By Alex, founder of Highstreett
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Books like The Housemaid, past the backlist and the titles every list already carries
Start with the obvious thing every other list buries: Freida McFadden has a whole backlist, and if you haven’t read The Housemaid’s Secret, Never Lie and The Teacher, those are your genuine next step. Once you’ve cleared her shelf, the three best picks are The Housekeeper (the closest premise match on any list), Rebecca (where this entire genre began) and Behind Closed Doors (the trapped-marriage dread at McFadden speed). Full picks below, sorted by which part of The Housemaid you loved. Last verified 10 September 2026.
Want the series itself first? The Housemaid books in order
Find another domestic thriller
Domestic thrillers are the most crowded recommendation genre on the internet: thousands of near-identical lists cycling the same dozen titles. So this one does two things differently. It assumes you already know McFadden’s own backlist is the first stop, and it spends its real effort on the under-listed picks, books checked against the standard lists and found on none of them. The method is the same as our other pages: split The Housemaid into the specific things readers loved, then match each one separately, with at least one well-known comp and at least one genuine discovery per section. One warning matters more here than anywhere: The Housemaid’s pleasure is speed, and the two most rewarding books that share its premise are slower and much darker. Pace is flagged on every pick so nobody gets mis-sold. No spoilers for anything.
What Highstreett returned for “books like The Housemaid”
- The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins (2014)
- The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides (2018)
- The Turn of the Key, Ruth Ware (2019)
- The Last Mrs. Parrish: A Novel, Liv Constantine (2017)
- Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (2011)
- Behind Closed Doors, B. A. Paris (2016)
See this result · run 3 September 2026
Editor’s verdict: Five of the six are already on this page and the sixth is The Girl on the Train, so this is very close to the standard domestic-thriller set, which is exactly the set the page was built to go past.
How this list was made: it starts from the Highstreett book search results above, run 3 September 2026 and shown as they came back. Alex, founder of Highstreett, chose the final list.
If you loved the outsider inside the wealthy house
1. The Maid, Nita Prose (2022)
well-known comp · cosy-leaning mystery · brisk pace
The domestic worker everyone underestimates, who notices more than they think: a hotel maid, a wealthy household's secrets, and the power gap between the person cleaning and the people being cleaned up after. Differs: warmer and gentler, a feel-good mystery rather than a menacing thriller. The dread and the sharp twist are dialled way down.
2. The Turn of the Key, Ruth Ware (2019)
well-known comp · gothic domestic thriller · steady pace
A live-in nanny in a wealthy, unsettling smart home, narrating her way toward a disaster you know is coming. The claustrophobic trapped-in-someone-else's-house energy. Differs: classic gothic slow burn rather than propulsive, and less interested in the class knife-twist.
3. The Housekeeper, Natalie Barelli (2019)
under-listed pick · psychological thriller · brisk, snarky pace
The closest premise twin on this page: a down-on-her-luck woman disguises herself, gets hired as housekeeper in a wealthy woman's beautiful home, and works an agenda from the inside, narrated by a morally grey anti-heroine with a hidden past. Differs: the revenge setup involves a false abuse allegation, which is heavier than it sounds, the plot asks for some suspension of disbelief, and it starts slow.
4. Lullaby, Leïla Slimani (2016, English translation 2018)
under-listed pick · literary thriller · slow, cold
The most searing version of the premise: a nanny embedded so deeply in a chic couple's home that the class and power fault lines beneath the perfect arrangement are laid completely bare. A Prix Goncourt winner and one of the great household-menace novels. Differs, and read this before buying: it is the opposite of a McFadden read. Literary, cold, slow, and it opens by telling you the nanny kills the children. No twist, no fun, genuinely disturbing. Recommended for the theme, with that warning stated plainly.
If you loved the menacing marriage and the gilded cage
5. Behind Closed Doors, B.A. Paris (2016)
well-known comp · domestic thriller · fast pace
The enviable house that's actually a prison and the charming husband who's a monster behind the door, delivered at McFadden speed. Differs: you know the villain from the start, so it trades the mid-book rug-pull for slowly tightening tension.
6. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (1938)
under-listed pick, the genre's ancestor · gothic classic · atmospheric, slower
The original of nearly everything on this page: a young woman out of her depth in a grand house, a controlling household, a menacing servant, a first marriage's shadow, and the slow realisation that nothing is what it seemed. Differs: it's a 1938 gothic, richer and slower than a modern page-turner, and the twist is psychological rather than mechanical. A gear change, and the payoff is why the genre exists.
If you loved the cat and mouse between the two women
7. The Last Mrs Parrish, Liv Constantine (2017)
well-known comp · domestic thriller · propulsive
A calculating outsider infiltrating a wealthy couple's marriage, then a perspective flip that turns your allegiance inside out. The who-is-actually-the-prey structure The Housemaid runs on. Differs: more soapy gloss than menace, and less claustrophobic than a one-house setting.
8. The Wife Between Us, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen (2018)
well-known comp · domestic thriller · fast
Built specifically to weaponise your assumptions about which woman is the victim and which the threat. Differs: the misdirection is the whole point, so it can feel engineered rather than lived in, and it's light on the class angle. If this axis is your favourite, The Housekeeper above is as much cat and mouse as it is upstairs-downstairs.
