Entertaining period heist drama. An enjoyable read, but a little lacking - it felt as though there was going to be some big secret revealed, but there was not.

LGBT representation, issues of class & poverty, oblique references to sexual exploitation & sexual assault

The Housekeepers is a woman-centred heist novel set in early 20th century London.

The women (all housekeeping staff, or pretending to be) are planning a daring robbery of a house in Mayfair. The dodgy owner has recently died and each woman has good reason to think she should be a beneficiary of the ill-gotten estate.

Lots of period detail, glamourous costumes, intrigue, aristocracy and disguise are included in the story, as well as a brush with royalty. A recommended read for lovers of historical fiction.

In a Nutshell: Ocean's Eleven (or rather, Ocean's Eight) meets Downton Abbey. Good premise, but tries too hard. A praiseworthy debut though.

Story Synopsis:
1905, London. When Mrs King is suddenly dismissed from her position as housekeeper at the de Vries home, she isn't worried because she has an ace plan up her sleeve. On the night of the de Vries's ball coming up about three weeks later, Mrs King, along with her carefully chosen group of six women, will strip the de Vries mansion of its valuables. Is this just a revenge for being fired, or does Mrs King have some ulterior motive? How will this heist proceed?
The story comes to us from the limited third person perspective of several key characters.

I've always enjoyed heist movies but hadn't ever considered if heist fiction would generate the same high in me. So when the opportunity to read this historical heist novel came up, I couldn't resist grabbing it.

On paper, this premise sounds wonderful to my ears. Historical fiction is among my favourite genres and an all-woman gang planning a revenge heist promises a delectable treat. However, a successful heist story ought to be simultaneously complicated and believable. That doesn't happen with this book, which ends up simplistic and farfetched.

I was pretty invested until the first half or so, despite the slow pace. I assumed that the extensive build-up would lead to a thrilling secret burglary being executed during the ball. But the actual heist fell quite flat. Not once was I biting my fingernails in anticipation or anxiety. Even when the hurdles started popping up, the tension didn't correspondingly surge upwards. I'm not exactly sure why this happened, but here are two guesses:
1. Despite the detailed backstories for the main characters, I never felt close to a single one. Each of them has a secret worry--in some cases, a major burden, but that never generated feelings of empathy in me. So when I couldn't connect with the characters, I automatically couldn't root for them.
2. This was a revenge heist and it should have stayed a revenge heist. Sadly, the book succumbs to the "kitchen sink syndrome" so common to debut novelists. Instead of sticking to a couple of solid reasons for wanting the heist, the book inserts a bucketload of themes, some of which were not even relevant to the main flow. When there's too much for the reader to worry about, there's too little to focus on and the overall impact gets diluted.

That doesn't mean that the book is a disaster. It offers quite a lot of value to its readers. I enjoyed the planning put into the heist, and also liked a couple of the minor characters. (The two Janes were the best! They deserved a bigger role.) The grandiose ball also seemed true to the flamboyant extravagance displayed by the wealthy in 1900s London.

More importantly, despite such a huge cast of characters, it is never confusing to remember who is who. This is even more significant when we keep in mind that the third-person narrative baton keeps shifting across various characters to give us a bird's eye view of the planning and implementation. The story is surprisingly easy to follow despite many intricacies and characters.

Maybe, just maybe, this plot was too ambitious for a debut novelist to carry off successfully. But there's no denying that she has the imagination as well as the talent. I love the promise she showed in this novel, and I'm sure that with some fine-tuning and experience, she can pen a winner. I'll keep an eye out for her future works.

At the same time, I think I'll stick to watching heist movies rather than reading heist novels. Such stories are more fun to watch, and this one too will make an outstanding movie if the thematic frills are edited out.

Recommended to those who will have more patience with a ponderous but interesting heist story.

3.25 stars.

My thanks to Headline and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Housekeepers”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Entertaining book that kept my interest throughout. Not my usual read but really enjoyed it and was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this. The characters were well developed and very twisty plot which kept me on the edge of my seat.

