The Maid's Secret by Nita Prose Series: Molly the Maid #3
Genres: Adult, Mystery/Thriller
Published by Penguin Group on April 8, 2025
Also by this author: The Maid , The Mystery Guest
Format: Audio/eBook (336 pages) • Source: Libby
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THE INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER!
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest
A wedding. A heist. A secret.
Molly Gray’s life is about to change in ways she could never have imagined. She is now the esteemed Head Maid & Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel, and two good things are just around the corner—a taping of the hit antiquities TV show Hidden Treasures and, even more exciting, her wedding to Juan Manuel.
When Molly brings in some old trinkets to be appraised on the show, one item is revealed to be a rare and coveted artifact worth millions. Molly becomes a rags-to-riches sensation, and a media frenzy swirls as she prepares to sell her priceless treasure. Then, on auction day, the treasure suddenly vanishes, and Molly and her friends find themselves at the center of the boldest art heist in recent memory.
But the key to this mystery lies in the past, in a long-forgotten diary written by Molly’s Gran. For the first time ever, Molly learns about her grandmother’s secrets: how she was born into a wealthy family and fell head-over-heels in love with a young man her parents deemed below her. As fate would have it, Gran’s greatest love was someone Molly knows quite well…
A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, The Maid’s Secret is a spell-binding whodunnit that will capture your heart.
This series is a really fun time. Molly the Maid has solved now 3.5 mysteries around the Regency Grand Hotel and I thinkkk this may be her final one? Not sure if other books have been announced but this really feels like a last book. This was another generally enjoyable installment in this series, but definitely my least favorite.
The story alternates between Molly’s daily life/the overall mystery and her gran’s diary entries. Unfortunately I wasn’t super invested in either timeline, but I especially didn’t enjoy the diary entries. I thought they were so boring. Yes, it helps move the story along in some ways, but I wasn’t at all invested. I think the main mystery was a little lame as well. I never felt like the stakes were really high and the story was just kind of plodding along.
I think the series has run its course from a plot perspective but I have to be honest – I would read additional books if they were to come out.
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry Genres: Adult, Contemporary
Published by Penguin on April 22, 2025
Also by this author: Beach Read, People We Meet on Vacation, Book Lovers, Happy Place, Funny Story
Format: Audio/Physical (432 pages) • Source: Purchased, Spotify Audiobooks
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A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK ∙ Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping novel from Emily Henry.
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Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the twentieth century.
When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.
One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.
Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication.
Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.
But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.
And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad . . . depending on who’s telling it.
As I’ve said a hundred times before, there are a few authors where I am ANXIOUSLY awaiting their next release and can guarantee I’ll read them during pub week (or early enough if I get an egalley). These days that includes Emily Henry, Christina Lauren, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Carley Fortune, and Abby Jimenez. Typically these authors (for the most part) get fairly rave reviews but Henry and Jimenez always do…especially for me. 2025 has been weirdly polarizing for those two authors though. GBBL (which I promise I’ll get to in a second) and SAY YOU’LL REMEMBER ME both received a mix of low and high ratings from my friends and fellow readers who read the books early. Luckily I read SYRM in early January so I made my own opinions but I can’t lie – I was really nervous going into GBBL!
While I can generally see why this book is polarizing compared to her others, she did warn everyone that it would be different. It’s closer to literary fiction compared to romance but there still IS a romance. It had some of the classic Emily Henry wit and banter.
I understand the comparisons to EVELYN HUGO as well, but don’t think this book is similar enough to even call it a “lesser version.” That book is one of my very favorites but aside from both being books where a famous person tells a journalist their life story, they are quite a bit different. I agree with other reviewers that the “The Story” sections were kind of dragging. We didn’t really NEED all of the backstory on her entire family history. I wish the earlier chapters about her ancestors were shorter so we could spend more time with Alice and Hayden. The later chapters of Margaret’s story could be the same length as we come to the more interesting and relevant parts of her life.
Because the story went back and forth between Alice’s chapters and Margaret’s story she was writing, it felt like neither got quite enough time to cook. I wanted more, especially from the romance. Again, I know this was more literary fiction leaning and that’s fine to have a little less of the romance, but I just wanted more of their time together. I think Henry did a good job fitting two stories in one but at the same time it lacked oomph as a result.
It’s really hard to rank Emily Henry books when I’ve given them all 4.5 or 5 stars but this is toward the bottom simply because I really enjoyed reading it (as I always do with her books) but it’s not going to stick in my brain as long as most of her others.
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