Books Like The Housemaid: 10 Twisty Thrillers to Read Next

I spent years in TV writers’ rooms, where calling the twist early is a professional sport, and the domestic thriller is my favorite sparring partner: all those pretty houses with load-bearing secrets. The Housemaid turned that formula into a phenomenon. Millie, a maid with a record, moves into the Winchester house, meets a locked attic door, and an entire generation of readers became twist addicts overnight.

So if you’re hunting for books like The Housemaid, good news: the supply exists. Freida McFadden just set the bar for how fast a book like this should move. I read 80+ books a year (likely 100+ this year). I’ve rated the ones I’ve read below, and the rest earned their spots from the books-like-The-Housemaid Reddit threads and BookTok deep dives I scrape to keep lists like this fresh.

The best books like The Housemaid are domestic thrillers where an outsider enters a wealthy household and the power keeps flipping. Start with The Last Mrs. Parrish, escalate to Gone Girl, and read my serialized romantic thriller Let Me Be Your Ghost for the ghostwriter’s version of walking into a rich man’s house with secrets of your own.

1. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

This book is about… Alicia Berenson shoots her husband five times and never speaks another word. Theo, a psychotherapist with an agenda of his own, becomes obsessed with making her talk.

Subgenre: psychological thriller.

Why it’s here: The other gateway-drug thriller of the decade, and the twist most often mentioned in the same breath as McFadden’s. If someone has read exactly two thrillers, they’ve read these two.

2. The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

This book is about… Amber Patterson engineers a friendship with a gilded Connecticut wife because she wants the husband, the house, and the life. Halfway through, the book hands the microphone to the wife, and everything you thought you were reading changes.

Subgenre: domestic thriller, social-climber division.

Why it’s here: The closest thing to The Housemaid’s exact pleasure: an outsider infiltrating a rich household, and a mid-book perspective flip that re-deals the entire deck.

3. First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

This book is about… Evie Porter is a professional con artist with a fresh identity, a new boyfriend, and a boss she has never met — until a woman shows up wearing the name Evie was born with.

Subgenre: con-artist thriller.

Why it’s here: For Housemaid readers who loved Millie’s competence more than her captivity. Evie always has a plan, and watching the plans collide is the sport.

4. Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

This book is about… Jack and Grace are the couple everyone envies — he’s charming, she’s poised, and dinner at their house is perfect. The book is about why Grace is never seen alone.

Subgenre: domestic thriller, the claustrophobic end.

Why it’s here: The Housemaid’s menace without the wink. This one plays it straight and mean. Readers call it the hardest to put down and the hardest to read, usually in the same review, so check the content warnings.

5. The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

This book is about… An ex-wife obsessed with her replacement. A young fiancée with doubts. The book is counting on you assuming you know which is which.

Subgenre: psychological suspense.

Why it’s here: It runs on the same engine as the Winchester house: your certainty about who’s the victim is the trap.

6. None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

This book is about… A podcaster meets her “birthday twin” in a pub, agrees to make her a subject, and lets her into her home. The woman never really leaves.

Subgenre: psychological thriller, docu-style.

Why it’s here: The invited-the-monster-in premise, told partly through podcast transcripts that make you feel complicit. Jewell is the genre’s steadiest pair of hands.

7. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This book is about… On their fifth anniversary, Amy Dunne disappears and her diary starts testifying. Two narrators, zero reliable ones.

Subgenre: domestic thriller, the genre’s high-wire act.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 stars. Still the act every book on this list is performing under. It got me, and I call twists for a living. Read my full review here!

8. Verity by Colleen Hoover

This book is about… A struggling writer moves into the Crawford house to finish an injured author’s series and finds an unpublished manuscript that reads like a confession.

Subgenre: romantic thriller.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars. Honesty corner: the concept out-creeps everything else on this list, and the back half doesn’t keep the first half’s promise. Read it fast, read it once, then read my full review. If that flavor is your favorite, I built a whole books like Verity list.

9. Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger

This book is about… Three couples, one luxury cabin, a storm, a host who’s a little too attentive, and a getaway that curdles right on schedule.

Subgenre: locked-room thriller, vacation-rental edition.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars. A dependable getaway thriller, predictability and all — well-carpentered, professionally paced, never quite shocking. For the beach chair, not the bunker. Read my full review here!

10. 🌁 Let Me Be Your Ghost by Amy Suto (Yes, Me)

Yes, I’m putting my own book on this list. Millie would respect the audacity.

This book is about… Lola Whitman has built a career disappearing into other people’s stories. As a memoir ghostwriter, she’s invisible by design. Then Ezekiel Crane walks in — billionaire, tech CEO, defense industry darling — and asks her to write his memoir. He’s charming, he’s dangerous, and he’s hiding something. So is she.

Subgenre: romantic thriller (billionaire romance with murder-mystery bones).

What I hope you’ll love about it: The Housemaid’s whole engine is a woman stepping into a rich household that assumes it controls the story. Lola is my version: the hired help nobody worries about, except she’s the one holding the pen. I’m serializing her story chapter by chapter on my Substack. The first four chapters are free, and new installments drop weekly.

I Update This List

A warning while you’re shopping this shelf: if a blurb promises Housemaid energy and delivers a character study where nothing happens, put it down slowly. I gave The Guest three stars for exactly that: a con artist who never cons anyone.

Otherwise, I add new contenders as they earn their spots. The books like Verity list covers the romantic-thriller end of this shelf, the billionaire romance books list keeps the mansions and swaps dread for desire, and my ranked romantasy books on Kindle Unlimited list is where I go to recover from all of the above.

FAQ: Books Like The Housemaid

Is The Housemaid part of a series?

Yes. Freida McFadden followed it with The Housemaid’s Secret and The Housemaid Is Watching, and they read best in order. This list is for when you’ve run out.

What should I read after The Housemaid?

For the closest match, The Last Mrs. Parrish. For the twist you’ll never call, Gone Girl. For the household-with-secrets premise with a romance running through it, my serialized romantic thriller Let Me Be Your Ghost, where the first four chapters are free.

Are books like The Housemaid on Kindle Unlimited?

Many are. McFadden built her career inside Kindle Unlimited, and several picks here rotate through it. If you’re already paying for KU, my romantasy Kindle Unlimited list covers the fantasy end of the membership.

Now go find out what’s behind the attic door. And if a charming rich family offers you a live-in job with suspiciously good pay, maybe ask a few questions first. I’m rooting for you.