to end. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this advance copy.

A diligent but lonely maid working at a grand hotel finds herself embroiled in a crime mystery when she is the one who stumbles upon the dead body of a regular and wealthy guest, Mr Black. She finds that plenty has been going on at the hotel she may have been accidentally privy to and involved with and she is now implicated in a murder without realising it.

Molly is an excellent character and our narrator so it's fascinating to see everything unfold from her unique and quite sheltered perspective, leaving the reader to fill in the blanks of what's really going on and guess what is actually meant by the other characters - this is cleverly done so we ourselves are second-guessing what's happening as well. There's a lovely warm feel to the way that at first she feels so isolated following the death of her grandmother, who raised her, but other characters and colleagues step in to help clear her name and provide friendship and support to her. Really great read that's a cut above a 'generic' crime/mystery tale as it's narrated by such a well crafted and unique voice.

The story pace is very slow for me. I closed the book after continuously reading the main character's internal monologue. It made the story monotonous for me. I don't think I will be able to complete it.

I really liked how I knew before hand this would be a film or Tv show and when I wa swept into the hotel and it’s grand entrance with footman inc I cd envision it and how a movie may portray this hotel .
I loved the lead character and how she leant and developed throughout her social nuances ,how seriously she took her role and what people say as literal. This sometimes falls into cosy mystery almost and I enjoyed it
Not quite a four star as wasn’t quite special enough but the main character and the hotel itself was really enjoyable .
Ty netgalley and publishers of this advanced copy .I look forward to seeing it on the big screen.
I have posted to goodreads under helen prisley just can’t link it sadly as link not working .
Enjoy it

I liked the idea of this book, but I didn't like the voice of the main character, which rather ruined it for me. I didn't like Eleanor Oliphant, and this book disappointed me in the same way.

"Molly Maid," a truly lovable character, has led a very sheltered life under the wing of her Gran. When she loses her beloved Gran she begins to find herself in trouble, with no one to turn to. Completely misjudging people's characters she ends up deeper & deeper in hot water.

I loved this book & have found myself often thinking about Molly when I haven't been reading it. I found it really easy to get into (I enjoyed the style of writing) & I think anyone who enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant will enjoy this one.
Nina Prose is a new author to me & I'm really looking forward to reading more from her.

Molly struggles with social skills but her Gran helped interpret them. When her Gran passes away, Molly must learn to navigate daily life by herself. Molly works as a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel but her orderly life is thrown into chaos when she discovers an infamous and wealthy guest.
A story containing a heartwarming journey narrated by Molly. It contains a lovely cast of characters and touches on themes of identity, love and family.

ONE OF THE BEST DEBUT'S I HAVE EVER READ!!!!! WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW!! PHENOMENAL READ!!.
Molly the Maid the protagonist is such a wonderful, unique, original character who I love. I really enjoyed living her life through the pages of this fabulous book. She's a little bit naive and slightly odd, but in a really good way, she feels like she is invisible to the world around her and nobody actually sees her because she's only a maid, she talks in an old fashioned way, but that's because she was brought up by her Grandma, who she adores, they have a wonderful relationship and when the unthinkable happens Molly is left to navigate the world on her own. Molly adores her job and she is a such a perfectionist and everything must be done to her own strict standards, she's very thorough when it comes to cleaning and making everything just perfect. The book has a wonderful cast of characters, the plot is completely gripping and I raced through it. I needed to know who killed Mr Black and trust me it was a surprize when I found out. The ending of chapter twenty five broke me, I had tears rolling down my face, it was so sad but completely unexpected. It truly is a wonderful book and I LOVED IT, LOVED IT, LOVED IT, LOVED IT, LOVED IT, LOVED IT. EVERYBODY NEEDS TO READ THIS PHENOMENAL BOOK, TRUST ME YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED.

Oh my word, what an absolute joy! My partner is fed up of hearing ‘I am SO loving this book’ over the last two days. Pure brilliance. Earlier this year I read a novel (which I’ve read twice since) and put it as my Number One book of 2021. The Maid has gone straight up there to join it. It’s definitely not the edge-of-your-seat thriller that I normally read, it’s just a lovely heartwarming story with fascinating characters, and a mystery that needs to be solved. It made me laugh out loud at the beginning, and cry towards the end. It was so well-written, with wonderful descriptions of everything, that I feel as if I’ve been in the Regency Grand for the last forty-eight hours. Like other readers, I’m sure, I fell in love with Molly in the first few pages. Mr Snow, the hotel manager, reminds her of an owl. ‘He has tortoiseshell glasses that are very large for his squat face. His thinning hair is slicked back, with a widow’s peak.’ That made me chuckle because I could just imagine him, but it was on the next page when I read ‘Mr Snow looked like he was going to regurgitate a mouse …’ that I burst into laughter and nearly choked on my coffee (it wasn’t the last time either). Molly’s relationship with her gran really moved me, I found it so touching. Her gran had brought her up and guided her through life, and it was her words of wisdom that Molly lived by. There is a particularly heartbreaking scene towards the end of the book that caused uncontrollable sobs (from me). No need to say anything more, except that this was one of the best books I’ve ever read – and Nina Prose deserves all the success that this story is undoubtedly going to bring. What an incredible author she is.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this fantastic book in return for an honest review.

