Freida McFadden

#1 bestselling thriller author and brain injury physician. The Housemaid: 5M+ copies, BookTok sensation. Harvard math graduate. ITW Award winner. Translated into 45 languages. Master of jaw-dropping twists. Lives in creaky oceanside home.

#1 New York Times, Amazon Charts, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Sunday Times, and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author Freida McFadden is a physician who has penned multiple bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. Freida's work has been selected as one of Amazon Editors' best books of the year, she is the winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for best paperback, and she is a Goodreads Choice Award winner. Her novels have been translated into more than 45 languages.

Born May 1, 1980, McFadden grew up in midtown Manhattan with one sibling. Her parents, who later divorced, both worked in the medical field - her father was a psychiatrist and her mother a podiatrist. From an early age, McFadden expressed an interest in becoming a physician. McFadden went on to study mathematics at Harvard University. She later attended medical school, pursuing a career in medicine while continuing to write fiction and submit manuscripts to publishers and literary agents.

"Freida McFadden" is a pseudonym. She has explained that maintaining a stable medical career earlier in her writing life gave her financial security and allowed her to invest in marketing her books. As her author career expanded, she reduced her clinical work and now practices medicine only part time, 1-2 days a week, specializing in brain injury. This unique combination of medical expertise and storytelling creates psychologically authentic thrillers that explore human behavior under extreme circumstances.

Her 2022 book The Housemaid was an international bestseller, selling over 5 million copies, and was adapted for Lionsgate with Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried in leading roles, directed by Paul Feig. Filming began in January 2025, and it was released on December 19, 2025. The Coworker has been optioned by Sony. Her success exploded through BookTok, where readers obsessively discussed her signature jaw-dropping twists, accessible writing style, and domestic suspense that keeps you reading past bedtime.

Notable works include Never Lie, The Teacher, The Locked Door, The Inmate, and her newest release The Intruder (October 2025). McFadden's books feature short propulsive chapters, unreliable narrators, and midpoint twists that change everything - earning comparisons to Gillian Flynn and Ruth Ware. Freida lives with her family and cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.

McFadden represents a new era of authorship: self-publishing success meeting traditional publishing acclaim, BookTok buzz creating cultural phenomena, and dual careers proving you don't have to choose between medicine and literature. For aspiring writers, she's proof that persistence pays off - and that keeping your day job isn't giving up on your dreams.