Review: The Housemaid's Wedding (The Housemaid, #2.5) by Freida McFadden

                                                                     

Print Length: 76 pages

Publisher: Hollywood Upstairs Press (November 22, 2024)

From Goodreads.com:  Today is supposed to be the happiest day of my life.

I'm engaged to the man of my dreams, and in a few short hours, I'm going to stand before a judge, who will declare us husband and wife, till death does us part. Despite some bumps in the road, this day is everything I dreamed it would be.

There's only one problem:

Someone out there doesn't want me to live long enough to say my vows.

And if I'm not careful, they may very well get their wish.

                                                         *******************

My Rating: 1 star out of 5

Normally, I would have skipped something like this as it's obvious that I'm not a fan of this series, but well between storms taking down trees, and idiot drivers taking out poles, I've had  two days of back to back power outages and I figured I might as well. 

And while it killed time for me, this novella  was also a waste of time because it adds absolutely nothing to the series. I can't even say it adds any meaningful depth to Millie and Enzo's relationship because... it really doesn't. Millie is still the same old Millie, keeping massive secrets because she doesn't want to "ruin the day," even when those secrets could quite literally get her killed. And Enzo is still the same old "I know a guy" guy, somehow able to pull off the most random miracles at exactly the right moment. In this case, it's magically finding someone who can alter Millie's wedding dress in time for the ceremony after it no longer fits because of her pregnancy.

Convenient? Absolutely. Believable? Not so much.

The rest of the story is about as uneventful as you'd expect. Millie and Enzo spend the day preparing for their wedding while Millie quietly keeps to herself the fact that she's been receiving threatening phone calls from someone promising to slit her throat. Not only that, but this mysterious caller somehow knows far more about her movements than should be possible. At one point, they even know she's gone into the restroom of a diner to try on her newly altered wedding dress... and they know what color the dress is.

As if that weren't enough, we're also treated to a subplot involving Millie's parents. They initially promise they'll attend the wedding, only to back out at the last minute because they're apparently still convinced the mistake she made at sixteen defines her entire life. Which, honestly, raises another question entirely: what kind of parents permanently turn their backs on their child when that child acted to protect a friend?

Then there's the conveniently discovered last-minute witness, whose introduction required me to suspend what little disbelief I still had left. I understand he was grateful for what Millie had done for his sister, but... why exactly was he following her around like that? The explanation never came close to feeling believable.

And that's really the entire novella. Those scattered plot points carry us right up to the moment Millie and Enzo finally become husband and wife.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, however, is that the trademark twist I've come to expect from this author is almost entirely absent. There's something that could loosely be described as a twist near the end, but it was mediocre at best. If anything, it simply reinforces that Millie and Enzo are apparently perfect for one another, seeing as they're both equally committed to hiding potentially life-threatening secrets from the person they're supposed to trust most.

In the end, this felt less like a necessary addition to the series and more like a story that existed solely to bridge the gap between books. Which according to the author was exactly as she intended, so there is that.