Want to Know a Secret?

Want to Know a Secret? (2021) is a psychological thriller by Freida McFadden. The novel follows several housewives in a suburban neighborhood whose lives center around lavish fundraisers for the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), book clubs where they don’t actually read the book, and the latest gossip about their neighbors’ infidelities. When a new neighbor, Maria Cooper, moves in next door to April Masterson, April begins to receive disturbing text messages that threaten to destroy the perfect suburban life she has desperately tried to build. The novel explores themes of Public Appearance Versus Private Persona, The Psychological Impact of Betrayal, and The Dangers of Revenge.

This guide refers to the 2021 first paperback edition of the text self-published by Freida McFadden.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of bullying, disordered eating, sexual content, cursing, harassment, illness, graphic violence, death, death by suicide, emotional abuse, and physical abuse.

Plot Summary

April Masterson lives in the Manhattan suburbs with her husband, Elliot, and son, Bobby. She has a YouTube channel where she bakes desserts, giving her viewers a “secret” to making the best version of each dessert.

April prides herself on the fact that she is well-liked in the community. She constantly makes baked goods for everyone and is active in the school and neighborhood. She is part of the PTA and the chair of one of its biggest fundraisers. She claims that her best friend is Julie Bressler. However, she acknowledges Julie can go a little overboard with her job as PTA president and leader of their neighborhood homeowner’s association.

When Maria and Sean Cooper move in next door, April immediately befriends Maria. She helps her get to know the community and helps her son, Owen, join the soccer team. She thinks Maria is kinder than Julie and that her son is a better friend to Bobby than Julie’s son, Leo. This leads April to strive to become best friends with Maria.

April begins to get threatening text messages from an unknown number. They first warn her that Bobby is not in the backyard, leading April to panic until she finds him at Maria’s. The person sends her a picture of April cheating with another father in the neighborhood and threatens to go public with the information if April tells anyone about the messages. The person also seems to know more about April’s life than she wants people to know, commenting on the fact that she dropped out of culinary school and that her husband cheated on her years before with his secretary, Courtney. Additionally, the comments on April’s YouTube videos become increasingly negative, causing April to become obsessed with who is stalking and harassing her.

To take her mind off the negative comments, April visits her mother, Janet, in a care facility. She claims that her mother has dementia and, as a result, Janet is kept heavily sedated. She tries to use her mother to film a YouTube video, but Janet grows angry and accuses April of being “evil” and keeping her locked in the facility.

As April’s life unravels, she also loses her friendship with both Julie and Maria. Bobby inadvertently breaks Leo’s nose during a game, and then Leo is pushed from a bouncy house slide during a PTA fundraiser. Additionally, April finds Owen’s stuffed giraffe buried in her yard after a tip from the unknown person texting her, leading to further tension between April and the two other women.

Julie calls April into a meeting about the PTA. She informs her that money has been stolen from the fundraiser that April runs and accuses April of taking it. April is insistent that she did nothing wrong and that Maria must be responsible; Julie dismisses her, insisting that she pay the money back, or Julie will call the police.

Enraged, April goes to the store that Maria manages to confront her. She has decided that Maria must be the one who is texting her and harassing her, likely because of how friendly April is with her husband. However, at the store, Maria refuses to engage with her. When April goes to leave, she sets off the store’s alarm bells and is accused of stealing a pair of earrings.

Late that night, Elliot comes home and is distraught. He tells April that he got his receptionist, Brianna, pregnant and that she adamantly wants to keep the baby. April is furious but decides that she needs to forgive Elliot for the sake of their marriage, her son, and her status in the community. However, a few days later, Brianna is found brutally murdered, leading to suspicion that Elliot or April are responsible.

April decides that she needs to confront Maria about her harassment and get her burner phone as evidence. She sneaks into Maria’s home and begins searching through it but stops when she hears Maria arrive downstairs. She gets a text from the unknown number, with the person claiming that they know April is in Maria’s home.

The narration shifts to the perspective of Julie. Julie claims that April is evil, and everything she says is a lie. The story then flashes back to years before, when Julie first met April.

Julie moved to the community after she married her husband, Keith, and quit her job as a prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney. Keith convinced her that she should be a stay-at-home mother, leading to Julie’s involvement with the Homeowner’s Association and the PTA as a way to occupy her time. She was immediately wary of April but befriended her.

Julie learned about Courtney’s death years before, as well as the rumors that Courtney was having an affair with Elliot. She then saw April kissing another father in the neighborhood. She talked with their neighbor, Doris, about it. Doris insisted that she was going to confront April. A few days later, Doris died falling down her stairs.

When Julie visits the nursing home with April to see her mother, she learns that Janet has been talking about someone named “Courtney.” With all of the information that she has, Julie becomes convinced that April had something to do with Courtney and Doris’s deaths. She texts a detective she used to work with, Riley Hanrahan, and asks him to find out more information. He reports back that Courtney’s death was suspicious—and April was one of the primary suspects.

Over the next few weeks, Julie begins to harass April. She initially does it to cause panic, warning her that Bobby left her backyard, and then does so out of vengeance after Bobby begins mistreating her son. She uses the burner phone to regularly message April, knowing that it won’t bring justice for Courtney but enjoying the trouble it causes April, nonetheless.

When Brianna comes over to see Elliot about her pregnancy, Julie runs into her and can see that she is distraught. Julie learns about the pregnancy and then insists that she is going to help Brianna by destroying Elliot’s marriage. She shows Elliot the picture of April kissing another man, but Elliot is dismissive, insisting that he already knows that April is cheating on him.

After Brianna tells Elliot about her pregnancy, she calls Julie one night on her way home from work. She is sure that April is following her. Before Julie can get her help, the call ends, and Brianna is found murdered. Julie calls Riley, and he promises to figure out what happened.

Distraught and feeling guilty over her involvement in Brianna’s death, Julie tells Keith that she wants a divorce. She then decides that she is going to move back to Manhattan and restart her career as a prosecutor.

Julie also decides that she needs to let Keith handle the investigation of April. However, when she looks out her window one night, she sees April inside Maria’s home with a knife. Unable to warn Maria, she instead texts April from the unknown number. She then sneaks into the house and, after distracting April, manages to hit her over the head and knock the knife free. The police arrive, and April is arrested for the murders of Courtney, Doris, and Brianna.

In the epilogue, the narration shifts to Janet’s point of view. Riley questions her about Courtney’s death, and she is relieved to finally tell her story. Her medication is stopped, and she is confident that she will be let out of the nursing home. However, she is confused as to why Riley keeps talking about April, as Janet is sure that April is dead.

Janet recalls a night from a few days before. She snuck out of the nursing home, taking the nurse’s keys to her white SUV. She then went to Elliot’s office, hoping to ask him for money, but instead saw who she thought was April leaving. She followed the woman home, ultimately beating her to death outside her home. Janet is convinced that it was April, while the reader knows that it was Brianna.