I loved this book! Thrown into the world of the De Vrie's, I loved the characters of Mrs King, Mrs Bone, Hephzibah and Alice. They worked well as a team and the Jane's came into themselves and had a part to play.

Loved the storyline of revenge and sneaking around under the disguise of the ball. The ball was the distraction they all needed to complete their plan and make a new life for themselves.

Well written and love the 1900's setting and the upstairs, downstairs era. Would recommend this book and look forward to more from Alex in the future!

Set in the early 1900s a heist is planned by the servant staff of the house.
A great concept and loads of interesting characters, the story builds suspense as it moves along.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this ebook.

Ocean's Eleven meets Downton Abbey.
Done really well.

I loved this book and would highly recommend.

I saw this book described as Downton Abbey meets Oceans 11 and that feels about right. What we have here is a clear case of ‘never underestimate the help’. The help has had it with the system and is planning to get their own back in what looks like an intriguing yet probably impossible heist.

The book starts with Mrs. King being fired from her job as housekeeper in an opulent house on Park Lane, London. Rather than fall into despair or panic, Mrs. King has a plan and in order to execute it she needs help. Enter a varied group of women, some of whom have also worked in The House of de Vries and others who will find themselves working there while they work out the logistics of the planned heist.

And so begins a story that is about a lot more than ‘just’ the biggest heist of the century’ taking place during the ‘biggest costumed ball of the century’. In fact, we are halfway through the story before we reach the day of the heist. I’m not getting into what that ‘more’ is. The story shares details in small doses and at a leisurely pace, keeping the reader guessing exactly what is going on, how the various characters relate to each other, and if ‘getting revenge while getting rich quick’ is not the only motivation for Mrs. King and her co-conspirators.

The mystery in this book is not ‘whodunnit’. In fact, when the story starts nothing (obvious) has been done and the reader is a witness as the scheme is organised; seeing everything unfold through the eyes and thoughts of the characters. But there definitely are mysteries in this story, and the process of discovering what exactly is going on and why it is happening was fascinating and at times thought-provoking.

This was a well-written and brilliantly plotted story. I knew from early on that there had to be more to the story than the obvious and I loved how slowly but steadily layer after layer lifted to reveal secrets. The heist itself was just the right mix of suspense and over-the-top shenanigans. An original and compelling read!

(This review has already been submitted for the audio version of this book. I read some of the ebook but preferred the audio.

The House Keepers has been described as a mix of Ocean’s 11 (I would have said Ocean’s 8 personally, what with all the gals involved) and Downton Abbey, so you know I was all over that. Sadly, this was a disappointing read for me.

It’s 1905 and Mrs. King has been fired from the housekeeping job she’s held for twenty years in one of the grandest homes in London. Appearing respectable but secretly coming from a family of criminals, she decides to round up an all female gang (plus some men to do the heavy lifting), and carry out the heist of the century.

During a party in the house, Mrs. King and her associates will return to empty it of its contents without anyone noticing. At least, that’s the plan, but several inconvenient subplots keep showing up to derail her scheming.

Firstly, this book was way too long. The actual heist itself didn’t take place until 57% into the book; that’s too much telling me what you’re going to do, and not enough showing me. I expected the pace to pick up during the actual robbery but again it felt a bit dragged out and not as tense as it should have been.
I really had to suspend my disbelief for this section, as I didn’t feel like it was described well enough for the reader to get on board with what was happening.

There’s lots of characters in here, that are mostly only distinguishable from each other thanks to the excellent narration on the audio version, which helped make the book more entertaining. I’m not sure I would have continued with a print version.

Towards the end there’s a somewhat far fetched lesbian romance scene that felt like a Victorian nod to Sarah Waters but unlike similar storylines in Fingersmith or Tipping the Velvet, here it felt unnecessary to the plot.

I think this would make a great film; a more cohesive script and Guy Ritchie doing his thing could work a treat for this, but for me it just didn’t work in book form, which is a shame as it’s such a great concept.

