The Housekeepers by Alex Hay

 

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay.

Published 6th July 2023 by Headline Review.

From the cover of the book:

UPSTAIRS, MADAM IS PLANNING THE PARTY OF THE SEASON.

DOWNSTAIRS, THE SERVANTS ARE PLOTTING THE HEIST OF THE CENTURY.

When Mrs King, housekeeper to the most illustrious home in Mayfair, is suddenly dismissed after years of loyal service, she knows just who to recruit to help her take revenge.

A black-market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs King's predecessor, who has been keeping the dark secrets of Park Lane far too long.

Mrs King has an audacious plan in mind, one that will reunite her women in the depths of the house on the night of a magnificent ball - and play out right under the noses of her former employers...

THEY COME FROM NOTHING. BUT THEY'LL LEAVE WITH EVERYTHING.

***********

The master of the most extravagant house on Park Lane, self-styled diamond magnate Mr de Vries, is dead. His cool and calculating daughter plans to break convention with an lavish ball to launch herself on society in pursuit of an aristocratic husband, but she has just made a grave error by dismissing the housekeeper Mrs King after years of faithful service.

Dinah King will not be quite so easily moved aside, and her murky past gives her just the right contacts to plot her revenge. Gathering a team of resourceful females around her, she plans to ensure that the night of the ball will be about more than extravagant entertainments for the wealthy. Can they pull off the most ambitious con of the year? Success is never guaranteed when emotions are involved...

Imagine, if you will, an Edwardian Ocean's 8, with an injection of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, and a side order of Peaky Blinders, and you have the glorious set up for Alex Hay's highly original heist adventure, The Housekeepers!

Things are afoot in the Mayfair mansion where a new regime is coming into being at the behest of heiress Miss de Vries, and she is keen to stamp her authority both within the marble clad walls of her gaudy home, and on the cream of society without. In doing so, she makes a powerful enemy of the very person who can, and will, cause her the most harm, Mrs Dinah King whose connection to the Park Lane family is rather more complicated than first appears. 

Alex Hay works magic by providing Mrs King with a team of vivid characters to help her in her cause: meet Mrs Bone, an underworld queen feeling the squeeze from new players on the scene; Alice Parker, a talented seamstress with ambition; aspiring actress, Hephzibah Grandcourt; Winnie Smith, struggling milliner (and also a former housekeeper of the Park Lane pile); and acrobatic 'sisters' The Janes. What a kick-ass team of females they are too! They leap off the page fully formed and carry you along in a highly entertaining caper that threatens to be derailed at every turn by the richly imagined Edwardian hiccups that Hay throws their way.

This book is beautifully plotted, and once the con is underway it is impossible to look away from the shenanigans going on above and below stairs in the Park Lane mansion. Embroidered through the heist storyline there are some lovely surprises around the shrouded origins of the de Vries fortune, with a delicious whisper of mystery about the connection of more than one of our firebrand females to the family, and Hay conjures real menace with dark threads about how vulnerable young women can become prey to the unscrupulous too.

If that was not enough, Hay's love of history shines through in the many subjects he touches upon throughout the story. There is so much here about the rise of the nouveau riche and their uncomfortable relationship with the aristocracy that both despises them and desires their substantial bank balances; of the dawning of an age of new ideas and technology; and of the yearning of women to break free from the strictures placed upon them by patriarchal society and the bounds of convention. Hay also takes us below stairs in a way that is rarely done so well, to shine a light on the rigid hierarchy of domestic staff, and the organisation and workload involved in running a household of this kind.

I adored this book from start to finish, and fell completely in love with Mrs King and her gang. I long for Hay to take up his pen to write a sequel, as I am not ready to say goodbye to them yet. This story begs for a sumptuous adaptation too, so my fingers are well and truly crossed that one will follow in due course!

The Housekeepers is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Headline for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Alex grew up in Cambridge and Cardiff in the United Kingdom. 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. He has worked in magazine publishing and the charity sector and lives with his husband in London. THE HOUSEKEEPERS is his debut novel and won the Caledonia Novel Award 2022.