
Author profile
Freida McFadden: books, reviews, and where to start
Freida McFadden is a physician and thriller writer best known for The Housemaid. Her books move fast, hide important facts, and usually give you a reason to stop trusting the person telling the story.
Release updates
Current releases from Freida McFadden
Upcoming ·
The Witch
Release details. Read the release details.
Release date source: Sourcebooks / Poisoned Pen PressBiography and criticism
The neurologist behind the domestic page-turner
McFadden built a large audience through ebooks and self-publishing before The Housemaid became an international bestseller.
Medicine and a growing backlist
Freida McFadden is the pen name of an American physician who specializes in brain injury. She began publishing fiction while continuing her medical career, and she found a large digital audience before The Housemaid became an international hit. Her day job deals with memory and vulnerable minds. Her thrillers keep asking a related question: whose version of events can you trust?
McFadden did not arrive through one big traditional book launch. She built a backlist through affordable ebooks, subscription reading, and word of mouth. The Housemaid brought her usual strengths together in one clear setup: a woman with few options takes a job inside a wealthy home where nobody is quite what they seem.
Why her thrillers are easy to keep reading
McFadden uses short chapters and direct language. She is good at making a harmless detail suddenly matter. A victim may have a plan, a safe room may be evidence, and something the narrator left out may change the whole story.
There is a tradeoff. Side characters can feel thin, and some twists ask you to accept a lot. Once you know McFadden's usual tricks, you may start hunting for the reveal instead of feeling the tension. The books still understand how money, jobs, childcare, housing, and reputation can trap someone. Start with The Housemaid, then read its sequels in order.
Where to begin
A good place to start with Freida McFadden

The Housemaid
4.1 / 5The Housemaid is expertly bingeable domestic suspense, with a strong mid-book reversal and characterization designed more for payoff than realism.

Dear Debbie
4 / 5Dear Debbie gives McFadden an unusually enjoyable antiheroine, even if the final escalation is wilder and less convincing than Debbie's darkly practical revenge.

The Housemaid Is Watching
3.7 / 5The Housemaid Is Watching gives Millie domestic stability worth threatening, but suburban surveillance and family secrets produce a less disciplined mystery than the first book.
Reading order and buying help
Reading guides featuring Freida McFadden
Series buying note
Would the collection be the better buy?
These are useful only when you want several books in the same run. The notes below spell out what each package includes and, just as importantly, what it leaves out.
Four-book paperback box set
The Housemaid Box Set
This is the tidy way to own Millie's complete story so far: the three novels plus the short bridge between books two and three.
Included: The Housemaid, The Housemaid's Secret, The Housemaid Is Watching, The Housemaid's Wedding
Our buying note: Try The Housemaid first if you are unsure about McFadden's twist-heavy style. If it works for you, the set makes more sense than hunting down the remaining books separately.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Bibliography
Books by Freida McFadden
Reviews and book guides open on Book Review Guide. The full list comes from the linked bibliography source.

Reviewed
The Housemaid
First published 2022
Reviewed
The Housemaid's Secret
First published 2023
Reviewed
The Housemaid Is Watching
First published 2024
Book guide
The Witch
First published 2026
Reviewed
Dear Debbie
First published 2026
Reviewed
The Intruder
First published 2025
Reviewed
The Tenant
First published 2025
Reviewed
The Boyfriend
First published 2024
Reviewed
The Teacher
First published 2024
Reviewed
The Coworker
First published 2023
Reviewed
Never Lie
First published 2022
Reviewed
The Inmate
First published 2022Not reviewed yet
The Housemaid's Wedding
First published 2024Not reviewed yet
The Divorce
First published 2026Not reviewed yet
The Crash
First published 2025Not reviewed yet
Ward D
First published 2023Not reviewed yet
Do You Remember?
First published 2022Not reviewed yet
Do Not Disturb
First published 2021Not reviewed yet
The Locked Door
First published 2021Not reviewed yet
Want to Know a Secret?
First published 2021Not reviewed yet
One by One
First published 2020Not reviewed yet
The Wife Upstairs
First published 2020Not reviewed yet
The Perfect Son
First published 2019Not reviewed yet
The Ex
First published 2019Not reviewed yet
The Surrogate Mother
First published 2018Not reviewed yet
Brain Damage
First published 2016Not reviewed yet
Dead Med
First published 2024Not reviewed yet
The Devil Wears Scrubs
First published 2013Not reviewed yet
The Devil You Know
First published 2017Not reviewed yet
Baby City
First published 2015Not reviewed yet
The Gift
First published 2022Not reviewed yet
The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie
First published 2024Not reviewed yet
Death Row
First published 2025Not reviewed yet
The Dinner Party
First published 2026Bibliographic source: Freida McFadden official book list.
Books on this site
Freida McFadden reviews and guides

20264 / 5
Dear Debbie
A Psychological Thriller
Dear Debbie gives McFadden an unusually enjoyable antiheroine, even if the final escalation is wilder and less convincing than Debbie's darkly practical revenge.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20234 / 5
Never Lie
A Psychological Thriller
Never Lie is a highly efficient snowbound thriller whose therapy tapes create stronger structure than its psychologically extreme final explanation.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20243.8 / 5
The Boyfriend
A Psychological Thriller
The Boyfriend turns dating-app anxiety into a brisk serial-killer puzzle, though romance and psychology remain servants of misdirection.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20234 / 5
The Coworker
A Workplace Thriller
The Coworker uses office routine, social status, and documentary evidence to build one of McFadden's more playful contests over who controls the story.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20224.1 / 5
The Housemaid
A Psychological Thriller
The Housemaid is expertly bingeable domestic suspense, with a strong mid-book reversal and characterization designed more for payoff than realism.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20243.7 / 5
The Housemaid Is Watching
Book 3 of The Housemaid Series
The Housemaid Is Watching gives Millie domestic stability worth threatening, but suburban surveillance and family secrets produce a less disciplined mystery than the first book.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20233.9 / 5
The Housemaid's Secret
Book 2 of The Housemaid Series
The Housemaid's Secret remains fast and twisty, but repeating Millie's entry into another abusive-looking home makes surprise more engineered than fresh.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20223.9 / 5
The Inmate
A Psychological Thriller
The Inmate has a strong prison-nurse hook and a slippery memory structure, though professional judgment repeatedly yields to twist necessity.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20253.9 / 5
The Intruder
A Psychological Thriller
The Intruder uses storm isolation and a bloodied girl effectively, though its hidden histories ultimately feel more arranged than discovered.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20243.8 / 5
The Teacher
A Psychological Thriller
The Teacher makes school gossip and competing viewpoints compulsive, but its adults and students are shaped too aggressively around shock.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

20253.8 / 5
The Tenant
A Psychological Thriller
The Tenant turns shared rent and domestic proximity into efficient suspicion, though its people bend too readily around the final reversals.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

2026Coming soon
The Witch
A Psychological Thriller
After losing her job and apartment, Julia Barlow returns to her family's seventeenth-century Massachusetts estate, where strange disturbances and a 1692 witchcraft case draw her into Pemberton's buried history.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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