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Donna Freitas

Writer, Speaker, and Teacher

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Available November 4, 2025!

HER ONE REGRET

From the author of the book club favorite The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano comes a riveting feminist thriller that tackles an unspeakable taboo: regretting motherhood.

When successful Rhode Island real estate agent Lucy Mendoza vanishes, leaving her baby behind in a grocery store parking lot, the news quickly makes national headlines. Lucy’s best friend, Michelle, is devastated, and terrified that Lucy’s life is at stake. But she knows something that could complicate the police investigation. Lucy had confessed something unspeakable: She regretted becoming a mother, so much that she’d fantasized about faking her own kidnapping. If the police and media were to find out, Lucy would become a monster in public opinion. Michelle is sure Lucy would never abandon her daughter. But could she be wrong? Could Lucy have been so desperate she chose to escape her life?

Donna Freitas has drawn from groundbreaking research to bring readers this unforgettable novel. Her One Regret is at once a pulse-pounding feminist thriller, a moving depiction of the realities of motherhood, and a rich exploration of a subject our culture and society have rendered nearly verboten: the possibility that for some women, motherhood is an unfixable mistake.

“This book manages to be simultaneously a page-turning crime thriller and a deep exploration of one of the ultimate mothering taboos—regret. Absolutely extraordinary.”

—Emily Oster, bestselling author of Expecting Better

“Her One Regret is both a gripping work of fictional suspense and a brilliant, unflinching confrontation of one of humanity’s greatest taboos: regretting the choice to become a mother. Freitas writes with exquisite precision about the emotional nuances of motherhood and the enormous strain it places on women, their sense of self, and their relationships. Readers who have ever harbored fantasies of escaping the constraints of motherhood – that is, nearly all mothers – will find themselves lovingly reflected in this wise and beautiful book.”

—Molly Millwood, PhD, author of To Have and to Hold: Motherhood, Marriage, and the Modern Dilemma

 “In Her One Regret, Freitas explores the taboo desire to not have children via the fallout of Lucy Mendoza’s disappearance, a young successful real estate broker. Choosing to be childfree, and choosing to push for zero shame in expressing regret of motherhood, this thrilling mystery echoes a worldwide issue broached by other brilliant writers like Ferrante, but also in non-fiction books like Tough Titties by Laura Belgray . . . A thoughtful, fun addition to an important subject matter.”

—Paula Bomer, author of The Stalker

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Stefi and the Spanish Prince

Fans of Red, White, and Royal Blue and Loveboat, Taipei will swoon for this steamy, outrageously fun royal romance set against the backdrop of beautiful Barcelona.

“Stefi and the Spanish Prince is a dreamy (and steamy!) escape to Barcelona, full of rich descriptions of the city’s food, people, and culture. It’ll leave you feeling hungry—for romance, and tapas.”

— Jordyn Taylor, award-winning author of The Paper Girl of Paris and The Revenge Game

In Barcelona, the beach is beautiful, the tapas are delicious, and the boys are plentiful. Good thing, too, because Stefi’s nursing a broken heart after a disastrous breakup and is excited to reinvent herself, practice her Catalan language skills, and take baking classes at a legendary culinary institute, all in a magical city in Spain where no one knows her.

Another thing Barcelona has? A secret prince. Xavi Borges is spending his final summer of anonymity helping his mother run a popular tapas spot in El Mercado. But after Stefi stops at their counter, Xavi can’t get the beautiful American girl off his mind, even though his life is way too complicated for romance.

Santiago, Xavi’s bodyguard and confidant is tasked with keeping the prince out of trouble. Santiago knows Xavi and Stefi’s budding relationship can’t last once Xavi’s real identity becomes public. But soon Santiago is crushing on Xavi’s best friend, Diego, and his focus shifts from royal protection duties to the possibility of enjoying a romance of his own.

With all of these sparks flying, a threat to expose Xavi’s royal secret goes unheeded, and when the news blows up, it threatens to burn down all of their lives. What else could possibly go wrong?

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Wishful Thinking

How I Lost My Faith and Why I Want to Find It

This heart-wrenching, unflinchingly honest memoir follows a woman’s search to reclaim her lost faith, against all odds—perfect for fans of Lauren Winner and Kate Bowler.

Donna Freitas wants to believe. Raised Catholic, she sang songs about Jesus as a child and lived in a house where nuns and priests were regular guests, yet she found herself questioning the faith of her family, examining the reasons none of it added up, and distancing herself from the God of Christianity.

