The Tenant by Freida McFadden Book Review

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 The Tenant 

By Freida McFadden 


Published Year: 2025

Page Count: 380 pages 

Medium Used: Kindle Scribe 

Genre : Thriller, Murder Mystery, Drama, Suspense, Action, 2026-read. 

Rating : 5/5 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰




Wow. What a fantastic read. The twists - well, the one major one actually - blew my mind. My heart leapt into my throat and my brain did a sky dive into an abyss of unexpected thrill. Miss McFadden has proven herself again as a master of her craft. Superb story telling. Creating blood curdling thrillers and murder mysteries. She had me hanging onto every sentence and it really worked because I wrapped this book in under a day. I was fully engrossed and some of the moments are etched into my memory. It is so good - don't miss up on this read! I liked how well the author has written both male and female voices/povs without blurring the lines between. This book has earned second place in the Goodreads Choice Awards for Mystery Thrillers and its totally worth my time. This story conveys a weighted message that karma eventually catches up even if a murderer makes a temporary escape. No one is above the law of comeuppance - what goes around comes back to haunt and maybe even, kill! 


Diving into the story a bit - Blake and Krista are engaged to be married. They are living in an expensive and sprawling brownstone building in Manhattan and most of the mortgage payment falls on Blake who is recently promoted to VP position at a successful marketing firm. He has got it all. The diamond ring he has offered to Krista during their marriage proposal costed him a small fortune. Then suddenly he loses his job. Afraid he will fall back on his mortgage payments, he agrees to take on a tenant. Of all the applicants, they zero in on a young waitress at a nearby Greek diner - Whitney Cross. Since she comes into live with them, all things go south. I mean Blake is already a bundle of nerves, an exercise freak who is recovering from the blow of a job lost. For all the unusual happenings around the house - like the death of his goldfish, the murder of his old neighbor - he blames Whitney. Whitney seems to be trying to implicate Blake in the murder. He loses sleep, walks around their house in a trance, rants and raves that Krista had had enough with his paranoia. Taking him for someone who is a mess, she walks out. The police will eventually catch up with his fingerprints on the neighbor's murder weapon - but before that, Blake starts doing some digging of his own, into the history of Whitney Cross. What he uncovers veers the narrative into a completely new direction. It escalates deception of people to a totally new level. Frankly, how can anyone fake so much of their past and show so much sincerity while doing it?!! I am speechless.  


Damn good book. Glad it is getting adapted into a movie. Do check it out!! 

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