Freida McFadden’s latest thriller, The Witch, was published on Oct. 6, 2026, just weeks before Halloween. Now available on Amazon and in local bookstores, the novel takes readers somewhere quite different from the modern-day homes, workplaces and family dramas readers have come to associate with her books.
Moving between present-day Woodhaven, Massachusetts, and the same region in 1692, McFadden introduces readers to a setting that feels quite different from the ones in her previous thrillers. There are strange happenings, unexplained phenomena, intriguing characters and, of course, the twists and jaw-dropping climax McFadden’s readers have come to expect.
McFadden became a household name with The Housemaid (2022), which after its success, was adapted into a film released in December 2025. She followed with the sequels, The Housemaid’s Secret and The Housemaid Is Watching. Her other popular thrillers include Never Lie, The Coworker, The Teacher, The Divorce and The Boyfriend, among others.
The Housemaid won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Paperback Original in 2023, while The Housemaid’s Secret won the 2023 Goodreads Choice Award in the Readers’ Favorite Mystery & Thriller category. In 2026, McFadden was also named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people.
In The Witch, the protagonist, Julia Barlow, finds herself returning to her family’s sprawling estate, Pemberton, in rural Massachusetts after losing both her job and her apartment. To Julia, at first, it seems like a warm reunion with her grandmother in the house she spent her childhood in, but it soon becomes clear that there is much more going on in the old house.
The house makes disturbing creaks and groans, a grandfather clock stops at 3:41, the kitchen lights flicker for no reason, and a voice cries for help outside her bedroom every night. Disturbed by the strange occurrences and desperate to understand what’s happening, Julia begins to dig deeper into her family’s history and stumbles upon the story of Caroline Eldridge, a woman accused of witchcraft and sentenced to execution.
As the story moves back in time, Caroline’s marriage, the accusations of witchcraft levelled against her and the threat of execution add another layer to the mystery, bringing attention to the fear and suspicion surrounding witchcraft, and how easily women in 17th-century Massachusetts could become targets simply for being different.
McFadden has experimented with a past-and-present storyline before. The Locked Door, for instance, moves between Nora’s childhood and her adult life, gradually revealing how the past connects to the mystery in the present. But The Witch takes this approach further by going back more than three centuries. And then there is the ending. McFadden has always known how to deliver a twist, and The Witch is no exception. She has a way of bringing together details that may not seem particularly significant at first and making them matter when the truth finally comes out.
That said, readers who pick up McFadden for her fast-paced, present-day settings may find the historical chapters slower going. A large part of the novel takes place in 17th-century Massachusetts, which adds a different dimension to the mystery but may not hold everyone’s attention.
Ultimately, The Witch is a refreshing change from what readers expect from Freida McFadden. The historical setting gives it a distinct feel without losing the twisty, compulsive storytelling that makes her books so enjoyable.