Esme flies to Ireland to try to find out why her brother lost his scholorship and exact revenge on the woman who causedit. Unfortunately she doesn't know her identity so gets a job cleaning the houses of the possible suspects.
A twisted plot where not all is at is seems. Infidelity mixed with obsession and controlling behaviour.

For fans of thrillers and housemaid style books this story is perfect.
The themes run throughout this book and lead you to really feel for Diya and her situation. The pacing was uneven in places but there is strong character development and an all round fun read!

Joining The Maid and The Housemaid is The Cleaner. These authors - Nina Prose, Freida McFadden and now Mary Watson - have hit upon a fundamental truth: that those who can afford luxury hotel stays or in-home help prefer to ignore the people working to clean and sustain our most personal spaces. That provides potential for an 'enemy within' kind of plot, which The Cleaner loosely fits in with.

I would recommend this to fans of The Housemaid series. While personally I found it a little overblown, I am sure it will find lots of fans.

3.5 stars rounded up

This was a very quick read. Ot was okay. Not the greatest thriller but definitely an easy read

Thank you for the opportunity to review

Firstly thank you to the publishers for my early accesss in exchange for a review.
I’ve seen this book across social media so it’s definitely on its way already for a top book of 2025 .
I read this in one evening so it was utterly captivating and a page turner .
It’s a slow burner but the cleaner herself will have you fascinated as we get to know more about her and her reasons for being there .
Written in dual timelines there’s a sense of foreboding and intrigue into what happened to nico.
Cleverly plotted and does tie together with the characters .
The reader gets an insight into how the rich live !
The only negative for me Personally was there was a lot of characters and houses which at times were difficult to seperate .
This is a well written thought provoking and interesting read which is also a debut !

Wow, well that was a ride and I was totally taken back when the truth came out.

Lots of twists and everyone is a suspect.

This was a book that followed Esmie as she cleaned for several different houses looking for the woman who had seduced her brother. I found the amount of characters hard to follow to start with and felt that whilst gritty, trying to keep up made it a less enjoyable read. That being said there were some clever ideas.

I was lucky enough to get a copy of this through NetGalley. I kept thinking I had worked it out but I was always wrong. It kept me guessing right until the end. I was quite gripped and finished in the early hours of the morning. Very enjoyably.

Wow, what a gripping read! The Cleaner by Mary Watson delivers a slow-burning, atmospheric thriller that sneaks up on you just like its protagonist, Esmie. By day, she’s the invisible cleaner in an ultra-exclusive gated community, but behind the dusting and vacuuming lies a simmering plot for revenge. The exploration of privilege, isolation, and the dangerous consequences of underestimating those you think beneath you adds an intriguing layer to the story.

Watson masterfully weaves Esmie's personal grief with a quiet, creeping suspense that builds until you find yourself tensely turning pages, desperate to uncover how she’ll exact her revenge. The tension between what’s seen and what’s hidden is central, and it’s reflected brilliantly in Esmie’s character—both underestimated and devastatingly perceptive. I found the ending both unexpected and utterly satisfying.

A must-read if you love thrillers where secrets, power, and revenge collide, and where the quietest character might just be the most dangerous.

In the Woodlands gated community, the well heeled never notice the hired help. Put on an overall and leggings, and brandish a duster, and it renders you invisible.

Esmie is there to clean up. Not just the detritus of the lives which are less than perfect the closer you look. She's there for revenge.

And her weapons of choice are the secrets that the Woodlands residents try to keep hidden from everyone else

This book had a great plot with intriguing characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

Esmie has come to Ireland for answers about her very unwell brother. We meet her as she is engineering a meet with the people who saw her brother last.

I loved the premise of this. A cleaner is so often unseen by the people who hire them and I think the book makes this work really well.

There are two timelines, the present and a timeline from the past where we see more about Esmie’s life before she came here.

This book does excellently in terms of atmosphere and detail, though some of the characters feel a touch underdeveloped, regardless this was a great read with an excellent twist. While some will find the big twist predictable, the way it is revealed was incredibly well written!

This book would be good for anyone that likes thrillers or wants to cosy up with a book.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in return for an honest review which this is.

Esmie is a cleaner in an exclusive, gated community. Quickly, you come to learn that not only is Esmie collecting the secrets of her clients, she has a few secrets of her own. Esmie was not just looking for a cleaning job in The Woodlands... she was also looking for revenge.