As always, I would say there’s loads of 5 & 4 star reviews for this on goodreads, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

With thanks to @netgalley and @headlinebooks for my copy of The Housekeepers, available to buy now.

Such a complex and interesting story following a range of strong, female characters. I love a good heist book and this scratched my itch!

‘Upstairs, Madam is planning the party of the Season. Downstairs, the servants are plotting the heist of the Century.’

My thanks to Headline Review for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Housekeepers’ by Alex Hay.

In Edwardian London, Mrs. Dinah King, housekeeper at an elegant Mayfair residence, has served the de Vries family loyally for twenty years. Following the death of Mr de Vries, it’s not long until Mrs King is summarily dismissed; with Mr. Shepherd, the odious butler, clearly delighting in her fall. Yet there is more to Mrs. King than anyone in the household suspects and it isn’t long before she begins to plan her revenge.

Miss de Vries had already decided that it’s time to establish herself in Society and specifically to snag herself a titled husband. She had announced her intention to hold a grand costume ball and preparations are well underway. Yet for Mrs. King and her associates, the Ball provides the perfect opportunity to execute their audacious burglary.

Her first point of contact is Mrs. Bone, a black market queen with her own scores to settle with the de Vries family. She has access to the resources that Mrs King needs to execute her plan as well as the international contacts to dispose of the stolen goods.

What great fun this was! It was brim full of fascinating characters including Alice Parker, a young gifted seamstress who is embedded in the de Vries household, Hephzibah Grandcourt, an actress who utilises her talents in various ways, the Janes, two circus performers in Mrs. Bone’s employ, and Winnie Smith, Mrs. King’s predecessor who has kept the dark secrets of Park Lane for far too long. The target of the heist, Miss de Vries, is herself quite a formidable character.

‘The Housekeepers’ was such an interesting take on the Upstairs/Downstairs dynamic with plenty of interesting twists and turns along the way. It celebrates the ‘invisible’ women in service. As one character comments: “Never underestimate the kitchen girls, Mr Lockwood. They’ve got brains the same as anyone. They see everyone coming and going.”

Overall, I found ‘The Housekeepers’ a highly engaging work of historical crime fiction that delighted from start to finish. Alex Hay clearly had undertaken considerable research into life in Edwardian London and was able to translate this into a powerful immersive experience. There were thrills and wry humour throughout.

After this impressive debut, I will be looking out for news of Alex Hay’s future projects.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

A really fun book that gets you looking at servants very differently!

Although historical it was easy to read with great characters!

I am afraid I found this book to be far too long and to be honest rather tedious. I have persevered with it to the end but could not connect with the story and characters at all. I found it rather hard to decipher what exactly was going on. I am glad to have finished and can move on to another book.

The review will be posted with Waterstones

One of my favourite podcasts, All About Agatha, have a saying as they read and review each Agatha Christie novel: "never underestimate the help". And this couldn't be more true for The Housekeepers by Alex Hay.

When housekeeper, Mrs King, is dismissed from her role at a luscious house in Mayfair, she has a plan. A plot that has been brewing for quite some time. She plans to pull off one of the biggest heist from her former employer. And she knows who she can call on to pull it off...

A black-market queen, an actress, a seamstress, a former housekeeper. All have a reason for the heist to work. But can they pull it off while the Mistress of the house is planning to host the biggest ball of the season?

Well, that was as fun, delicious romp. Imagine Ocean Eight's meets Upstairs Downstairs and this is what you get.

The writing was solid, the story was solid, the characters were likeable, I had such fun with this.

So, I hear you ask, why did I give it only four stars on Goodreads? It took a while for me to sink into this world and warm to the characters. Once I was in, I was in. But it did take a while for me to warm up to this and want our characters to succeed.

If this doesn't get picked up to become a TV series or a movie, I will eat my hat. It deserves a faithful adaptation!

If you want a fun heist caper, this is the book for you.