Despite her questions—or perhaps because of them—she made a career out of trying to understand God, pursuing a Ph.D. in religion. But even as she taught college students about mystics, theologians, and others who wrestled with God, she was never able to embrace a faith of her own.

In this searingly-honest and deeply personal book, Freitas retraces her roundabout path up and out of the wilderness toward hope, and her dogged—and ongoing—search for faith. She talks about her experience with the Catholic abuse scandal; about being embraced as a speaker at evangelical colleges; about how the death of her mother and the loss of her marriage made her question everything she thought she knew about love; how she cannot reconcile the ways the concept of God makes absolutely no sense; and how she cannot stop trying to believe, despite it all.

Real, raw, and beautifully-written, Wishful Thinking is a powerful story about the author’s search for belief in God, and of finding God in the most unexpected places.

MY WORK

BOOKS

Fiction, Non-Fiction, Memoir, Young Adult, and Middle Grade.
Take a peek inside my world.

FICTION

My fiction debut. A novel about a woman who thought she never wanted to be a mother—and the many ways that life can surprise us.

MEMOIR

My account of being stalked by a professor for over two years, using my experience to examine the ways in which we stigmatize, debate, and attempt to understand consent today.

NON-FICTION

Based on research that includes candid interviews with students, my non-fiction books focus on some of the biggest challenges that college students face today.

YOUNG ADULT
& MIDDLE GRADE

My novels for young readers are about (and for!) smart, brave young adults and kids who are using their extraordinary gifts to change the world.

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hello

I'm Donna

Writer. Professor. Scholar. Speaker. Author of Fiction, Nonfiction, Young Adult and Middle Grade novels. Those are my titles. But what I’d really like to tell you is that I write with urgency: to give my protagonists all the experience and knowledge that I wished I had but didn’t. To work through grief and loss and rage toward a place of hope and possibility, to speak the unspeakable. My scholarship is decidedly feminist and practical: What are the voices we most need to hear, and what do they want us to know? How can we transform our world so that it will be more just, more inclusive, less violent? In my non-fiction work, I document the concerns of the people I interview: what conversations do people desperately need to have? What are they searching for that we’re ignoring? This urgency and hope, for you, for myself, and for our shared world—this is what fuels my writing, no matter who my audience is.

Get to Know Me

hello

I'm Donna

Writer. Professor. Scholar. Speaker. Author of Fiction, Nonfiction, Young Adult and Middle Grade novels. Those are my titles. But what I’d really like to tell you is that I write with urgency: to give my protagonists all the experience and knowledge that I wished I had but didn’t. To work through grief and loss and rage toward a place of hope and possibility, to speak the unspeakable. My scholarship is decidedly feminist and practical: What are the voices we most need to hear, and what do they want us to know? How can we transform our world so that it will be more just, more inclusive, less violent? In my non-fiction work, I document the concerns of the people I interview: what conversations do people desperately need to have? What are they searching for that we’re ignoring? This urgency and hope, for you, for myself, and for our shared world—this is what fuels my writing, no matter who my audience is.

Get to Know Me

I'm Donna

Writer. Professor. Scholar. Speaker. Author of Fiction, Nonfiction, Young Adult and Middle Grade novels. Those are my titles. But what I’d really like to tell you is that I write with urgency: to give my protagonists all the experience and knowledge that I wished I had but didn’t. To work through grief and loss and rage toward a place of hope and possibility, to speak the unspeakable. My scholarship is decidedly feminist and practical: What are the voices we most need to hear, and what do they want us to know? How can we transform our world so that it will be more just, more inclusive, less violent? In my non-fiction work, I document the concerns of the people I interview: what conversations do people desperately need to have? What are they searching for that we’re ignoring? This urgency and hope, for you, for myself, and for our shared world—this is what fuels my writing, no matter who my audience is.

