Books Like The Housemaid

Freida McFadden's The Housemaid took the domestic thriller formula and stripped it to its essentials — a woman in a vulnerable position, an employer with secrets, a power dynamic that keeps shifting in disturbing ways, and a twist that arrives like a slap. McFadden's pacing is relentless, her reveals are genuinely surprising, and the novel launched one of the most commercially successful thriller series of the 2020s. If you've read The Housemaid and immediately need to know what to read next, you're in exactly the right place.

15 Books Like The Housemaid

1. The Housemaid's Secret by Freida McFadden
Start here. The direct sequel follows Millie Calloway into a new position with a new family — and a new set of secrets that are just as dark as the Winchesters'. McFadden maintains the same pacing and twist-per-chapter ratio as the original. Read the entire series: The Housemaid, The Housemaid's Secret, The Housemaid Is Watching, The Housemaid Is Waiting. Buy on Amazon | Browse Freida McFadden books in order →

2. The Coworker by Freida McFadden
McFadden's standalone about an awkward office worker who goes missing and the colleague who becomes entangled in the investigation. Her standalones maintain exactly the same formula as the Housemaid series — an unreliable narrator, a workplace or domestic power dynamic, and a twist that completely reframes the story. Buy on Amazon | Browse Freida McFadden books in order →

3. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The originating text for the domestic thriller wave McFadden is the current queen of. Nick Dunne's wife Amy disappears on their anniversary. Both narrators are hiding things. Flynn established the standard for the dual unreliable narrator domestic thriller that McFadden has refined and accelerated into a production line of compulsively readable thrillers. Buy on Amazon | Browse Gillian Flynn books in order →

4. Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
The most structurally similar novel to The Housemaid — a woman in a domestic situation where the power dynamic is catastrophically wrong, a secret being maintained through control and fear, a slow-build reveal that makes everything that preceded it click into place. Paris' novel is darker and less twist-driven than McFadden's but shares the same DNA. Buy on Amazon

5. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
A woman shoots her husband and stops speaking. A therapist is determined to find out why. The power dynamic between therapist and patient mirrors the employer-employee dynamic in The Housemaid, and Michaelides' reveal is as carefully prepared as McFadden's best work. Buy on Amazon | Browse Alex Michaelides books in order →

6. The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine
Amber Patterson decides she wants Daphne Parrish's wealthy, beautiful life and methodically infiltrates it. Like The Housemaid, the novel is built on a power dynamic between two women — one apparently in control, one apparently serving — and pivots to reveal that the apparent hierarchy is completely wrong. Constantine's twist is less abrupt than McFadden's but equally satisfying. Buy on Amazon

7. The Au Pair by Emma Rous
Seraphine discovers that on the day she and her twin brother were born, the family's au pair fell to her death from the cliffs of the family's Norfolk estate — and her mother died shortly after. Rous alternates between past and present to unravel what actually happened in a novel that shares The Housemaid's interest in the lives of women employed in domestic roles and the secrets they're required to keep. Buy on Amazon

8. The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
A couple leaves their infant with a baby monitor and attends a dinner party next door. The baby is taken. The investigation dismantles every assumption. Lapena's pacing matches McFadden's — fast, twist-heavy, never letting the reader settle — and her interest in what hides behind the polished surfaces of affluent domestic life is identical. Buy on Amazon

9. Verity by Colleen Hoover
Struggling writer Lowen is hired to complete a bestselling author's series and discovers an unfinished manuscript that reads like a confession. Hoover's thriller is darker than her romance novels and its central ambiguity — is the manuscript real or a trap? — plays with the same question of power and trust between women that makes The Housemaid compelling. Buy on Amazon | Browse Colleen Hoover books in order →

10. The Nanny by Gilly Macmillan
Jo returns to her childhood home and discovers that the body of her beloved childhood nanny — who disappeared thirty years ago — has been found in the lake. Macmillan's dual-timeline structure reconstructs what happened through two women's perspectives decades apart, with the same interest in domestic power and hidden secrets as McFadden. Buy on Amazon

11. The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani
Opens with the murder of two children by their nanny. The novel then works backward to explain how it happened. Slimani's literary thriller is more interested in class and immigration than in conventional thriller mechanics, but shares The Housemaid's deep unease about the dynamics of employing someone to live in your home and care for your most vulnerable. Buy on Amazon

12. The Good House by Tananarive Due
A horror-adjacent recommendation for Housemaid readers who want their domestic dread with a supernatural edge. Angela Toussaint returns to the house where her son died six years earlier and discovers that something in the house has been waiting for her. Due's novel shares McFadden's interest in a home that harbors something deeply wrong. Buy on Amazon

13. The Girl Before by JP Delaney
Two women — Emma then, Jane now — each agree to live in a stunning minimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect, subject to a strict set of rules. Delaney's novel alternates between their stories to reveal what happened to Emma and what is now happening to Jane in ways that echo The Housemaid's interest in the power that living arrangements can give one person over another. Buy on Amazon

14. Never Never by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher
Two high-school sweethearts wake up with no memory of who they are or how they got there. The mystery of what happened between them unfolds across three novellas. Faster and more propulsive than Hoover's standalone work and closer to McFadden's rhythm of short chapters building to rapid-fire revelations. Buy on Amazon

15. The It Girl by Ruth Ware
April Clarke-Cliveden was the most magnetic, dangerous person at Oxford. Now she's dead, killed by the college porter who died in prison. When new evidence emerges, her former friends must revisit what they actually saw and knew. Ware's novel shares The Housemaid's interest in what we don't see about the people we think we know well. Buy on Amazon | Browse Ruth Ware books in order →

Looking for more? Browse our Top 50 Mystery and Thriller Authors or the complete Freida McFadden reading order →