As one of those double identity superheroes, Freida McFadden (New York, 45 years old) is, during the working day, a medical specialized in brain injuries that works in Boston, United States. His free time surely dedicated him to writing, because outside the hospital she is an author of supervantant novels, the fashion writer within the genre of the thriller Psychological, which raises passions and sells specimens per tons. “He lives with his family and his black cat in a three -story house and centuries in front of the sea,” he says in the flap of his books, and is the little personal information that is known about her. With his stories full of intrigue and unexpected script turns, this woman with glasses and bangs, so prolific (more than 20 books in 12 years), has dispatched more than 750,000 copies in Spain (only since 2023) and more than 20 million worldwide. It seems attached to superglue To the list of the best selling: it is always there. And, like a superhero, he is very jealous of his secret identity.
His best known work is the series that begins with the novel At the assistancearound a wealthy family, the Winchester, who hires Millie as internal domestic worker: clean the house, picks up the school girl, prepares delicious meals for the whole family before being held to eat alone in her small room. All correct … with the particularity that this assistant has a mysterious criminal past. And that the apparent perfection of the life of the Winchester is just a facade. And that his room only closes from the outside. And from there … everything is looked.
The story that is raised is developed in At the assistance, The Secret of the Assistant, To the nurse you are vigila o The wedding of the assistantall of them published in Spain, since 2023, by sum of letters. What is the secret of your success? “McFadden writes in a simple but very effective way, his plots are disturbing and very fast, they do not take respite the reader and play with their expectations taking a conclusion to the next one. When you think you know the answers, a new turn makes them jump through the air,” says Inés Vergara, literary director of fiction and international commercial non -fiction of the Group Penguin Random House, to which it belongs. “It is the queen of the finals that fly your head.”
Right now his novels occupy the second, third, eighth, nineteenth and twenty -position positions in the list of Amazon’s best -selling books in Spain. An adaptation to the cinema of At the assistancewith Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney. And on July 10, his new work was published in Spain, Never lieabout a couple, Tricia and Ethan, who, in search of the house of their dreams, is immersed in a mystery in the remote mansion of a missing psychiatrist.
McFadden is a figure as mysterious as the plots of his novels: it is difficult to find his photos beyond those provided by the publisher (and in which the author provides always seems to have the same appearance and the same gesture). His name is not his name: he is a pseudonym, because he wants to avoid his patients the strange feeling of being treated by an author best-seller. “At work, I want to be a doctor. Many of my books have medical things, and I don’t want people to say: ‘Is this based on me?’… It seems unprofessional,” he told The New York Times in one of the few interviews he has granted.
Of ‘Amateur’ a ‘best-seller’
Writing at night, as an entertainment (novels had always wanted to write) began to self -publish in 2013 through Amazon, books related to the medical world based on their own work experience; For example, The Devil Wears Scrubs (Something like The Devil goes in Bata), which deals with a doctor who is exploited and humiliated by his supervisor. “I thought: maybe I publish this book, you may buy it a thousand people and with that my story is over as an author,” said McFadden to The New York Times. “But it wasn’t what happened.”
He managed to emerge among thousands of anonymous applicants to the Parnassus of the letters and claims to have obtained through the Digital Book and the Audiolibro (of which he maintains the rights, in a very advantageous contract) 60% of his income. The phenomenon began when in 2021 the Bookauture label was set, specialized in electronic books, and hired his most famous novel to send it through his newsletter.
And from there the unexpected literary hatching: traditional stamps in the Penguin Random House group, paper editions and great presence not only in bookstores but also in airports, stations and large commercial surfaces, as corresponds to this type of commercial literature and superventas. The thrillers McFadden attract all kinds of readers, of all ages and profiles, are accessible to the exciting torque. And they leave more. “We are observing that they are attracting many young people, and people in general, who may not have deeply entrenched reading habits, but have heard of At the assistance And they feel curious, ”says Vergara. And they usually get hooked.
Daughter of a psychiatrist and a podiatry, raised in Manhattan, reader from a young age from suspense teachers such as Mary Higgins Clark or Robin Cook, McFadden is the most followed author on the Good Readers platform, where her fans club has more than 3,200 members (they are nicknamed McFans) That they have animated conversations: they wonder about their book or their favorite character, the next reading is suggested, the most acidic put on the table the question of whether the writer copys other authors. The phenomenon also owes a lot to the social network Tiktok, where thousands of people comment on the stories. “At the assistance It is the book of the moment and people do not want to remain without experiencing it by itself and sharing their opinion, ”says Vergara.
But McFadden suffers some social anxiety (it may be due to the bullying he suffered in his childhood), which makes it avoid interviews and even presentations, talks or meetings with the public: the literary life that attracts other writers so much. From what is seen, it doesn’t need. “I don’t want to write War and peace“McFadden said,” I just try to entertain. ”