Best-selling The Housemaid author Freida McFadden reveals true identity

Best-selling The Housemaid Author Freida McFadden Reveals True Identity

A long-standing publishing enigma has finally been unraveled, as the internationally acclaimed author behind the blockbuster thriller The Housemaid disclosed her real name. Known to millions of readers under the pseudonym Freida McFadden, she has now confirmed that her true identity is Sara Cohen.

From Pseudonym to Reality

Cohen initially adopted the pen name to conceal her medical background, which she detailed in her debut novel, The Devil Wears Scrubs, self-published in 2013. The name Freida was chosen as a nod to a medical database, the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database. She continued writing while practicing as a neurologist in Boston, Massachusetts, and her career as a thriller author began to gain traction after publishing psychological suspense novels.

“I’m at a point in my career when I’m tired of this being a secret,” Cohen shared with USA Today. “I’m tired of people debating if I’m a real person or if I’m three men. I am a real person and I have a real identity and I don’t have anything to hide.”

Her secret was kept until 2025, when she decided to reveal her identity to the public. At that time, McFadden was the second-highest-selling author in the UK, with 2.6 million books sold, and had amassed six million print copies in the United States. This success was driven by the 2022 release of The Housemaid, which was adapted into a film starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried the previous year.

Only Julia Donaldson, the author of The Gruffalo, surpassed McFadden’s UK sales in 2025. Cohen’s literary output includes 29 novels, and she has already claimed the best-seller list this year with three titles: The Housemaid, Want to Know a Secret?, and Dear Debbie.

Motivations Behind the Secret

For years, Cohen maintained her dual life, fearing that her patients might feel uneasy about being treated by a best-selling author. “At work, I want to be a doctor,” she explained to the New York Times in 2024. “Many of my books have medical themes, and I don’t want people asking, ‘Is this based on me?’ It feels unprofessional.”

“I love that people are reading my books,” she said in 2024. “But the spotlight on me specifically is hard… It’s not just about privacy but also about social anxiety. My success as an author has made me fear I may not be ‘that amazing person everyone expects you to be.'”

Cohen’s decision to step away from her medical career came in 2023, allowing her to reduce her workload and eventually reveal her identity. “My whole goal was to keep it a secret until I was ready to step back from my doctor job,” she told USA Today. “It wouldn’t be like everyone I work with suddenly knew and it compromised my ability to do my job.”

By 2025, the secret had become harder to maintain. A colleague at the hospital recognized her in a Freida McFadden photograph, sparking the reveal. “The cat is out of the bag,” she admitted to the Times in January 2025. “But they’ve been really respectful about not posting anything about me on social media, and I tried to repay them with a book signing at work.”

For public appearances, Cohen wears a wig—partly because “I have no idea how to style my hair,” she joked. Despite the name change, she remains committed to her pen name, stating: “Even though I haven’t told my real name until now, I feel like I have shared the real me all along. Everything I’ve told them has been the truth. The name will be a surprise, but nothing else will. I’ve always been genuine with my readers.”