Dear Debbie
by Freida McFadden
Debbie Mullen has spent years giving advice to the wives of New England in her column, Dear Debbie. Now she is losing it, and enough is enough.
Best for: Readers who like domestic thrillers with a dark edge.
Dear Debbie is #7 on BookWard's Rising chart for October 2026: the hottest new books published in the past two years.
What Dear Debbie is about
Debbie Mullen seems like the picture of suburban order. A housewife in Hingham, Massachusetts, she writes the advice column Dear Debbie for her local paper, where New England wives write in with their troubles. She lives with her accountant husband, Cooper, and their teenage daughters, Lexi and Izzy, and she builds apps for the family even though she left MIT after a terrible assault in her sophomore year. Then her life starts to unravel. Her boss fires her over a column urging a woman in a financially abusive marriage to divorce, and Cooper resigns from his job after his boss refuses to make him a partner.
Debbie turns to revenge, with her neighbor Jo and her book club among the targets. Meanwhile her daughters find drafts of columns full of violent advice. A psychological thriller about marriage, betrayal and buried trauma.
Why Dear Debbie is on the Rising chart
Its Wikipedia page had 3,642 views last month, up 300% on the two months before. The Rising score blends six public signals, each scored from 0 to 100 against the other new books and weighted as shown.
| Signal | This book | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reader pace | 68 | 28% |
| Buzz | 47 | 24% |
| Growth | 100 | 18% |
| Being read right now | 43 | 12% |
| Reader love | 68 | 10% |
| Newness | 93 | 8% |
Rising Wikipedia attention is up 25% or more on the two months before.
The numbers behind it
- Wikipedia: 3,642 page views last month, against an average of 526 in the two months before (up 300%). Read the article.
- Open Library readers: 53 want to read, 0 reading now, 7 have read it.
- Ratings: 4.5 out of 5 from 2 Open Library ratings.
Dear Debbie on the Rising chart: history
First on the chart this month. The history grows with every monthly update.
| Month | Rank | Score |
|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | #7 | 68 |
Questions about Dear Debbie
Is Dear Debbie a new book?
Yes. Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden was first published in 2026, and BookWard's Rising chart only includes books published in the past two years.
Why is Dear Debbie on the Rising chart?
Its Wikipedia page had 3,642 views last month, up 300% on the two months before.
More new books readers are finding
- The Secret of Secrets Dan Brown
- The Teacher Freida McFadden
- Strange Houses Uketsu
Prefer proven favorites? See the Top 100, or all Rising books.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views. The description is paraphrased from real source text (Open Library or Wikipedia). A book is on the Rising chart only if it was published in 2025 or 2026 and its readers are active and its interest is not falling. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales. Read the full methodology.
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