We Speak Authors
Freida McFadden Conjures a Haunted New England Tale in ‘The Witch’
Freida McFadden has turned twist endings into a phenomenon, and her newest thriller leans all the way into the season. The Witch, published October 6 by Poisoned Pen Press, sends its heroine to a centuries-old Massachusetts estate where the past is anything but buried — and where something in the house is calling for help.
Julia Barlow has lost her job and her apartment, and with nowhere else to go she retreats to Pemberton, her family’s 17th-century estate, to check on her grandmother. The welcome is anything but warm. The clock stops at 3:41 a.m. The lights flicker. A voice cries out for help. And the deeper Julia digs into the house’s history, the darker it gets: the estate’s past reaches back to 1692, when a woman was executed there for witchcraft. What Julia uncovers is a story of inherited secrets — the kind a family buries for generations, and the kind that do not stay buried.
It is a natural next step for McFadden, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Housemaid, the breakout thriller adapted for the screen in a film starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. A practicing physician specializing in brain injury, she wrote for years under a pen name before revealing her true identity to readers in April 2026 — and her hold on the thriller charts has only tightened since. Her publisher has taken notice: Sourcebooks recently extended her deal through 2028.
With its haunted-house atmosphere and a mystery rooted in America’s witch-trial history, The Witch gives McFadden’s enormous readership a new setting to get lost in — and a new set of secrets to unravel. The 352-page hardcover is priced at $29.99 and is available now.
Erin Napier Brings Holiday Heart Home in ‘The Christmas House’
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Erin Napier understands that a house holds a family’s memory — and in her new picture book, the house gets to tell the story. The Christmas House, published October 6 by Tommy Nelson, is Napier’s holiday companion to her bestselling The Lantern House, told from the point of view of the house itself as it is decorated and filled with joy for Christmas.
Page by page, the house watches the season arrive: decorations are carried down from the attic, a hand-carved nativity is set out, cookies are baked, and a family treasure is uncovered in the basement. At the center of it all is Grandpa’s cracked wooden Christmas star — worn, imperfect, and the most important decoration of all — in a story that gently honors a family member who has passed and the way traditions keep loved ones present. Folk artist Adam Trest illustrates, in the same warm style that made The Lantern House a favorite.
Napier, beloved as a co-host of HGTV’s Home Town, announced the book to her followers in August, describing it as a story about how Christmas traditions keep the people we love alive forever. She will take it on the road this season, with stops including Birmingham, Alabama on November 7; Jackson, Mississippi on November 21; New York City on November 30; and Laurel, Mississippi on December 5.
Written for ages 4 to 8, The Christmas House runs 40 pages and is priced at $19.99 — a read-aloud built for the nights when the tree goes up and the whole family crowds in close.
E. Lockhart Dives Into Dark Waters With ‘The Pools’benny blanco Flips Failure Into Fuel in ‘F*ck Failure’Michael Douglas Looks Back in ‘One Helluva Ride’
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