The Housemaid author reveals her true identity and shocking day job

The best-selling author of a psychological thriller that was recently turned into a major film starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried has now revealed her true identity.

Since 2013 Freida McFadden has released 32 novels, with her best-know one hitting shelves in 2022.

The Housemaid– which has been described as delivering a ‘chilling tale of duplicity, jealousy and greed’ – follows a live-in housemaid to a wealthy family who must keep her real identity hidden at all costs.

As The New York Times put it – the book became a ‘monster hit’ following its release, later selling more than two million copies.

It also saw a surge in interest for McFadden’s previous novels.

Her other books The Surrogate Mother, The Tenant and The Teacher are also now set for big-screen adaptations.

However, up until this week, little has been known about the author.

In a new interview however, she’s now lifted the lid on just who she is – sharing that she’s not actually a full-time writer but actually works as a physician who treats brain disorders.

Her name is also Sara Cohen.

Speaking to USA Today, she said it ‘was time’ to finally reveal her true self.

‘I’m at a point in my career when I’m tired of this being a secret.

I’m tired of people debating if I’m a real person or if I’m three men,’ she said.

‘I am a real person, and I have a real identity, and I don’t have anything to hide.’
When her early books first got published, Cohen said she was living a double life and decided to use a pseudonym, wig and glasses to maintain her privacy in public.

As she put it, the decision to wear a wig simply came because she ‘has no idea how to style my hair’.

Despite having a string of popular novels, she’s also avoided doing book tours in the years since she began writing.

‘I see all these authors doing these huge book tours, which I never do, and I feel so bad that I never do it,’ she previously told Jenna Bush Hager on her Open Book podcast..

‘But I’m so scared of all of this stuff.

I get these lovely, lovely invitations, and I turn a lot of them down.’
The decision to keep her identity a secret was due to her concerns her writing ambitions might conflict with her job working in a hospital.

‘My whole goal was to keep it a secret until I was (ready to) step back from my doctor job, so it wouldn’t be like everyone I work with suddenly knew and it compromised my ability to do my job,’ she said.

Although her colleagues did eventually find out she was McFadden, Cohen said they were ‘really nice about it’ and kept the secret.

It also turns out many of them were passionate readers of her novels and were shocked when discovering they’d been working alongside their writer.

Authors who have kept their identities a secret

The Brontë Sisters– Charlotte, Emily, and Anne used male pseudonyms (Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell) in the 1840s to avoid sexist stereotypes.

Jane Austen– Her early novels including Sense and Sensibility were credited to being written ‘By A Lady’, with her name only being publicly revealed following her death in 1817.

Mary Shelley– Her 1818 novel Frankenstein was originally published anonymously.

Louisa May Alcott– Early in her career, the Little Woman author wrote lurid short stories and senseation novels under the pseudonym A.M.

Barnard.

Richard Bachman: Stephen King has used this pen name to publish more than one book per year after concerns he might ‘oversaturate the market’.

Elena Ferrante: The Italian author best known for the Neapolitan Novels has kept her identity secret since 1992, saying that ‘once books are written, they have no need of their authors’.

However, in 2023 Cohen stopped working full-time, admitting she was ‘completely overwhelmed from trying to do both’.

She still works part-time in a hospital.

As reported by the Daily Mail, she attended Harvard and earnt a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in applied mathematics in 2001, before going on to study medicine at SUNY Stony Brook in New York City, graduating in 2005.

She was then a resident at Stanford University until 2009, before going on to become a a fellow at the Boston VA Hospital until late June in 2010.

She started publishing books in 2013.

Although she’s now ‘unmasked’, the writer and doctor has said she’s relieved the secret is now out on the open, but that she’d like fans to still know her as ‘Freida’.

She also joked that the revelation was ‘more boring than anything that happens in my books’.

The Housemaid was adapted by Bridesmaids’ Paul Feig, drawing in nearly $400million (£298million) at the box office after being made on a budget of $35million (£26million).

In its review of the film last year, Metro wrote: ‘The Housemaid is a pulpy tongue-in-cheek adaptation of a breezy thriller that will slip down smoothly if you’re looking to digest something in sharp contrast to Christmas schmaltz.’
A sequel based on the novel The Housemaid’s Secret is also currently in development and is due to be released late next year.

Last year Cohen had three of the top 20 bestselling books of 2025 and has sold more than 20 million copies of her books to date.

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