The Girl from Widow Hills is available today! One of my 5 butterfly reads of the year!

Looking for a mystery/thriller that will keep you guessing? This might be it!

The Girl from Widow Hills

Megan Miranda

June 23, 2020

Simon & Schuster

---

Everyone knows the story of “the girl from Widow Hills.”

Arden Maynor was just a child when she was swept away while sleepwalking during a terrifying rainstorm and went missing for days. Strangers and friends, neighbors and rescue workers, set up search parties and held vigils, praying for her safe return. Against all odds, she was found, alive, clinging to a storm drain. The girl from Widow Hills was a living miracle. Arden’s mother wrote a book. Fame followed. Fans and fan letters, creeps, and stalkers. And every year, the anniversary. It all became too much. As soon as she was old enough, Arden changed her name and disappeared from the public eye.

Now a young woman living hundreds of miles away, Arden goes by Olivia. She’s managed to stay off the radar for the last few years. But with the twentieth anniversary of her rescue approaching, the media will inevitably renew its interest in Arden. Where is she now? Soon Olivia feels like she’s being watched and begins sleepwalking again, like she did long ago, even waking outside her home. Until late one night she jolts awake in her yard. At her feet is the corpse of a man she knows—from her previous life, as Arden Maynor.

And now, the girl from Widow Hills is about to become the center of the story, once again, in this propulsive page-turner from suspense master Megan Miranda.

Add to Goodreads

Purchase Links:
Kindle | Amazon Hardcover | Shop your local indie bookstore

It’s been quite a while since I stayed up late to finish reading a book–and I had to finish it. In The Girl from Widow Hills, Megan Miranda has created a story that keeps the reader guessing and plants enough doubt that you question the motivation of the heroine, in this case, Olivia, as well.

Olivia, once famously known as Arden due to a tragic incident of her being missing for three days when she was six after being swept away by floodwaters, tries to live her life under the radar. She never tells anyone that she’s that girl because publicity hounds would track her down as well as those who believe that she owes them something for everything that was done to find her. Coming up to the 20th anniversary, Olivia finds out that her mother has died via a box that arrives with her mother’s soul possessions. Suddenly, Olivia reverts back to a person who sleepwalks and can’t account for time. She enters a frightening world, especially when, during a sleepwalking incident she trips over a man’s dead body.

Frankly, with most mystery/suspense/thriller books, I have a pretty good idea half-way through what’s going on and who done did it. Not here. In The Girl from Widow Hills, I was constantly guessing. Everyone is a suspect. Something happens and you wonder, is that a coincidence or is that tied in?

From the very first chapter, Miranda hooked me in and didn’t let go. Her writing is fluid. My kind of writing since you actually forget that you’re reading a book because you’re so engrossed in the story.

I love the way she handled characterization as well. Olivia is the narrator analyzing the people she knows, most only for a short while. Other characters tell her something about a person and she has to puzzle through whether her own intuition is correct or their interpretation. Everything and everyone is a puzzle.

The ending caught me off-guard, but perhaps it shouldn’t have. I think there might have been groundwork Miranda created that would have pointed me in the right direction, especially now that I know what that direction is.

If you like suspenseful mysteries, you might want to give this one a go. I really need to work my way through Miranda’s past titles!

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

---

rating: 

5 out of 5 butterflies

---