Book Review: The Maid by Nita Prose

  

Jacque's Review:

The "Gator Girls" book club, which consists of several residents in Florida's Bonita Bay community, selected this book for their February meeting. I have an exceptionally long to be read list, so I don't usually read all of the new releases when they are the hot topic of conversation. In fact, I am usually years behind the times, but this new release did pique my interest.

Molly is a little quirky, and if I had to guess, may be on the autism spectrum. She is high functioning with an exceptional vocabulary and manner of speaking. She is extremely proud of her job as a maid and takes it very seriously. One should not expect to find so much as a fingerprint left behind after Molly returns a room to a "state of perfection". Why I say she may be autistic is because of her obsessive compulsive love of cleaning as well as her lack of social skills. She has a very hard time reading other people's emotions and finds herself in some difficult situations as a result. 

Molly was raised by her grandmother, who passed away prior to the start of the book. She is barely making ends meet and doesn't have anyone to turn to for emotional or financial support. She becomes "friends" with Mrs. Black, who is the wife of one of the wealthy guests that frequents the hotel. One day, Molly finds Mr. Black dead in the room and quickly becomes the prime suspect. Fortunately for her Mr. Preston, the doorman, was good friends with her grandmother and agreed to look out for Molly after she passed away. Mr. Preston's daughter is an attorney and quickly steps in to help clear Molly's name, but the web of suspicious activity taking place at the Regency Grand Hotel is much larger than Molly ever could have imagined. Mr. Preston, on the other hand, is very observant of the comings and goings at the hotel and has a good idea who is behind the shady activity.

This was a very entertaining and quick read that I thoroughly enjoyed. I think my mom may have suggested this book because she has a bit of Molly in her as well. Not the lack of social skills, but the obsessive compulsive cleaning. She is always trying to return things to a state of perfection when the average person wouldn't find anything out of sorts. I should recommend this book to my teenage son who could certainly benefit from some inspiration from Molly.