This book was laid out in 3 voices. Esmie in the now, Esmie's past and a story in a secret diary. To be honest I didn't care about the flashbacks and the diary story until they merged with the Esmie of now. I did get to the end but flicked through the non-now parts.

Slow burn but great plot twist ending.
Seeking revenge can be difficult sometimes but Esmie becomes a cleaner for this gated community.
There are so many layers to this story. It takes some time to build up but once it all comes together , it was really good.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

A psychological revenge thriller about Esmie, a young woman taking on a cleaning job with three households who she believes are responsible for the death of her brother Nico. As well as pinning down the individual responsible for Nico’s death, Esmie becomes a witness to a whole lot more intrigue and deception in their lives, and contributes to a fair bit herself. A well constructed and compelling plot which is let down by a host of generally dislikeable characters.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into this one.
We meet Esmie, our lead character, who fakes an accident to give her an ‘in’ to get a cleaning job, in a quiet secluded area. Cleaning for several households who could be responsible for her brother failing to continue his university course and arriving home a broken person.
It’s made very clear that she is there for retribution from the start.
Unfortunately I couldn’t engage with any of the characters, none of them were particularly likeable and everything just seemed a bit disjointed and slow, also repetitive in nature.
The characters needed more depth and you needed to be able to feel something for the people in this book.

A faked accident gets Esmeralda (Call me Esmie) Lorenzo the job of cleaner to a group of houses owned by three sisters, somewhere near Cork in the Irish Republic. The families are pleased because their regular cleaner has suddenly gone off on holiday for a month. Needless to say, Esmie, has an ulterior motive, which is to determine which of the three seduced her brother, Nico, got him addicted to drugs, and got his PhD Scholarship cancelled, causing him to return to his home country, a disgraced failure. His decline thereafter has led to a situation where he is now in a coma. Esmie loves her brother, as does her friend, Simone, who is engaged to Nico, and a borderline psychopath. By having unfettered access to the homes, Esmie hopes to find clues to the false lover and information to destroy her.
The book is quite well written, but is fairly dull and cyclic (search house, find something, nearly get caught, repeat). She leaves the houses spotless, but seems to have spent very little time on the actual cleaning. All of the characters seem to be dreadful and unlikeable, and the sub plots are not helpful one way or the other. Interactions between the cast are, in the main, unlikely. However, there is a major twist which will likely take many readers (not this one) by surprise.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

The Cleaner Mary Watson

2 stars

I choose this book to read as the plot synopsis seemed really interesting.

Esme has always been very close to her brother Nico so when he returns from university a broken man and addicted to drugs she needs to find out why. He had become besotted by one of the women in a family group who all live close together in an area known as The Woodlands. This woman had betrayed him and also got him expelled from university and his addiction to drugs has left him in a coma.

Esme decides to approach the family and manages to get a job as the cleaner for the two couples, Amber and Lincoln Kelly, Paul and Isabelle Blake and Amber's sister Ceanna. These people are all rich with luxurious lives and Esme is able to blend into the background whom no one takes any notice of whilst she is cleaning their houses.

The problem I had with this book however was that I did not feel any sympathy for any of the characters, all of them have secrets and none of them were very likeable. I also felt no real sympathy for the cleaner and as the story unfolds not even much for Nico. Although there were many plot twists they did not really shock me and I found the ending unsatisfactory.

The book was well written and very atmospheric but was spoilt by the lack of depth in the characters for me.


Karen Deborah
Reviewer for Net Galley

I stayed up late to continue reading Mary Watson's #TheCleaner, a page-turning revenge thriller featuring Esmie, a cleaner from overseas searching for the secrets of the upmarket residents of The Woodlands. Twisty, edgy and oh so compelling.

Wow – this book had me gripped! I read this quickly and late into the night as this was such a great page tuner and I could not wait to find out what happened in the end. A dark thriller with lots of suspense.
The plot was fast paced and lots to keep you guessing. I loved how the story unfolded between past and presence and not being able to guess who the ‘villain’ was. There was lots of hidden twists in this book.
Really great and easy read for all book lovers! Great find and highly recommend this!

Esmie is supposed to be invisible in her job as 'The Cleaner' in the big houses of the Woodlands exclusive gated community. It's a job she has landed by being calculated and manipulative, just like those who live there.

Esmie isn't actually interested in cleaning. She is looking for revenge, on whoever bought harm to her Brother, Nico.

