Headline, July 05 2024/ HONOURS : ''' BEST AUTHOR BEST '''

HONOURS : 

''' BEST AUTHOR BEST '''

A BOSTON M.D. AND A BEST-SELLER MACHINE. After her first self-publishing, Freida McFadden now tops America's thriller writers.

When Freida McFadden self-published her first novel, '' The Devil Wears Scrubs,'' more than a decade ago, she figured it would mark both the start and the end of her literary career.

Growing up in Midtown Manhattan, McFadden was a brainy kid, a math team member who loved reading and filled up composition notebooks with stories. Her father, a psychiatrist, constantly pressed literary fiction into her hands, while her mother, a podiatrist, introduced her to suspense and thrillers.

As a student at Harvard, McFadden toyed with the idea of becoming a mathematician, but decided to pursue medicine.

McFadden, a doctor who treats brain disorders, had a demanding day job, and was raising two small children.

But she'd always wanted to write fiction. So to entertain herself at night, she wrote a heavily autobiographical novel about a medical resident who is overworked and humiliated by a domineering supervisor.

'' I thought, maybe I'll publish this book, maybe a thousand people will buy it, and I'll be done, end of my author story,'' McFadden said from her home outside Boston, where she lives with her husband, an engineer, their two children, 13 and 17, and a cat named Ivy.

'' That did not happen,'' she added. Eleven years, 23 books and more than six million copies later, McFadden has become a seemingly permanent fixture on the best-seller list.

She is currently the top-selling thriller writer in the United States, beating brand names like James Patterson, David Baldacci and John Grisham so far this year, according to Circana BookScan.

Her addictive psychological thrillers are plastered across Amazon's best seller rankings - last Friday, she held the top spot on Kindle best-seller list, and had six novels in the top 50.

She also sells enormous quantities in print, not only in brick and mortar bookstores, but in grocery and pharmacy chains like Kroger, Alsi and Albertsons.

After a decade of self-publishing, McFadden signed a series of deals with Sourcebooks' mystery and thriller imprint. Poisoned Pen Press, which has acquired print rights to 15 of her books, a mix of new and backlist titles. Since last August, Poisoned Pen has released seven, with two more out this fall.

It's an unusually packed publication schedule for a single author, but the pace barely satisfies McFadden's insatiable readers who call themselves McFans.

'' Rather than waiting for her to write the next one, we're peppering in the earlier self -published books, so her fans are constantly being fed more Freida,'' said Paula Amendolara, senior vice president of sales at Sourcebooks.

McFadden's latest, '' The Housemaid Is Watching '' - the third installment in her series about a housekeeper who has a terrible secret and even more terrible bosses - came out on June 11 and sold more than 240,000 copies that first week.

It debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times trade paperback best-seller list, where McFadden has three books in the top 10.

'' The growth has just been explosive,'' Shannon DeVito, director of books at Barnes & Noble, said of McFadden's trajectory. '' She is now a household name.''

As ubiquitous as her books have become, the woman who writes them remains a bit of an enigma.

McFadden is a pen name; she is careful not to reveal her identity, mainly because, as a practising physician, she worries her patients might feel weird about being treated by a best-selling thriller writer.

'' At work, I want to be a doctor,'' she said. '' A lot of my books have medical stuff in them, and I don't want people saying, '' Is this based on me?' It feels unprofessional.''

McFadden is flattered but also flustered by the attention her books have generated. She avoids in-person events, in part to maintain her anonymity, and finds video calls and interviews unnerving.

'' Any situation that's not my typical routine makes me nervous,'' she said. '' I could go to work and talk to a dozen new patients and that's fine, but in a situation where people are like, ' Oh my God, it's Freida, ' that absolutely terrifies me.''

Even a recent Zoom event with librarians and library patrons had her spiraling. '' What if I have a coughing fit? What if I have a nosebleed?'' she said during a phone call the day before the Zoom, sounding panicked. [ It went fine ].

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Great Authors and Writings continues. The World Students Society thanks Alexandra Alter.

With most respectful dedication to the Global Founder Framers of The World Students Society, - the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world and then Students, Professors and Teachers.

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