User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I proudly announce that WE HAVE ANOTHER WINNER! This year there will be so much competition between smart, heart throbbing, mind bending, terrifying thrillers.
I have to admit the plot of the book excited me so much. A six years old sleepwalker girl leaves her house and she’s not found for 3 days. There is threatening rainstorm starts out there. Rescue workers, neighbors and large groups of search parties look for everywhere to bring her home back.
Then she miraculously found by Sean Coleman with a nasty arm injury and memory loss, clinging to a storm drain. But she made it! Yes! Atta girl!
But the little six year old who suffered from compelling trauma didn’t have any idea the story of her coming back will become one of the greatest urban legend story. She got all attention of media, fans, stalkers, creepy admirers. And guess what? Her own mother milked her daughter’s story to her own benefit, wrote a book, earned so much money by distorting truths about her daughter’s traumatic experiences. So let’s take the year of the mom award from Carrie White’s mother Margaret and give that to this lovely mother who stole her own daughter’s childhood.
So little girl, once upon a time Arden Maynor and now Olivia, changed her name to have clean slate and brand new life without media’s impact and strange admirers’ love and hate letters. She is estranged with her mother, working at hospital, living at a cottage in the middle of nowhere and has a protector and wild old neighbor Rick( I visualized him as Tim Robbins after seeing his performance at Castle Rock. She has good friends, a professor ex, busy work schedule.
But one day she got a box which is worse than Pandora’s because she finds out her mother is dead and there are several things inside of it can trigger her threatening, vicious memories about her past and lost 3 days. Unfortunately she finds out she is not gonna get away from who she is because her night terrors return back and she starts sleepwalking again. And later, she wakes up again she finds herself next to corpse outside her home. The dead man is coming from her past is ready to haunt her forever!
So did she kill the man and forget it? If she doesn’t, who did it? Why doesn’t she remember anything about her disappearance? There are so many holes about her story and one of her best friend quits from her job and disappears without telling her anything. And the dead man’s identity comes out…. She cannot be more confused and terrified. So what’s gonna happen? Whodunit?
I have to admit that I was going between 2 to 3 stars at the beginning because I thought the killer’s identity was so obvious. I was trying to decide between two people.
But guess what: ENDING OF THIS BOOK IS FANF**KINGTASTIC!!!! IT KILLED MY SPIDER SENSES LITERALLY! And last quarter of the book was so fast pacing. I didn’t have enough nail to bite but I bit my pillows and my husband found me covered in feathers when you came home from business trip, took my pictures and posted as “birdwoman”.
But it’s worth it! I loved the conclusion of the story! Pacing, writing style and plot were captivating.
This is gonna be one of my favorite Megan Miranda books.
Special thanks to Netgalley and Simon&Schuster for sending me this heart throbbing, exciting book’s ARC COPY in exchange my honest review. And thanks to Megan Miranda to create this spooky, nerve bending, remarkable story that I really enjoyed so much!
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Rating: really liked it
Due to horrifying circumstances, Arden Maynor hit the national news stream when she was just 6-years old.
While sleepwalking, she exited her house during a terrible storm and subsequently got swept up into the storm drain system of her town, Widow Hills.
Arden's mother reports her missing early the next morning, when she notices her little girl is not in her bed.
As the news spreads, the entire town of
Widow Hills, and even neighboring towns, mobilize to search for the missing girl.
Three days later, a man helping with the search discovers Arden grasping a grate at the top of a storm drain.
Unable to pry open the grate lid, he holds her tight until a final rescue plan can be implemented.
It's an unbelievable story that unsurprisingly took the media by storm. How could a little girl possibly survive in a water-logged drainage system for three days on her own!?
Riding on the wings of such attention, Arden's mother takes full advantage and publishes a book telling her story. Along with the generosity of strangers and paid speaking events, the book royalties allow the Maynors a fairly stable income.
But Arden disagrees with her mother a hundred percent on how she wants her life to go. She wants to be as far from the spotlight as possible.
She hates the pressure, people thinking they know her, her life story, acting like she owes them something. She just wants to move on with her life and forget that horrible night altogether.
As soon as she can, Arden changes her name to her middle name, Olivia, goes to college and breaks away from her mother for good.
Frankly, the woman is toxic and being as far away from her as possible, does wonders for Olivia's own mental health and wellness.
The bulk of the narrative takes place as the 20th-anniversary of that fateful night approaches. In addition to the present-day narrative, mixed media sources are interspersed throughout that shine further light on the incident.
These include 9-1-1 call transcripts, police and media interviews, as well as excerpts from her mother's book.
