The Wife Upstairs
Freida McFadden, 2020
Mystery, thriller & crime Contemporary fiction
A new life in a house with a damaged wife upstairs and a diary that will not stay shut.
Feels like dread and serenity. About death and friendship.
A page from the book
Some houses are haunted by things that are too alive.
I can’t say to him what I’m really thinking, which is that this house gives me the creeps. Maybe Victoria loved it here, but I don’t. And for that matter, his wife gives me the creeps too. There’s something about her and that blank expression that terrifies me. It’s an awful thing to say about a woman who has been through something horrible, but I can’t help it. Freida McFadden.Freida McFadden is a physician who specializes in brain injury, a background that gives the novel’s recovery detail its clinical edge.
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.
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Questions readers ask
- What is The Wife Upstairs like?
- Feels like dread and serenity. About death and friendship.
- What should I read after The Wife Upstairs?
- If you liked The Wife Upstairs, try The Hunting Party (Lucy Foley), Verity (Colleen Hoover) and The Good Girl (Mary Kubica).
A taste of the feed
How little pressure it takes to find out what someone really is.
Some people, given just the right amount of pressure, taken out of their usual, comfortable environments, don’t need much encouragement at all to become monsters. And sometimes you just get a strong sense about people, and you can’t explain it; you simply know it, in some deeper part of yourself.
The Hunting Party · Lucy Foley
Some people keep a darker world on hand so the real one stays bearable.
I needed for the imaginary version of my world to be darker than my real world. Otherwise, I would have wanted to leave them both.
Verity · Colleen Hoover
The relief of letting someone else carry your sadness, just for a moment.
But he holds me so tightly that for a moment, the emotions are at bay. The sadness and fear, the regret and the loathing. He bottles them up inside his arms so that for a split second I don’t have to be the one carrying the weight of them. For this moment, the burden is his.
The Good Girl · Mary Kubica
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