In brief
In an exciting revelation, Freida McFadden, the pseudonymous author behind the bestselling novel 'The Housemaid', has disclosed that her real name is Sara Cohen. McFadden, a popular figure in the literary world, had hidden her identity to separate her writing career from her profession as a doctor, fearing it could impact her relationships with patients. Now, she's ready to embrace both sides of her life, having achieved significant success as an author, with millions of books sold.
One of the biggest mysteries in publishing has been solved, after the best-selling US author known to millions of readers as Freida McFadden revealed her true identity. McFadden has been one of the world's most popular authors of recent years, thanks to thrillers like 'The Housemaid'. The author has never made a secret of the fact Freida McFadden is a pseudonym, and that she also works as a doctor, but had never revealed her real name.She has now told USA Today she is actually Sara Cohen. I'm at a point in my career when I'm tired of this being a secret, she explained. 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.Under the name McFadden, she was the second best-selling author of 2025 in the UK, selling 2.6 million books, and sold six million print copies in her home country. Those sales were fueled by the success of 'The Housemaid', which was first published in 2022 and was turned into a film last year starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. Only 'The Gruffalo' author Julia Donaldson sold more books overall than McFadden in the UK in 2025.Cohen initially chose a pen name to hide her true identity when she self-published her first book, a fictionalized account of her life as a resident doctor, titled 'The Devil Wears Scrubs', in 2013. She chose the name Freida as a medical in-joke - after a hospital training registry, the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database. She continued writing while working as a doctor specializing in brain disorders in Boston, Massachusetts, and her publishing career took off when she began penning psychological thrillers.However, she worried her patients might feel weird about being treated by a best-selling thriller writer. At work, I want to be a doctor, she said. But that success allowed her to go part-time as a doctor in 2023, and she has now scaled back that work further, making it easier to reveal her true identity.I just realized I was completely overwhelmed from trying to do both, Cohen mentioned. She revealed that one of her colleagues at the hospital had recognized her in a Freida photo, essentially revealing her identity.Cohen, or McFadden, still prefers the connection with her fans. Even though I haven't told my real name until now, I feel like I have shared the real me all along and everything I've told them has been the truth, she stated, reassuring her readers that her essence remains unchanged.
