She took on the bookstores. The cleaning ladythriller written by Freida McFadden, imposed itself in 2024 as the number one sales in eight countries, including France (with 2 million copies sold). To the point that he “There is no point in having other books in stores, it is as if they did not exist »testifies on the social network Bluesky Bastien Prenat, bookseller at Masséna in Nice.
The phenomenon is not about to run out of steam, since To prof, The new novel by the successful American author is released in France this Wednesday, April 16. The pocket version of another of his books, The shrink, Also appeared on the same day, with 200,000 copies set up in bookstores.
Self -published on the Amazon platform since 2013, Freida McFadden was however almost unknown to the French public until 2023, when editions I read and City Editions publish The cleaning lady. In this trilogy, a former detainee becomes the employee of a rich family, whose perfect varnish gradually exists to make way for strange behavior. A page turner (“Tourne-Page”) who would have conquered to Jordan Bardella, president of the national rally or the deputy on the left Clémentine Autain. An adaptation to the cinema is also underway, with the actresses Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney.
An accessible style
One of the keys to the success of Freida McFadden’s novels is due to its ability to seduce (among others) an audience that is not very follower of reading, thanks to a simple style, close to orality with short and impactful sentences. The cleaning lady Thus became viral with young adults on Tiktok, thanks to the hashtag #Booletk, which brings together a community around books of books. “At 26, I have never read novels before in my life, but at a time when I speak to you I am already half of the second volume”testifies a reader on the social network.
Like Mary Higgins Clark, the novelist sets up in each of her intrigues a well -established method to make her reader addicted. Each volume opens onto a shock, a crime near being committed or which has just taken place. How did we get there? Who is the victim? The author then rewinds the events, with short chapters, all sprinkled with a good dose of suspense, against the backdrop of domestic violence, family plots, romance or cruelty.
Sometimes qualified as “Station literature”these novels represent for some a gateway to the genre of thriller. “” I don’t read this type of book at all “Confides Priscilla, 24 years old and more follower of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Albert Camus. “But the end of volume 1 of The cleaning lady make you want to know the rest! »she adds, qualifying him as a book “Perfect for holidays”. Available on all audio books platforms, sold at € 8.60 in pocket format, these novels are also easily accessible.
“What would I have done in this situation?” »»
No public appearance because it would suffer from social anxiety, no visu interview… Freida McFadden remains a mystery. Several-pumes hide behind the same nickname? Are these novels written by an artificial intelligence? If the accusations she was the victim are unfounded, the 44 -year -old American author is a doctor, a specialist in brain damage. “She must therefore understand how the mechanisms of frustration, impatience, then reward” work “confides to AFP its French translator Karine Forestier.
« This is felt in the psychological development of his characters, and that is in my opinion what makes his novels so interesting », Underlines Lily, 27, who admits having devoured his first Freida McFadden “In one night”. In the author’s pages, the truth is never the one we believe. “Nothing is all white or all black in his intrigues, and in the end, we stay with this question: what would I have done in this situation?” »»explains the young woman. And despite certain incredible twists and turns, “The motivations of the characters remain very credible”.