Nico was a lodger at the Woodlands, a student at the local University. He was doing well, a model student, until he started taking prescription drugs to help him stay up all night studying and everything started to spiral out of control.

Now Nico is in a coma back home, Esmie distraught and determined to get answers from those who put him there.

It is easy for Esmie to snoop whilst trailing a duster behind her, after all, no one pays any attention to the cleaner. Especially those with wealthy privilege. But then the Woodlands residents aren't exactly like other wealthy people, and soon enough questions begin to be asked about Esmie.

Is she really who she says she is? And if she isn't why is she there, and what does she want?

None of the characters in this novel are particularly likeable, and that's okay, because I don't think they are supposed to be. In fact, I think the plot itself is easier to swallow if you don't like the characters because it would be very difficult to understand some of the things that happen if these people were at all likeable - or normal!

I enjoyed the Cleaner, but I'm not sure it's a novel for everyone, but of course you can be the judge of that!

I really enjoyed reading this. I loved the dual timelines. I found the characters well written, although definitely not always likable!

I loved the slow uncovering of the characters relationships with Nico, and I enjoyed that you get to find out at the same time as the main character.

I was not expecting the twist AT ALL. I had so many theories about what I thought was going to happen and I was completely off the mark!

I think anyone that enjoys mysteries or thrillers will enjoy this.

Argh, this is a tough review to write because sadly I really didn't enjoy this book.
Right from the start I struggled to connect to the plot or the characters and this feeling of disconnection from the story only got worse the more I read.
I found it extremely difficult to tell which character was which. Mainly because they were all so flat and lacked any personality or defining characteristic.
The story felt repetitive and so overwhelmingly dull and so boring, that by 50% of the way in I had lost all interest in the book and I started to skim read. In fact if this hadn't been an ARC I would have DNF'd. And by the end of the book I really wished I had.
I didn't find this in the least bit of a thriller or mystery and it certainly lacked any tension.
Unfortunately I can't think of anything I did like about this book.
This book just did not work for me at all.

Unobtrusive to the point of invisibility, to most of her clients Esmie is just the cleaner. What they don't realise is that her unique access to their homes makes them extremely vulnerable to her snooping.

Because Esmie has an agenda. A very dark one. She wants revenge, and thanks to the carelessness of the spoilt people whose homes she wanders her way through, she will have it...

Delivering suspense on a knife edge this book is a great read. Buckle up and enjoy the ride! It gets 3.5 stars.

Esme orchestrates it so she can get a job as the cleaner at a gated community, to discover the reason for Nico's dismissal from his scholarship, who was having an affair with and to exact revenge on whomever it was. As the cleaner she can sneak around the homes, searching for clues without being suspected.

A revenge story with a bit of a twist that I didn't see coming. Sometimes it was a little slow, the occupants a little dull, especially the man obsessed with his poetry but otherwise I enjoyed this novel.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Esmie, distraught because of her brother's illness, goes undercover, working as a cleaner for a number of families he crossed paths with when in Ireland as a student. Her plan is simple, find out who wronged him and exact revenge.

There are some pretty vile people in this book, the kind of pantomime villains readers love to hate, and there's plenty of tension and suspense! It's not perfect, but it did keep me engaged and second guessing and there is a big impact ending that works well.

I cant say anything more without giving the game away, but if you love the mystery genre then I think this is for you. I expect it is going to do well and I cant wait to read other reviews as they start to come in.

Like others have said, Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this book. I found the plot to be very slow. I am really disappointed as the write-up made it sound really interesting but sadly it wasn't for me.

Unfortunately this book wasn't for me. I found it hard to engage with the main character, and the story was too slow paced for my liking.
Additionally, there were too many repetitive elements.
Shame. The blurb held an excellent premise.

I’d say this is a psychological thriller. I really enjoyed it, the characters are believable, the plot flowed well and it had a great twist I didn’t see coming. You are kept guessing along with Esme the main character, who her brother’s secret affair was with. I’d recommend it, thank you #netgalley

I liked the premise of this book but unfortunately I could not engage with the story telling. Consequently I could not finish the nivel.

The premise of this book was interesting but unfortunately I found it difficult to get into, I didn’t resonate with any of the characters and didn’t finish the book.

This book!!!! I was completely hooked from the prologue. If you love twisty thrillers then I recommend this. The characters are a bit unlikeable which I always enjoy in a thriller. Dual timelines are one of my favourite things and this one was done well. I got to about 75% done and truly had no idea where the book was heading. That twist had my jaw open. The twists and turns in this book and the way some characters acted... loved it.