This was a very interesting historical fiction story of a group of under-valued women coming together to take some of what is rightfully theirs. This was a very fast read, I finished it in a couple of days. The plot mostly focused on the planning and execution of the heist, with a bit of the past thrown in to unravel some of the women's secrets. I enjoyed getting to know why each woman was in on this plan for their own reasons.

I didn't get massively attached to the characters, they were alright but they were all very similar. Mrs King was the 'leader' of the group and the heist, she planned it all. I would've liked to have seen a bit more about how she came up with the idea because in the book it was all already planned and they just had to set it up. Mrs King and Mrs Bone were very similar characters. Alice was probably the most interesting to me, as she grew close to Miss de Vries and it made you wonder who's side she would end up on. It was interesting to find out how all of the women were linked to one another.

Overall, this was a good story, but it was definitely lacking something for me. The heist itself wasn't very intense, a few things went wrong of course but I was never on the edge of my seat. I liked the story though and the ending was good.

An Upstairs Downstairs tale where Downstairs strikes back. The story starts with the dismissal of the housekeeper Mrs King from the house of the late Wilhelm De Vries after she was seen in the male servants quarters at night. (A transgression that seems all the more ironic as past stories of the house come to light.) It would seem her reputation was now destroyed, but as she heads into the East End and old acquaintances it becomes apparent that she might never have been very reputable in the first place.
In the tradition of good heist stories over the years she has a plan and puts together a crew, which consists of all women – some from her past, some with connections to the De Vries house and some for their talents. The plan itself seems insane, an attempt to clear the house of its riches while a costume ball is in progress.
And there is another protagonist plotting – Miss De Vries, now freed by her father′s recent death to improve her standing in society by marrying into the nobility.

This was an engaging read, with wonderful characters and an audacious plan. There is a sensation of many spinning plates being kept in the air, and that one or two fall is perhaps not surprising.

I had a copy of this book early through Netgalley

An heiress is organizing a great ball for her debut in society. And a group of women are going to take advantage of the chaos and mayhem of the party to attempt an heist right under her nose. There are deception, revenge, secrets and suspense, an intricate plot, and a cast of determined and clever women. Even though the pace sometimes was too slow and I couldn’t really connect with the character, all in all, I enjoyed this historical novel.

I liked the sound of this book as soon as I heard about it. The synopsis offered everything I love about fiction, a crime based novel, historical and a tale of powerful women. I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed, all of these women proved that they weren’t to be messed with!

A tale of wealth and privilege combined with one of struggle and a determination to be seen. All were fighters, reluctant to concede to anybody else. Particularly if they were male. There wasn’t that many males in the novel but the ones who did feature were all vile in differing ways. Bullies, cowards and capable of the worst type of atrocities.

There were quite a lot of characters, admittedly many in the background, and it did take me a while to work out who they were, who were related and their connection to the mansion on Park Lane. But getting to know them was one of the many highlights of this novel. All were very strong characters, most were likeable , some you wouldn’t want to cross and they all had their own reasons for getting involved in the heist. I found it fascinating, seeing their strong points, their concerns and worry over how well the plan was coming together and what their plans for the future were. There were none I disliked but my favourite were the two Jane’s, not as prominent as some, but their scenes were like a breath of fresh air.

This novel was one of the most original that I have read. Complex, often baffling with the multiple threads and number of characters but I enjoyed every page

I really liked the look of the premise of this story and jumped at the chance to read.

Set in London at the start of the twentieth Century, it follows several strong female 'downstairs' characters as they plan a heist timed perfectly to take place during a ball. It is not just the heist storyline which does take quite a bit of build up, there are a few side stories and other characters to follow which make interesting reading.

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay is a heist fiction drama with full of planning and action. The first few pages felt boring, and I was even thinking of leaving it. But, still wanted to give it a shot, and it turned out to be a different one. It would be my first book on heist, and I really liked it. The characters are definitely something to think about. They are professional and strong, love what they do and of course women. The plot ended totally different from what started. You need to have patience to finish the book, as it is not going to absorb you right away.

Definitely, 4 stars for the book. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an opportunity to be a part of the blog tour.