As the anniversary gets closer, Olivia discovers she is sleepwalking again and begins to feel paranoid that she is being watched. She confides in her protective next-door neighbor and even a close friend after her hand is forced.
Are the reporters back at it again, looking for another story, or is something more sinister going on? When a man ends up dead in her yard, Olivia guesses the latter.
This was a fun story. Such a quick read, I just wanted to know what was happening. The suspense was killing me, I just wanted Olivia to be okay!
There were some great red herrings, excellent plot twists and a steady, exciting pacing.
This made me think of the story of Baby Jessica from the 1980s. The notoriety that surrounded her life and her family for years to come.
I thought Miranda did a great job expressing the stress and discomfort that can have on people involved in that sort of media firestorm. I cannot even imagine. As a private person, even thinking of that gives me anxiety.
This was my first novel by Megan Miranda and I really vibed well with her writing style. I will absolutely be picking up more of her work soon.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Simon & Schuster, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I appreciate it and know a lot of readers are going to really enjoy this!
Rating: really liked it
What I came away with the most, from this book, was how the writing allowed me to feel so very uneasy, trapped, watched, in the same way the way the main character felt those things. Arden had been a six year old when she had sleepwalked one night, gotten caught in a rushing torrent during a rainstorm, and was found three days later, clinging to a grate in a sewer system. Only a miracle would have allowed this little girl to go through all of that and still be alive. The media attention was constant but after years of being the little miracle girl, a lot of the attention became mean spirited and rude, due to all the money that was donated to Arden and her mother. Arden's mother wrote a book about the event and Arden can't really remember anything of it other than what her mother wrote, as if she might not have really been there those three days, at all.
When she was sixteen, Arden changed her name to Olivia, changed schools and ran from the unwanted attention. Now, twenty years after the three day ordeal, Olivia works in a hospital and has her safe, anonymous life, until she is confronted one morning, by the man who had found her clinging to the grate in the sewer. She rebuffs his attempts to talk to her, only to sleepwalk again at night, waking up with the man dead at her feet and blood on her hands. Everyone seems to be suspect, if not for the murder but for wanting something from Olivia, the former little girl who was found in the storm sewer. The police are involved because of the dead man and Olivia doesn't even know for sure that she didn't kill him. I enjoyed the sense of constant unease and worry as Olivia attempts to unravel her past, that has run headlong into her present.
Published as of June 23, 2020
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for this ARC.
Rating: really liked it
***NOW AVAILABLE, HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY***
I enjoyed one of this author’s previous books, “All The Missing Girls” so I thought I’d give this one a try. I’m glad that I did. Although it started off a bit slowly, by 30 pages I was invested in the story.
Can you imagine having something so traumatic happen in your childhood that your memory has been completely blocked? That’s what happened to Arden Maynor. At six years of age she created quite a sensation in her small town of Widow Hills. She was known by her mother to sleepwalk on occasion. One morning her mother wakes to find Arden missing and a terrible rainstorm raging. Eventually, 3 days later, Arden was found, holding on to the grate of an outlet for part of the drainage system in the town. It was considered almost a miracle that she could survive the raging waters for such a long time and to be found by her rescuer, Sean Coleman.
Afterwards she was a marked girl. Wherever she went through her life, until college, she was known as the girl from Widow Hills. Her mother seemed to enjoy the notoriety, she wrote a book that sold well. She went on talk shows and made lots of money off of Arden’s story, but somehow the money, in the end, was gone. Arden as a young woman starting college decided to shed her past history, changed her name and got a good education. She never wanted to see her mother again, she felt that her mother had made a lot of money on her story of trauma and then in the end lost it all, she was no support to Olivia, they were very different people.
Upon graduation Arden, now called Olivia, is enjoying a job as part of hospital administration and a lovely older home somewhat isolated in the woods where she enjoys being alone, enjoys her solitude. She finds out, rather traumatically, that her mother had died 7 months previously and she hadn’t known it. She is left with nothing but a box of memories that her mother kept. Nothing means much to Olivia and she puts it away in her closet.
Olivia has a great neighbor, an older man named Rick, and they both look out for each other. She is doing well and is happy when she fears that the sleepwalking has returned. One night she finds herself outside and stumbles upon a body. She runs to Rick who does everything he can to support her.
The past has a way of catching up to you and that is what happens in this story. Without getting more into the plot I can tell you that there is a myriad of characters, well described and believable. My favorite is probably the young police woman who is determined to find out what really happened that night, who the dead man is and what happened to him.