Whip Smart Whodunnit….
Whip smart whodunnit with a gripping mystery at its’ heart. The Regency Grand Hotel holds secrets and Molly the maid is slap bang in the middle of it all when she discovers a well known guest dead in his bed. Written with sleight of hand this is a fabulously entertaining read with a well crafted cast of characters, a delightful protagonist and a skilfully slick narrative.

The story of Molly, a maid in a grand hotel who discovers a dead body in one of the rooms she is cleaning. But there is more to it than just a body appearing, and everyone around her seems to be keeping secrets so will the truth be uncovered?

This is a fantastic book! I was completely sucked in from the first page, it's an excellent premise delivered with finely drawn characters. The first person point of view was used deftly and allowed you as the reader to see things before the main character. LOVED it - highly recommended.

What a joy to discover Molly the maid!
This novel was a really fun experience as you get to go behind the scenes of a busy and posh hotel and really find out what goes on behind closed doors...
You will never look at a maid in the same way again. Well actually you will look at them now where before you might never have noticed them. You only see them when they haven't tidied your room. Look closer next time.
Great story, fantastic characters and a voice that leaps from the pages. I love Molly and her innocence. But she is also wily and clever in ways you might not see at first. She LOVES Columbo which immediately made me warm to her.

Just wonderful

This book definitely lived up to its expectation for me. I had high hopes for it and it delivered! It was full of suspense, drama and intrigue (and many face palm moments) and I found I was really excited to get back to reading it whenever I put it down.

It’s a book you immediately get into and I sunk into the story straight away. It’s very easy to get lost in and read and is so entertaining.

The main character is certainly an interesting one… this book gave me ‘Eleanor Oliophant is completely fine’ vibes with how straight and dry Molly was, with her incredibly formal and polite social interactions and it made for great reading. That, with a murder mystery thrown in definitely made this a great story.

I liked the plot and the twists and turns that I wasn’t expecting. It went in a direction I couldn’t have imagined and I wanted to race to the end to finish it to see how it would all play out.

I’d so recommend it as it’s not really a book you can regret reading! I enjoyed it. And also, Mollys gran was certainly filled with many a wise saying, many choice quotes and words to live by!

The Maid by Nina Prose.

Simply I loved this book, I loved Molly and I loved Mr Preston. I loved the secondary characters, I loved the weaving narrative which tightly coils until the end and I loved the story.

Molly is a maid in a boutique hotel and when entering a room to clean she discovers a body… and she is determined to solve the murder.. It does sound like a cosy mystery but it is so much more than that.

I loved Molly and I really wanted to protect her from the outside world, the cruel people who she works with and Rodney.. oh I wanted to smack him for the way that he treated Molly.

Molly is a little lost after her beloved Grandmother died and she has a unique way of seeing the world which her grandmother navigated for her. The bits with Molly and her Grandmother were both tender and loving and the last scene between them had me in tears.

The book was a tightly weaved mystery which makes you think you know the answers to but not until the real do you find out the truth..

I loved this book and i cannot recommend it enough..

#mystery #America #netgalley #themaid#contempary

‘The maid’ tells the story of the invisible - the story of a neurodivergent hotel maid who is accused of murder when she stumbles upon the body of a wealthy guest. An impressive debut novel, Prose leads us through fascinating twists and turns as we endeavour to discover the truth of the circumstances which led to Mr. black’s death. Engrossing enough that I somehow managed to miss a pigeon hitting my windshield as I was the passenger in a long car journey.

Though a certainly intriguing plot that was well developed at points, I hesitate to award it the full five stars as there were definite pacing issues. It felt as though solutions came out of nowhere - the doorman happened to have a great lawyer and the plan to prove her innocence just... sprung out of nowhere and felt as though there wasn’t a full explanation. Just a felt little too coincidental. The portrayal of neurodivergency, though I appreciate the representation, felt a little stereotypical at times - portraying her as a child in an adults body, doing little to present the struggles of the condition beyond being unable to understand social cues.

Thank you to netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest and authentic review.

An intriguing mystery with an unforgettable (even though she is often overlooked) narrator in Molly, a maid in a hotel who after discovering a prominent guest dead in his bed becomes embroiled with the mystery. I loved every second of this story.

I find it so difficult to review thrillers, however, in a saturated market, this novel really stood out and original and exciting. I will not give anything away but just know that I loved my reading experience and I had an absolute riot. Thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to read this early