If you loved the twist
An honest note: you cannot recommend a twist without spoiling it, and every twisty domestic thriller worth naming is already on every list. So this section is the two dependable heavyweights rather than a manufactured discovery, and the genuine finds live in the sections above.
9. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (2012)
well-known comp · thriller · propulsive
The modern template for the narrator you trusted turning the story over on you, and the book most Housemaid comparisons quietly borrow from. Differs: sharper, nastier and more literary than McFadden.
10. The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides (2019)
well-known comp · thriller · fast
A single, well-built central twist and the same one-more-chapter pull. Differs: a psychotherapy frame rather than a household one, and the class angle is absent.
The Housemaid books in order
Read them in the order they came out: The Housemaid, The Housemaid’s Secret, then The Housemaid Is Watching. The short story The Housemaid’s Wedding was published last, but McFadden places it between the second and third books, or after the third. Her own series page lists only these four, and no further Housemaid book had been announced when we checked.
| Read | Book | First published | First edition | UK print edition now |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Housemaid | 26 April 2022 | Bookouture ebook and paperback, ISBN 9781803144382 | Hachette UK paperback 9781408728512 (27 April 2023) |
| 2 | The Housemaid’s Secret | 20 February 2023 | Bookouture ebook and paperback, ISBN 9781837901326 | Hachette UK paperback 9780349132600 (6 July 2023) |
| 2.5 | The Housemaid’s Wedding, a short story | November 2024 | Self-published ebook (Hollywood Upstairs Press) | Poisoned Pen Press paperback 9781628861891 (23 June 2026) |
| 3 | The Housemaid Is Watching | 11 June 2024 | Bookouture ebook; Poisoned Pen Press paperback, ISBN 9781464221132 | Poisoned Pen Press paperback 9781464223310 |
In the US, The Housemaid’s first print edition was Grand Central Publishing’s paperback (ISBN 9781538742570) on 23 August 2022. The 2025 film adapts the first book, and the sequel film adapts The Housemaid’s Secret (dates in the questions below).
Reading order checked 11 October 2026 against McFadden’s series page, the Hachette UK catalogue and publisher and library listings.
Which UK edition of The Housemaid should you get?
The story is the same in every edition. In the UK the book is published by Bookouture, part of Hachette UK, and there are three print editions: the original paperback, a hardback, and a second paperback released in November 2025.
| UK edition | ISBN | On sale |
|---|---|---|
| Paperback | 9781408728512 | 27 April 2023 |
| Hardback | 9780349132853 | 24 April 2025 |
| Paperback, second edition | 9780349132884 | 6 November 2025 |
Edition data checked against Hachette UK’s catalogue on 10 September 2026.
Which McFadden books you can buy in print in the UK
None of the McFadden books this page points you to is Kindle-only. What differs is who prints them. The first two Housemaid books have UK editions from Hachette UK; the others reach UK shops as the American publisher Sourcebooks’ editions.
| Book | In print in the UK | Printed by | Checked against |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Housemaid (2022) | Yes, paperback and hardback | Bookouture, Hachette UK | Hachette UK catalogue |
| The Housemaid’s Secret (2023) | Yes, paperback and hardback | Bookouture, Hachette UK | Hachette UK catalogue |
| The Housemaid Is Watching (2024) | Yes, the US paperback | Sourcebooks (Poisoned Pen Press) | Waterstones listing, ISBN 9781464223310 |
| Never Lie (2022) | Yes, the US paperback | Sourcebooks | Sourcebooks catalogue, ISBN 9781728296166 |
| The Teacher (2024) | Yes, the US paperback | Sourcebooks | Sourcebooks catalogue, ISBN 9781728296210 |
Checked 10 September 2026.
The honest bit
Sort by pace before you buy, because it’s the thing most likely to mismatch you. Fast and breezy, McFadden speed: Behind Closed Doors, The Wife Between Us, The Last Mrs Parrish and The Silent Patient. Steady or gothic: The Housekeeper (slow to start), The Maid, The Turn of the Key and Rebecca. Slow, literary and genuinely dark, go in knowing: Lullaby, which carries a real content warning stated in its entry. Hand a reader who loved The Housemaid for its speed a copy of Lullaby with no warning and you’ve mis-sold them, and not doing that is this page’s job.
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Questions
What order should I read The Housemaid books in?
Read them in the order they came out: The Housemaid (2022), The Housemaid's Secret (2023), then The Housemaid Is Watching (2024). The short story The Housemaid's Wedding (2024) fits between the second and third books, though McFadden says it also works after the third. Her own series page lists only those four.
Will there be a Housemaid 2 movie?
Yes. The Housemaid's Secret is scheduled for cinemas on 17 December 2027, with Sydney Sweeney returning and Kirsten Dunst joining the cast. The first film released in December 2025 and took around 400 million dollars worldwide, and Lionsgate greenlit the sequel in January 2026.
What should I read after The Housemaid if I've finished all of Freida McFadden's books?
The closest premise match is The Housekeeper by Natalie Barelli, a hired woman working an agenda inside a wealthy home. For the same trapped-house dread with more atmosphere, Rebecca is where the whole genre started, and Behind Closed Doors delivers the menacing-marriage version at the same speed McFadden writes.
Is The Housemaid based on a true story?
No. It's fiction, from Freida McFadden's 2022 novel. McFadden is a practising physician who writes psychological thrillers, and the book's film adaptation in 2025 turned it into one of the bestselling thriller franchises going.