The ending of this thriller was a good one and I didn’t see it coming! Throughout the story it often seemed as though everyone we are introduced to could possibly be the killer, but nothing really stuck! In the end my suspicions were wrong and that was a great way to end this page turner of a novel.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss.
Rating: really liked it
I actually enjoyed this one!
3.75 stars
The Girl from Widow Hills is a psychological thriller about a girl who became a sensation when she went missing as a child. 20 years later, the events from the past have come back to haunt her, causing her to question all that she thought she knew. Olivia has worked hard to bury her past, including changing her name, moving around, and isolating herself from others. When she was six years old, her story captivated the nation. She was the little girl who went missing during a terrible storm but was found clinging to a storm drain. She and her mother became famous, capitalizing on her experience, feeding her mother’s addiction. As hard as Olivia has worked to shed any association with her past, when she receives a box of her mother’s belongings, her past is reawakened, leading to murder, mayhem, and craziness, as Olivia begins sleepwalking and wakes up one night to find herself with a dead body.
Narrated by Olivia in the present, media transcripts, newspaper reports, book excerpts, voice mails, piece together a fragmented past. Olivia is an unreliable narrator, and there are a lot of holes in her story, some of which are left unresolved in the end.
After not loving Megan Miranda’s past two novels, I went into this one with low expectations. If I didn't like this book, I was going to be done reading books by MM. I was pleasantly surprised when I got hooked early on and found myself enjoying this! Similar to other MM novels, this one moves slowly, but at the same time, there’s enough intrigue surrounding Olivia’s past and current events to make it a page-turner. There are two major mysteries, one involving Olivia's past, the other in the present. Part of the mystery is easy to solve, while other elements threw me for a loop. Other parts were left unresolved, which might have been intentional, but I wanted answers! The ending was also a bit rushed. At the same time, the mysteries kept me riveted.
Overall, The Girl from Widow Hills is a solid thriller, and I will definitely be reading Megan Miranda's next book! I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
Always difficult to write a review that goes against the general appreciation, furthermore when I really appreciated another book from the same author! So, my thoughts... I wasn't sure what to think of the premise, but I decided to trust Megan Miranda, since I really liked All the Missing Girls. Finally, the story of
The Girl from Widow Hills wasn't interesting nor believable. Same for the characters... The pace was too slow (especially in the first third) and then I wasn't sure where the story was going at all. Also, all the articles, book excerpts, etc., between the chapters were repetitive and didn't bring anything new to the story.
The ending was okay, but didn't save the book for me.
Many thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange of my honest review.
Publication date: June 23rd.
Rating: really liked it
This is a psychological thriller. I have to say that this one was really not from me. The pacing of this book was slow for me, and I really could not get into the characters. I found myself feeling like I missed something and reading back. I just did not care about the story or the characters at the end of the story. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher or author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
The synopsis of this book is right up my alley. A mystery, a murder, sleepwalking, spotty memory- all sounds thrilling. 🤗 Unfortunately, for me, this was a snoozer. It’s incredibly slow paced. Which doesn’t necessarily kill the book. But there was nothing shocking in it to me. 🙄 I couldn’t connect to any character. I just didn’t really care about the story. 😬
Rating: really liked it
"Everybody want to be a part of the story. Sell your words, your friends, your soul." She was the girl who survived. Arden Olivia (Liv) Maynor was only six years old when she went outside while sleepwalking and was found in a storm drain three days later. No one knows how she survived in the drain, how she held on for so long and with such a bad arm injury. She has no memory from that time. Arden's mother wrote a book about their ordeal and fame followed. Fame, that Arden - who now goes by Olivia, does not want.
Olivia (Liv) is happy with her new life. She has a home, a job, some friends and no one knows about her past. Then as the twentieth anniversary of the day she was saves grows closer, a man recognizes her. Making things worse is that she has begun sleepwalking again. Days later she hears a sound and goes outside and stumbles over a body, not any body - but the body someone she knew when she was a child.
I really enjoyed this one and the build to the conclusion. I had so many questions and not many answers for most of the book. I loved that I could not figure this book out. I had many suspects in mind but could not pin the murder on anyone. I also could relate to her not having any memory from the traumatic event which occurred from her childhood. The brain is a wondrous thing and it will block traumatic trauma through a process called dissociation. It is the brains way of protecting itself (you). I found this to be a nice touch in the book. I also had fun attempting to determine if Liv was a reliable character.
I found the pacing to be spot on and nothing felt rushed in this book. I appreciated how the author built the suspense and there is a feeling of tension through the last half of the book. This book can be put in the I-didn't-see-that-coming category for me. I loved how she tied things up and shocked me in the process.
Captivating, chilling, and shocking!
