The Intruder

4 STARS - OUT NOW

Whenever I crave a thriller that grabs me from the first page, Freida McFadden is one of my go-to authors. “The Intruder” surges with stormy tension. The atmosphere is moody, electric, and impossible to resist. This psychological battle for survival is gripping!

Casey is holed up in an isolated cabin that has seen better days as a hurricane howls outside, and discovers a blood-soaked stranger hanging out in her shed. Suddenly, every creak and shadow becomes a threat. McFadden crafts the story with the intensity of a horror film you cannot tear your eyes from. The pages drip with rain, claustrophobia, and a restless energy that keeps you guessing.

I inhaled this book in one sitting. I listened to the audiobook, which show more was fantastic, but it’s also on Kindle Unlimited. It’s a full-throttle rush, loaded with that signature Freida mayhem I can’t resist. Every page hums with tension, and everyone wears a mask. Is this her most brain-melting twist-fest? Not exactly. But if you want a wild, popcorn-munching ride, you’re in the right place.

I’m giving it four stars. It’s dark, lightning-fast, and delivers just the right dose of wild thrills.

#TheIntruder #FreidaMcFadden #KindleUnlimited #Amazon #Libby show less

4 STARS - OUT NOW

Whenever I crave a thriller that grabs me from the first page, Freida McFadden is one of my go-to authors. “The Intruder” surges with stormy tension. The atmosphere is moody, electric, and impossible to resist. This psychological battle for survival is gripping!

Casey is holed up in an isolated cabin that has seen better days as a hurricane howls outside, and discovers a blood-soaked stranger hanging out in her shed. Suddenly, every creak and shadow becomes a threat. McFadden crafts the story with the intensity of a horror film you cannot tear your eyes from. The pages drip with rain, claustrophobia, and a restless energy that keeps you guessing.

I inhaled this book in one sitting. I listened to the audiobook, which show more was fantastic, but it’s also on Kindle Unlimited. It’s a full-throttle rush, loaded with that signature Freida mayhem I can’t resist. Every page hums with tension, and everyone wears a mask. Is this her most brain-melting twist-fest? Not exactly. But if you want a wild, popcorn-munching ride, you’re in the right place.

I’m giving it four stars. It’s dark, lightning-fast, and delivers just the right dose of wild thrills.

#TheIntruder #FreidaMcFadden #KindleUnlimited #Amazon #Libby show less

Casey is living alone in a dilapidated cabin deep in the New Hampshire woods, having fled a life that fell apart — fired from her teaching job after a violent incident involving a student's safety, grieving her father, and keeping everyone at arm's length. Her landlord Rudy is useless and creepy, the roof is barely holding together, and a massive storm is bearing down. Then, in the middle of the night with the wind already howling, she discovers a young girl named Nell crouched outside her kitchen window — young, alone, covered in blood, and refusing to let go of the switchblade in her hand. Casey's protective instincts override her fear and she lets Nell inside, which turns out to be a decision with serious consequences.
Alternating show more with Casey's present-day chapters are flashback chapters following a girl named Ella — a middle schooler living in squalor with her neglectful, hoarding mother, bullied at school, stealing food to survive. The two timelines appear to be separate stories converging on the same terrible night, with the novel deliberately leading you to believe Ella and Nell are the same person. Published October 2025.

[May contain spoilers]
The first major twist: Ella and Casey are the same person. Ella's chapters are set twenty years earlier — she eventually killed her abusive mother and reinvented herself as Casey Carter. The second: Nell is not Ella. Nell has her own abusive mother, Jolene, and her own dark history — and she's considerably more dangerous and manipulative than she initially appears, gaslighting Casey using her paranoia against her. Nell finds Casey's gun, the situation escalates badly, and the two women's parallel histories of surviving abusive mothers collide in the climax. The "infinity promise" becomes a recurring motif that some readers found overwrought by the end.
What I think: This is McFadden doing her reliable cabin-in-the-woods atmospheric suspense with her standard dual timeline and identity twist formula. It's propulsive and you'll zip through it. The formula is starting to show its seams a bit — the two-women-with-parallel-trauma-histories structure is very McFadden, and the twist is competent but not her most surprising. show less

I LOVED this book! The story engaged me from the first page and kept me reading until the last page. I could not put it down. The story has a shifting dual timeline, about twenty years apart and from four character perspectives. This made the plot more suspenseful and with short 2 or 3 page chapters, the pacing was quick.

The story opens with a dark and stormy night and the main character Casey living in a dilapidated rural cabin. She begins to see faces looking in her cabin. This gave me that deja vu sensation. When Casey offered to give the blood covered girl a place to sleep for the night, I was shocked. Who does that? I thought the girl had just murdered someone and I would never personally allow Ella inside my home. Casey, however, show more let the teacher inside her allay her fears and only considered how she could help Ella. Ella was rude and I half expected Casey to send her back outdoors after making her dinner. I would have been too scared to let her stay. Casey was naive and I didn't think much of her as a character. Ella, on the other hand, played the villain well. She is a victim, though, but the reader does not know this fact in the beginning.

The story continues with plenty of twists and turns. The big reveal was a surprise that I wasn't expecting. In fact, I started reading it a second time to find all of the clues that I missed. If anything, I was disappointed in myself for missing all of the clues. show less

“I’ve made a decision.
I’m going to go out to the toolshed and see what’s inside.”

So dumb. And cliche.

“If you were stuck in a remote cabin in the middle of the woods with a storm on the way…” is the first question of the Reading Group Guide in the back of the book. Overall, that question represents what is most wrong about this book. Woman alone in cabin, remote, storm coming, and someone is outside. If you have read this before, you may not want to read this again. This is suspense-light, maybe for a traveler who needs a diversion. Feels like one of those mass-market story mill type of books, just churn 'em out and make 'em easy to read.

[2.75] A solid 4 stars for the final quarter of McFadden’s latest work. An anemic 2.5 stars for the first three quarters.

I’m clearly a literary outlier given the glowing reviews this book has garnered. I’ll make only one good-natured but “snarky” comment: readers who have christened this book a fast-paced thriller might be the same folks I impatiently pass who are driving 36 on 55 mph highways.

Indeed, the slow pacing came perilously close to making this a DNF. On the plus side, McFadden paints interesting character studies that showcase the complex lives of a few key players while casting a stark spotlight on domestic abuse. Still, these profiles could have been more effectively sketched in half the words. Put simply, this show more wasn’t the type of “thriller” I was expecting. show less

Not me struggling with Freida's books changing slightly. I was hoping for a popcorn read that would either scare me or something that would be satirical and ridiculous and this one has an extremely heavy theme of child abuse. I usually do not like POV's that go back and forth in time and I enjoyed it this time and I always love a Freida book, as her writing style is like a nice chocolate cake to me. Not every book of hers is going to be my favorite.

Things I loved:
-Writing style duh
-It's Freida, need I say more?
-Easy read
-=Heavy suspense
-Kept me thinking

What prevented 5 stars:
-I didn't giggle as much as I wanted nor was I very scared and I was hoping to be more invested in this story
- I wouldn't recommend this one to someone getting show more into Freida McFadden, I would recommend starting with the Locked Door.

Still a good thriller, just not my favorite.

I was impressed with how layered the characters were and how vivid the descriptions were. show less