The Housemaid

Freida McFadden (a pseudonym for a medical doctor) is a prolific, sharp-eyed writer with a gift for pacing and psychological pressure. Her most successful novel is The Housemaid from 2022, a lean domestic thriller that reads like it was engineered for a single sitting. It’s no surprise the novel has already crossed over into pop-culture territory with a successful film adaptation.

What McFadden understands—deeply—is that the best suspense doesn’t come from explosions or elaborate conspiracies. It comes from people, trapped in close quarters, making bad decisions for understandable reasons. A pretty female ex-con is hired by a snobby, dysfunctional Long Island family to be a live-in housekeeper. The Man of the House is handsome and charming, and you know where this is headed…or do you?

The domestic sexual tension recalled a gender-swapped Orrie Hitt, the mid-century paperback master who specialized in fatal attraction crime stories replete with class anxiety, and characters who think they’re in control right up until they aren’t. Something is amiss in this household with the charming dad, his bitchy wife, and their bratty kid. You’ll never guess what’s actually occurring.

The first-person prose is clean, unshowy, and ruthlessly efficient exactly what you want in a suspense novel. The story moves forward with the confidence of a writer who knows she has you with chapter-ending cliffhangers and a major curve-ball twist that makes you rethink everything you’ve read thus far.

The Housemaid is the kind of book that sneaks up on you, smiles politely, and then refuses to let go. It’s hard to put down, and you’ll burn a lot of calories deciding which characters to like or hate. The novel walks a tightrope between psychological dread and page-turning fun, never tipping into pretension or camp. It’s smart without being smug, dark without being cruel, and relentlessly readable. Like the best mass-market suspense of the past, it respects the reader’s intelligence while still delivering the goods.

Bottom line: The Housemaid is a modern paperback thriller with vintage instincts—fast, sharp, and unsettling in all the right ways. Fans of classic psychological noir, especially readers who appreciate the domestic menace and sexual tension found in Orrie Hitt’s work, will feel right at home here.

And if you finish the last page wanting more, you’re in luck: the story continues in two sequels, expanding the world McFadden so efficiently sets in motion.

Get the book HERE.