Dear Debbie
Freida McFadden, 2025
Mystery, thriller & crime Contemporary fiction
An advice column becomes a weapon in a domestic thriller of ordinary houses, dark humour and very bad intentions.
Feels like serenity and dread. About death and society.
A page from the book
A domestic-help column for the wife who has run out of patience.
The next time your husband wakes you up from his snoring, take your pillow off the bed, and hold it over his face. Then with your hands, apply medium to firm pressure over the center of the pillow. Freida McFadden.Freida McFadden is the pen name of a physician; she wrote several novels while practicing medicine before The Housemaid became a word-of-mouth bestseller.
Books that feel like this
More by Freida McFadden
The Housemaid
Freida McFadden, 2024
A maid with a secret takes a job in a perfect house where the wife's kindness feels like a warning.
The Housemaid's Secret
Freida McFadden, 2023
Millie has cleaned up other people's secrets before. This penthouse has a locked door, a charming husband, and a wife who never comes out.
The Divorce
Freida McFadden, 2025
A divorce becomes a psychological standoff over custody, lawyers, and a wedding ring—while a voice in the narrator’s head insists something is wrong.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- What is Dear Debbie like?
- Feels like serenity and dread. About death and society.
- What should I read after Dear Debbie?
- If you liked Dear Debbie, try The Midnight Feast (Lucy Foley), The Turn of the Key (Ruth Ware) and The Last Thing He Told Me (Laura Dave).
A taste of the feed
The kind of drama that only a very comfortable life can produce.
Rich people problems. Ruby says they manage to make everything into a drama because when you have no real difficulty in your life you end up creating your own.
The Midnight Feast · Lucy Foley
The line works as a thesis for the epistolary thriller: the narrator’s voice is both evidence and defence.
People do go mad, you know, if you stop them from sleeping for long enough...
The Turn of the Key · Ruth Ware
How a tragedy hides inside an ordinary Tuesday.
This is the terrible thing about a tragedy. It isn’t with you every minute. You forget it, and then you remember it again.
The Last Thing He Told Me · Laura Dave
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