The Ex

"This is an absolute must read. JUST GO OUT AND READ THIS BOOK!" --Goodreads

Cassie thinks she has met the perfect man.

Joel is sweet, handsome, romantic, and best of all, he’s crazy about Cassie. She thinks she’s found the guy she’ll spend the rest of her life with. Have children with. Grow old with.

Yes, she knows about his perfect ex-girlfriend, Francesca. The beautiful, brilliant chef, beloved by all his friends. But she thinks Francesca is out of the picture. She thinks Francesca is gone for good.

Think again, Cassie.

#1 New York Times, Amazon Charts, USA Today, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Sunday Times, and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author Freida McFadden is a physician who has penned multiple bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. Freida is the winner of the International Thriller Writer Award for Best Paperback Original, the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Thriller, and was honored as one of TIME 100’s most influential people in the world for 2026. Her novels have been translated into more than 45 languages.

​ Freida lives with her family and cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.

To hear Freida talk about herself more in the third person, check out her website freidamcfadden dot com.

The Ex by Freida McFadden is a twisty, fast-paced psychological thriller that plays with memory, guilt, and the question of how well we really know the people we love. The story centers on a woman named Sam, who has spent the last decade rebuilding her life after her ex-husband, Ryan, was convicted of a brutal murder. Ten years earlier, Ryan was found guilty of killing his lover, Alana, and the case was sensational, messy, and public. Sam, shocked and devastated, eventually divorced him and tried to move on. She built a new life, married someone else, and did everything she could to distance herself from the chaos and pain of that time. As far as the world is concerned, Ryan is a monster behind bars, and Sam is the ex-wife who survived the scandal.

When the book opens, that supposed stability begins to crack. After ten years in prison, Ryan’s conviction is overturned. New evidence and legal maneuvers lead to his release, and suddenly he is back in the world—and back in Sam’s orbit. This is the last thing she wants. Sam has a new husband, a professional life, and a carefully constructed sense of normalcy. Ryan’s reappearance is like a stone thrown into calm water, sending ripples through every part of her existence. She is terrified of him, angry at him, and deeply unsettled. On top of that, Ryan insists he was innocent all along and that someone else set him up. He claims he was framed for Alana’s murder, and that the real killer is still out there. He leans on Sam as the one person who truly knew him before everything went wrong, pushing her to listen, to remember, and to consider the possibility that she may have been wrong about him.

Sam’s narrative voice pulls the reader directly into her fear and confusion. She remembers Ryan as charming but flawed, sometimes secretive, sometimes volatile, yet never someone she thought capable of a brutal crime. The trial, the evidence, and her own shock had convinced her to accept the verdict and move on. Now, she faces a disturbing dilemma: if Ryan was innocent, then someone else committed the murder—and possibly manipulated both of them. If he’s lying, then she is up against a skilled manipulator who has already proven how dangerous he can be. Everything around her starts to feel unstable. Her new marriage, which she believed was solid, begins to show cracks under the stress. Her husband is uneasy with Ryan’s presence and with Sam’s history. The book leans into that tension, questioning how much Sam has told her new partner about the past, and how much she might be unconsciously hiding from herself.

As Ryan pushes for the truth, Sam is drawn into revisiting the past she’d tried to bury. She remembers her marriage to him, the dynamic between them, and the circumstances around Alana—Ryan’s lover whose death destroyed multiple lives. The more she revisits those memories, the more she begins to notice gaps, inconsistencies, and things she never fully processed. Freida McFadden uses these recollections to seed doubt and suspicion. Sam starts to wonder not only about Ryan’s potential innocence, but also about her own role: what she saw, what she reported, what she chose to believe. There’s a strong undercurrent of “unreliable narrator” in the way Sam’s perceptions shift. She is sure of things until new information nudges her to reconsider, and the reader is pulled along with her, constantly reevaluating what might be true.

The book’s tension escalates as strange events begin to happen in Sam’s present life. Odd occurrences, threatening hints, and subtle intrusions make her feel watched and targeted. It’s unclear whether Ryan is behind these things, trying to force her hand, or whether some other person is quietly manipulating the situation. McFadden plays with suspicion, setting up multiple possible villains: Ryan, jealous exes, people connected to Alana’s family, or even someone within Sam’s inner circle now. Each new clue raises the stakes and narrows the possibilities, while also making Sam look less stable to those around her. Her anxiety, sleeplessness, and growing paranoia threaten to damage her credibility. She starts to appear obsessive and unhinged, and that, in turn, isolates her. The more she feels alone, the more dangerous the situation becomes.

Alongside the suspense, The Ex explores themes of domestic life, trust, and the masks people wear. Sam’s new marriage, on the surface, looks like the safe, reasonable choice after the chaos of her relationship with Ryan. Her new husband is steady, respectable, and unconnected to the crimes that destroyed her past. Yet as Ryan’s case reopens old wounds, Sam begins to notice how quickly her new husband doubts her, how uncomfortable he is with the messy truth, and how much he might prefer the version of her that never questions anything. This highlights a subtle but important emotional thread: Sam is caught between two different men and two different versions of herself. One version is the younger woman who lived through passion, betrayal, and a public scandal; the other is the older woman who chose stability and respectability, but at the cost of burying enormous trauma. As the story unfolds, she must figure out who she really wants to be, and whether either of these men is truly safe or trustworthy.

The pacing of the novel is quick and punchy, with short chapters and frequent reveals that keep the reader turning pages. McFadden uses cliffhangers, overheard conversations, and details discovered at just the wrong or right moment to maintain suspense. Sam’s internal monologue is full of questions and doubts, reflecting the reader’s own confusion. At times, she suspects Ryan; at other times, she is almost convinced he’s been wronged. She notices small kindnesses from him and wonders if she misjudged him, then remembers his affair with Alana and the wreckage of their marriage and recoils. This back-and-forth creates a feeling of emotional whiplash, mirroring what it’s like to wrestle with conflicting memories and feelings about someone you once loved deeply and now fear just as deeply.

As The Ex moves toward its climax, the layers of deception begin to peel away. Sam uncovers key information about the night of Alana’s murder, including details that were overlooked or misunderstood during the original investigation. The truth involves not only jealousy and infidelity but also manipulation and carefully laid plans. McFadden is known for including sharp, late-stage twists in her thrillers—turns that take what the reader thought they understood and flip it. In this story, those twists force Sam—and the audience—to reassess who is victim, who is villain, and who has been quietly steering events from behind the scenes. The resolution is unsettling in the way good psychological thrillers tend to be: it doesn’t just solve the mystery, it exposes ugly truths about human nature, the power of secrets, and how easily love can be used as a weapon.

By the end, Sam is no longer the woman who simply fled her past. She has confronted memories she tried to forget, faced the reality of her first marriage, and learned how much danger can hide in domestic spaces. The question of Ryan’s guilt is answered, but the emotional damage lingers. “The Ex” leaves a lingering sense that stepping away from a toxic relationship isn’t always enough if the past remains unexamined and unresolved. In McFadden’s hands, the story becomes not just about who killed Alana, but about how one woman’s life can be shaped—and nearly destroyed—by the stories others tell, the lies they hide, and the parts of the truth she was too afraid to look at until it was almost too late.