A slow burner with an explosive ending.

What starts as an insight to Victorian life through the eyes of Harriet Watkins, quickly turns into a dark mystery in a household shrouded in sinister secrets. Harriet Watkins is engaged as lady’s maid at Finton Hall to the enigmatic Mistress Clara Gethin. Clara is subject to a whole load of unsavoury rumours yet Harriet struggles to know who to trust while she is surrounded by the tight lipped and suspicious staff and villagers. What goes on behind closed doors at Finton Hall?

The Beholders starts off as a slow burn but then sweeps you up in a melodrama full of dark twists and turns half way through. I enjoyed the diary format, following Harriet’s journey and feeling the full force of all the shock and upheaval she endured. Full of mystery and betrayal but also resilience and loyalty, this is a passionate book with a raw message. It doesn’t hold back on showing how power and influence can be exploited, but also how kindness and determination can counter evil deeds.

The Beholders
by Hester Musson
Pub Date: 18 Jan 2024
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June, 1878. The body of a boy is pulled from the depths of the River Thames, suspected to be the beloved missing child of the widely admired Liberal MP Ralph Gethin.

Four months earlier. Harriet is a young maid newly employed at Finton Hall. Fleeing the drudgery of an unwanted engagement in the small village where she grew up, Harriet is entranced by the grand country hall; she is entranced too by her glamorous mistress Clara Gethin, whose unearthly singing voice floats through the house. But Clara, though captivating, is erratic. The master of the house is a much-lauded politician, but he is strangely absent. And some of their beautiful belongings seem to tell terrible stories.

Unable to ignore her growing unease, Harriet sets out to discover their secrets. When she uncovers a shocking truth, a chain of events is set in motion that could cost Harriet everything, even her freedom…

Clara and Harriet,
1875 is the start of this riveting tale. Harriet is a maid in the kindly Mrs,B's house along with her friend Annie, they enjoy the old Lady's kindness and odd ways. After her death Harriet goes to work at Frinton Hall, A large, richly furnished house belonging to Mr Gethin an MP with. a greatreputation for kindness to his staff. Harriet gets off to a bad start when the housekeeper takes a dislike to her, her fellow housemaid Mary does not trust her and Harriet is miserable but starts keeping a diary.
Mrs Gethin asks Harriet to be her personal maid, Clara is a strange woman , disliked by most of the staff and prone to rages, she takes little interest in her baby Edward.
Mr Gethin is arriving home from a musical evening where his wife will sing, the evening goes badly wrong, Harriet realises that Clara has told her the truth about him, he is corrupt and cruel. What will Harriet do to help Clara oescape his ecvil clutches?
This book was well written with a keen and sometimes amusing insight into Harriet 's thought and actions.
Thank you NetGalley and Hester.

A brilliant story to read and the characters were complex, this is set in the Victorian times and feels very authentic to those times. Told through diary entries from a housemaid - this story has murder, love and heartbreak, everything that makes a good story! The front cover is beautiful and it would definitely catch my eye in a shop.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for this ARC.

With thanks to netgalley.com for allowing me to review this book

I seem to one of the only few who didn't enjoy this book. I just couldn't get away with the lack of chapters and it was so slow.

A gripping, fascinating read! The characters are so complex and layered it feels like you unravel more about them with each chapter.
Thoroughly enjoyed everything about this novel and I didn't want it to end!

This was brilliant !!
Hester works as a ladies maid for Clara Gethin - the wife of a prominent MP. However the house holds many secrets and soon Hester will be forced to make life or death choices
This story had everything - murder / love / intrigue and heartbreak - Fabulous!

Thankyou NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review

I loved this gothic novel set in Victorian times. Told through diary entries from a new housemaid at Fintin Hall, this is a pacy thriller complete with murder. A brilliant read

I enjoyed this book, it had a lot of elements I really enjoy: gothic, Victorian, country house, masters and servants along with a good dose of intrigue and secrets. It was well written with dramatic storylines and dealt with some dark themes. The characters were very well realised, as was the country house setting. Once again, women's lack of agency and the power of men in society was at the heart of this story. An author to look out for.

I will start by saying this book has a lovely front cover, this book was a little slow to start with and I came close to not finishing.

The Beholders is a very dark and sinister gothic tale of murder, assault, power dynamics and torment.

The story revolves around a young maid called Harriet who writes in her diary about the owners and workers of Finton Hall. Nothing is as it seems. When she becomes the Mistress of the houses personal servant and with that comes a freedom to explore Finton Hall further. She uncovers an awful truth about the master of the house Mr Gethin and from there its a race to get a star away from there with her and her Mistresses life.


