Frieda McFadden is a number one New York Times bestselling author known for her

gripping psychological thrillers and sharp medical novels. When she's not writing, she's a physician,

specializing in brain injury.

Frida has been a lifelong reader and writer, even while pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor,

she never stopped writing.

She self-published her first novel, The Devil Wears Scrubs, in 2013, never imagining that

2022 would bring a tidal wave called The Housemaid.

Her devoted readers proudly call themselves the McFans, but Freed herself prefers to stay private,

writing under a pseudonym. In this rare interview, I sat down with Freed at a talk about

how she balances life as a physician and a thriller writer, how she crafts

her trademark twists, and the new film adaptation of The Housemaid, starring Sidney and Amanda

Seifred. I'm Jenna Bush-Haker, welcome to my podcast, Open Book with Jenna.

Thank you.

Of all the authors, like you've been on my bucket list because you had such an incredible rise. And one of the things that I find so amazing about your writing journey in

particular is that like you believed in yourself before anybody did. You self-published.

And there was this audience that found you. So talk about

sort of why you knew and why you felt like these stories that you had inside of you should be

published. Well, first of all, I just want to say it's such an honor to be here. Thank you so

much for having me on the show. And yeah, I've always loved to write. I've been

writing stories since I was nine years old. And I just wanted to show them to people. That was always

the fun part. I would write it and I'd show like my mom or my dad or my teacher. I have so many

teachers that, like, believed in me. And I was just doing what I've

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