Six Books to Read Around Halloween if You Love Freida McFadden
By J.E. Rowney, psychological thriller author
If you love Freida McFadden, Halloween 2026 has an easy answer: her new novel, The Witch, publishes on 6 October. Start there.
The harder question is what to read alongside it or after it. This post looks at five other seasonal books and is honest about each one: what might appeal to a McFadden reader, and where it’s a different kind of book. Some sit close to domestic psychological suspense. Others are horror-tinged, romance-led or darkly comic, and it’s better to know that before you buy.
To be clear: Freida McFadden hasn’t endorsed any of these books, and comparisons here are mine, based on official descriptions.
Affiliate disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy a book through one, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Start with: The Witch by Freida McFadden
Her publisher calls it a chilling, twist-filled thriller, and it puts a McFadden heroine somewhere new. Julia Barlow, jobless and homeless, retreats to Pemberton, her family’s seventeenth-century estate in rural Massachusetts, supposedly to check on her ageing grandmother.
What’s different this time is the history. The publisher describes interwoven narratives of colonial terror and modern unease, centred on a woman executed for witchcraft in 1692, and asks whether the danger at Pemberton is magic or madness. If you’ve read The Housemaid, you know her fondness for houses with secrets. This one has had three centuries to collect them.
Get The Witch by Freida McFadden
How the other five compare
| Book | What may appeal to McFadden readers | How it differs |
|---|---|---|
| Mischief Night | A woman living in someone else’s house; domestic secrets | Told as a 31-chapter October countdown |
| The Halloween Stranger | A stranger in the home; a heroine questioning her instincts | A novella, not a full-length novel |
| Salem’s Rise | A woman investigating a powerful family’s secrets | Romance-led; dark academia; deadly games |
| The 31st | Psychological focus on a troubled mind | Openly supernatural; teenage protagonist; cliffhanger ending |
| Halloween House Murder | A woman with a dangerous secret life | Vigilante revenge; a recurring character; novella |
Closest in feel: domestic suspense
Mischief Night by J.E. Rowney
Yes, this is my own book, so read my pitch with that in mind.
The setup will feel familiar to anyone who likes a heroine stuck in a house she doesn’t own. After a flood, the narrator stays at her sister Lucy’s home while Lucy and her husband Aaron spend October in Cyprus. Lucy’s welcome is warm, and her list of jobs is long: clean the carpet, take the rug to the tip, sort the old clothes. Then Aaron’s wedding ring turns up and his daughter starts asking questions.
Where it differs: it’s told in 31 dated chapters, so you can read it as a Halloween countdown, one a day. Or don’t, and binge.
The Halloween Stranger by Shade Owens
Recently divorced, short of money and running her town’s Harvest Festival, Claudia Rowan rents out her guest bedroom for two nights. The woman who arrives unsettles her, and the more Claudia digs, the stranger things get.
Where it differs: length. The listing is upfront that it’s a novella of around 30,000 words, not a full-length novel. Expect a shorter, more compressed read than a McFadden novel.
A step further from home: gothic, supernatural and romance
Salem’s Rise by Rektok Ross
Jacqueline enrols at an elite university to find out what happened to her brother, and ends up competing in the Rites, a secret society’s deadly game.
Where it differs: it’s a dark romantic thriller, and the publisher’s comparisons are to dark academia romances rather than domestic suspense. If you want McFadden-style marriages and households, this isn’t that. If you’d enjoy a gothic campus and an enemies-to-lovers storyline, it could be a welcome change.
The 31st: Mora’s Day of Terror by Franklin Christopher
On Halloween night, sixteen-year-old Mora Manning sees a version of herself in the mirror that doesn’t look right, and it seems to have heard every cruel thing she’s said.
Where it differs: the author calls it a supernatural psychological thriller, so the uncanny is out in the open rather than kept ambiguous. The protagonist is a teenager, and the book ends on a cliffhanger.
Halloween House Murder by Chris Colmenero
Betty the Butcher punishes a man who organises dog fights, then hosts a Halloween charity party in her haunted mansion.
Where it differs: the heroine is openly a killer, and the blurb’s tone is wry and macabre. It’s a standalone novella featuring a character from Christmas Market Murder, which the author recommends reading first.
The quick verdict
- Want the closest match? The Witch, then Mischief Night or The Halloween Stranger.
- Want McFadden-adjacent but different? Salem’s Rise for romance, The 31st for the supernatural, Halloween House Murder for revenge.
For McFadden-style reads that aren’t Halloween-themed, see my list of thrillers to read if you loved Freida McFadden. Finished The Witch already? Try what to read after The Witch.