The Cleaner is like an intricately woven spiders web of twists and turns. From the first page, you're thrown into the story and you have to quickly navigate the difficult relationships and how Esmie is connected.

There's an ongoing mystery throughout and as soon as you think you've got it figured out, a new secret is revealed and you're launched back to square one.

I was so pleasantly surprised by each and every twist in The Cleaner. Each character is so complex and written with such care. I thought I'd noticed some plotholes/mistakes but, as it turns out, every piece of information is purposeful and carefully constructed.

It took me a while to really get my teeth into the plot, but after the first 25% I could not put it down.

True rating is 4.5

Sadly this book just wasn't for me and did not live up to the description. I couldn't relate to any of the characters or truly get into the story. The cleaner just did not draw me in.

The set up for this is a good idea - an anonymous cleaner who has access to the homes and lives of a wealthy set of dysfunctional adults looking for revenge for a family member. There could have been a lot to play with here, sadly however this novel became an overblown, overwritten tale of red-herrings and far too many pointless storylines, with a quite light motivation behind it.
The endless internal monologue of the cleaner Esmie detailing her reasons for being there and what she wanted to do became boring, the path to the 'reveal' and ending became so arduous - as we were lead down various dead ends over and over again - that I just didn't care by the end whether she succeeded or not.
The characters were unlikeable and there were too many of them, there were also too many houses and descriptions of the various cottages etc plus a ridiculous 'dead author obsession' thrown in that didn't need to be there - especially as it was never resolved.
If this had been tightly plotted, kept within four walls, with one family, and a good motive for the revenge (not the quite watery reason that 'Esmie' has) then it could have been good.

A novel with many layers and sub plots. It delves into the lives of three wealthy families in Ireland. All of who have something to hide. It opens with a young girl Esmie who having engineered her way in to becoming their shared cleaner sets about investigating her own tragedy. Esmie is attempting retrace the steps of her brother Nico. He managed to obtain a scholarship to the university only to have it taken from him in suspicious circumstances. We learn early on that he has returned home and is in a coma.
The narrative goes back and forth covering Nico before he left and we see his close relationship with a young girl called Simone, who it appears, has a rather questionable anger issue. Needless to say Esmie does not approve of that match.
With Nico in hospital Esmie wants to find out about his secret life in Ireland and married lover who she sees is responsible for his demise and shame.
As the invisible cleaner, Esmie is able to get close to the families and realises that they are all as corrupt as each other. Linc, the professor is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to gain the "lost “papers from the dead poet Eden Hale, while Ceanna wants the cottage and its contents. Isabella is consumed in an abusive marriage and Amber can't seem to keep her hands to herself.
The sub plots for me were a little unnecessary and detracted from what had the potential to be an exciting read. The twist at the end however did surprise.
Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication

So i am not great with books which are a little slow paced however, I am glad that I stuck with this one. Interesting idea, strong characters and a really good twist!

I have to say that I didn't really like this book despite the intriguing description. Esmie has arrived at The Woodlands as a cleaner. She is actually trying to find out who is responsible for bad things happening to her brother when he was living there. She is out for revenge. However, I found the story quite far fetched and I didn't warm to any of the characters.
Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
Copied to Goodreads.

This is an intriguing and dark domestic thriller. Esmie has just started cleaning for families living in a gated community. With her limited English she tries to stay invisible as she goes about her duties. But Esmie has a hidden agenda. She is trying to uncover what happened to her beloved brother, Nico, who was friends with each family in ‘The Woodlands’ gated community. This was a slow burn, character driven novel, told from the POV of Esmie in the present day and through flashbacks. Plenty of twists and full of suspense, overall it was an entertaining and fun read.
Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley UK for the ARC

"Houses know"

The first sentence of The Cleaner is a perfect set-up for what is to come. Esmie becomes a cleaner for a gated community. She is invisible to those that she cleans for, and she uses this to her advantage as she looks for revenge on the person that hurt her the most. One issue: she doesn't know who that person is. Will she find the person that changes her life, and what will she do when those she cleans for suddenly start to notice her?

This book was full of reveals as Esmie gets to know her employers, and what happened in her past. There were some complex characters and dynamics, but it all worked very well in the overall story. I found the ending quite satisfying, as it was apt and fitted the characters well.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. #TheCleaner #NetGalley