I'm giving this book three stars as I felt the first half of the book dragged quite a bit and I feel like it could have been condensed down a bit. Things were either repeated or just not needed. I know in a way it was building the tension and from the 50% mark onwards it was intense. I do feel like other reviewers have noted here that there needs to be trigger warnings labeled for sexual assault, child grooming and child murder. Maybe it was just the mood I was in while reading but it felt so so dark and very tense so be aware when taking this book on to maybe read when you're able to deal with the subject matter.


This in no way takes away from the authors writing as they did a great job of creating suspense and intrigue and I was engrossed from the 50% mark onwards. Thank you to NetGalley and 4th Estate and William Collins for the ARC.

A housemaid in a grand country house in Victorian England is pulled in to a mystery involving a charismatic and troubled mistress, a seemingly perfect master with a rising political star and friends in high places, and a host of other upstairs and downstairs characters. We also see themes of the lack of agency women have at this time, and the clear divides between the ruling and servant classes. I enjoyed the build up in the first half of the novel, as I felt it really set the stage for what was to come, and was interesting in itself for the glimpse of a Victorian era grand hall and the going-ons within. There were some twists to the story in the second half that I didn't expect in the least, which ultimately made for a satisfying ending. I would recommend this to lovers of historical fiction set in the Victorian era.

I do love a good gothic mystery but unfortunately The Beholders and I just didn’t get along at all. I struggled to get into this story. The pacing felt really slow and, for the first quarter at least, it felt as if little was happening, Also, I am not a fan of books that don’t have defined chapters and the diary entries didn’t quite work for me.

There seemed to be a distinct lack of tension and gothic-ness. The characters felt rather stereotypical. Many conversations alluded to events in the past but the answers were so slow in coming. Many times I felt like giving up but part of me wanted to know what happened to the little boy so I continued, but I must admit that I stopped caring along the way.

I’m afraid this one just wasn’t for me.

The creepiness of this book was outweighed by the poor pacing which made this story drag out longer than it needed to. it was a shame as i was enjoying the atmospheric vibe of it.

Enjoyable read that really immersed me into the house of finton hall and the daily lives and troubles and drama of the staff who worked there , well written book would recommend

Thank you to NetGalley, 4th Estate, and William Collins for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Beholders is a dark story centering around the grim realities of the Victorian class system. It shows the struggles faced by staff working for a well respected politician and his wife, and how the prejudices of the time really highlighted the power that the upper classes had over their servants, as well as the power that men held over women.

I went into this read expecting a Victorian murder mystery, so was slightly disappointed to find that the first half of the book was mostly just setting up for the later intrigue and drama. The themes of the novel were also a lot darker than I expected, with strong references to sexual assault, grooming, and multiple cases of infant deaths. I definitely think there should have been a content warning.

The second half of the story is where my interest was really piqued. The setup was very slow paced, but once Harriet started recalling the dramatic events following the party at Finton Hall the pace really picked up, and I was hooked. I enjoyed the diary format of the narrative as it helped to build tension when the writing was interrupted and also made the story feel really immersive.

Really enjoyable to read. Quite a slow start but it develops into a great story, so I’m glad I continued. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me access to an early copy of this book

June 1878, an infant is fished out of the Thames whom MP Ralph Gethin identifies as his five months old son, who had been kidnapped by his own mother a few days prior. Clara Gethin now stands trial for the murder of her son. The story then goes back several months to when Harriet moves into the Gethin's Hertfordshire estate to become a housemaid. She writes down her experiences in the strange new household in her diary.

The first half of the story is full of Harriet's entries about life as a servant in a claustrophobic household that is reigned by the housekeeper and butler 'downstairs' and the mostly absent lord of the manor 'upstairs'. Harriet finds out the secrets on both sides of the 'green baize door' which partly explain the strange goings-ons in the house but puzzle Harriet. Things become cleared and unfold more quickly in the second half of the story, when events get closer to the date of the trial of Clara Gethin.

Where the second half of the story partly reads like a detective story set in Victorian times, the first half is slow and often includes information that seems irrelevant to the character/world building; furthermore, some plot lines seem tacked on to give the book a more diverse background (bisexual? footman, black footman).

All in all I liked this historical/gothic mystery, although it was predictable. The epistolary format worked for me, but the story could have benefited from more concise pacing throughout.

I was sent a copy of The Beholders by Hester Musson to read and review by NetGalley. I loved this novel! It has an engrossing story, which is told first person in the form of a diary, with very believable characters and a great sense of place. You could really conjure up the atmosphere of the late 1800s and the patriarchal oppression imposed on women at that time. It is much more than just an ‘upstairs downstairs’ tale of us and them and has plenty of unexpected twists and turns. A definite 5 stars from me!

Gripping beginning, slower middle but the last 50% was fantastic - lots of twists and turns along the way