Get to Know Me
"Donna Freitas combs through the emotional knots that form when a mentor's attention becomes inappropriate and manipulative. With sharp attention, she separates the many strands of consent one by one. A riveting, significant examination of the forces that push a student into silence about unwanted attention."
Idra Novey
Idra NoveyAward-winning author of Those Who Knew and Ways to Disappear, on Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention.
"Freitas recounts with great thoughtfulness how her perception of the power differential between [herself and her stalker], as well as her faith in the religious and educational institutions she'd grown up with, lulled her into susceptibility and disbelief."
New York Times Book Review
New York Times Book ReviewConsent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention.
"A meticulously recounted memoir of building dread, that pushes our understanding of power and its abuses. Freitas's story complicates and illuminates our ideas about harassment and harm, showing how it doesn't just begin and end within the confines of physical contact: it infiltrates our own heads, is enabled by the very structures that are supposed to be our recourse from it but too often work to cover it up."
Rebecca Traister
Rebecca TraisterNew York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad, Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention.
“A powerful exploration of motherhood and feminism… this novel will have readers examining their own ‘what-ifs.’”
Jill Santopolo
Jill SantopoloNew York Times bestselling author of The Light We Lost on The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano.
“Delves deep into love, motherhood, and the complicated dance that is navigating the world as a woman.”
Claire Lombardo
Claire LombardoNew York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had on The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano.
“Freitas’s prose is engaging and precise, and her what-if format proves ideal for elegantly unpacking the tensions of the plot. She balances tightly written scenes of confrontation with Rose’s poignant reflections on how much she can compromise without losing herself completely. This isn’t one to miss.”
Publishers Weekly
Publishers WeeklyFour starred review for The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano
“Reminiscent of Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life or the movie Sliding Doors, Freitas’s novel explores nine (but certainly not all) possible outcomes when a woman who has never wanted children marries a man who gradually decides he does….Following the maze of numbered takes becomes an addictive game, highly literate escapism, like watching The Queen’s Gambit….Highly readable and provocative.”
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus ReviewsFour starred review for The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano
“Fans of Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, Liane Moriarty’s What Alice Forgot, and the film Sliding Doors will find themselves happily lost in this charming, heartfelt, thought-provoking novel.”
Booklist
BooklistFour starred review for The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano
“A serious yet fantastical look at relationships, family, and feminism told in a unique voice, and book groups should take note. The closest read-alikes are Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and Replay by Ken Grimwood.”
Library Journal
Library JournalFour starred review for The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano
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"Donna Freitas combs through the emotional knots that form when a mentor's attention becomes inappropriate and manipulative. With sharp attention, she separates the many strands of consent one by one. A riveting, significant examination of the forces that push a student into silence about unwanted attention."
Idra Novey
Idra Noveyaward-winning author of Those Who Knew and Ways to Disappear
"Freitas recounts with great thoughtfulness how her perception of the power differential between [herself and her stalker], as well as her faith in the religious and educational institutions she'd grown up with, lulled her into susceptibility and disbelief."
New York Times Book Review
New York Times Book Review
"A meticulously recounted memoir of building dread, that pushes our understanding of power and its abuses. Freitas's story complicates and illuminates our ideas about harassment and harm, showing how it doesn't just begin and end within the confines of physical contact: it infiltrates our own heads, is enabled by the very structures that are supposed to be our recourse from it but too often work to cover it up."
Rebecca Traister
Rebecca TraisterNew York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad
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WRITING COACHING

Meet the Book Doctor

If you’ve been telling yourself you’ll finish that book “someday,” whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, a memoir or even a dissertation, I’m here to tell you…Someday is here.

WORK WITH ME

write like your life depends on it

If you need something from the story you are telling, then it will have natural momentum and tension. Readers won’t be able to put it down.

But how do you write from that place of need? How do you feel a sense of primal urgency at 5:00am on a Wednesday when you’ve only got an hour before your kids wake up? Or at 11:00pm when the day’s demands have left you wrung out and even making a cup of tea feels like too much?

And once you finally manage to finish a draft, how do you rewrite and polish it until your intention shines through with clarity? How on earth do you get it published?! I’ve been right where you’re standing, and I’ll help you answer all these questions and the questions you don’t even know to ask yet.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

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The Plot Doctor

I’m the “Plot Doctor” because I love helping people fix their books when they are struggling and diagnosing just what a manuscript or plot needs in order for it to work. I write for a living and this is a place to share what that’s like with you, to reflect on how a writer makes her living (or at least, how this one does) and the pros and cons of writing as a profession. I teach writing, and I care deeply about writing in community. I’m lucky to have found wonderful writing community in my own life, and I’m excited to foster it here. If you haven’t subscribed yet, I hope you’ll join me.

Read My Substack

Writing Tips You'll Actually Use

Personal letters with my very best advice on how to get your writing out of your head and onto the page. And my most recent, favorite reads to inspire you along the way. Once a month in your inbox.

Writing Tips You'll Actually Use

Even if you’re “not a writer.” Once a month in your inbox. Personal letters with my very best advice on how to get your writing out of your head and onto the page. And my most recent, favorite reads to inspire you along the way.

Writing Tips You'll Actually Use

Even if you’re “not a writer.” Once a month in your inbox. Personal letters with my very best advice on how to get your writing out of your head and onto the page. And my most recent, favorite reads to inspire you along the way.

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