Rating: really liked it
I’ve really enjoyed Megan Miranda’s last three books, so I was happy to get an advance copy of this book. And she’s done it again - another five star book. It’s an interesting premise for a book. While sleepwalking, a six year old girl is swept away by a flood and is found alive three days later, clinging to a storm drain. As a young woman, she changed her name to escape the media attention. She’s even estranged from her mother, who capitalized on her daughter's experience. “The case made all of us, and then it unmade us.”
It’s now twenty years later and as the anniversary of her miraculous survival approaches, she learns of her mother’s death. Oh, and she begins sleepwalking again.
The book starts off very slowly for a mystery. We’re given alternating chapters of the present day with interviews and broadcasts from the time of the flood. The book is almost a third gone before a dead body shows up in her woods. It’s not a fast paced book. But there’s a nice edgy tone, that feeling that we, like Olivia, are off balance. Right up until the very end of the book, I couldn’t figure out what the resolution would be.
My thanks to netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.
Rating: really liked it
'I'm the girl who survived.' Although this is Arden/Olivia's line, it should have been mine. This was not a terribly interesting story. Dare I say, I was a bit bored through ninety percent of the book.
Mildly atmospheric, yes, but even that felt diluted to me...just like the characters and the mystery itself. I was underwhelmed. Oh, and I figured nearly everything out before the halfway mark of the book. Meh.
May I also mention, as an RN who has worked at multiple hospitals around the country, I've
never seen or heard of one like the hospital described in this story. A medicine room on the administrative wing? Patient rooms in the administrative wing? A nurse's lounge on the administrative wing? Boy, ummm...that's all very convenient to the nurses. Or not.
"Nurse, get me epinephrine, stat!""Sure thing, just let me run up three flights of stairs, type in codes on every door I come to, and run back down the stairs to get that for you, doctor."(These are not actual lines from the book, just me making a point.)
2.5 average starsPick up your own copy on June 23rd!**Many thanks to the publisher for my review copy.**
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars — “The Girl From Widow Hills” is the latest book by one of my favorite authors: Megan Miranda. It tells the story of Arden ( now known as Olivia) who 20 years ago became famous when she disappeared for three days and was miraculously rescued during a storm when a man saw her in the storm drain and rescued her. Now, 20 years later she becomes embroiled in controversy again when she discovers a dead body outside of her home while waking up from a sleep walking event. Far fetched? Why, yes ... yes it is. But, Miranda’s writing is so good it almost makes you forget this as you become entranced in the mystery and all of the suspicious characters that inhabit Olivia’s life. Although never boring with many interesting plot twists, the book made me feel like I had wasted all of my time reading and analyzing by pulling the old “out of left field” plot twist that was as stupid as it was unsatisfying. Olivia seems to be clueless about everything that happens to her and everyone surrounding her — misreading multiple situations and people. Throw in some convenient 3 day amnesia window and sleepwalking during a murder and 3 stars might seem high. But, with that being said, I enjoyed the book and the writing was spot on. So you are stuck with a review that is just about as crazy as this unusual book.
Rating: really liked it
*Many thanks to the publisher for providing my review copy.
Rating: really liked it
I’m officially a MM Fangirl ❤️. This was the perfect beach-read whiling-away-the-hours (that flew by), 1st summer book of the season.
Shortest Summary Ever: Arden Maynor was a little sleep-walking girl swept away in a flood. After 3 days she was rescued. Now she is 26 yr old Olivia Meyer - renamed and reinvented, moved away from the notoriety and small town fame that’s followed her her whole life. The problem is her former life seems to be following her. And then there’s the dead body and a connection to her mysterious past...
My thoughts: It’s coronavirus quarantine time and this book was like a much-needed trip for my mind where I happily escaped. The pacing is quick, the story well-formed, and the suspense taut. As a mystery connoisseur, I enjoyed the twists👏🏼 and relished the turns 👍🏼. I was sitting outside as twilight faded into night at about 90% and I couldn’t put it down. Then I heard a noise and jumped. Lol... so yes it was THAT good. All the heebies and a few jeebies.
This is my 3rd Miranda book and she is officially the queen of the “Middle Mystery” - contemporary, not too gruesome, but not cozy - just right when you’re in the mood for a departure from corona boredom but not wanting to be so scared you hide under the bed (don’t judge). What I respect is that the author’s topics in each novel are varied, crafted into situations that make me pause and think. This one drew me back to the “baby Jessica” (in the well?) from the 80’s. I wondered if that’s how life was for her... hmmm... so to start there and come up with a constructed mystery? You get all the claps from me.
All my reviews available at scrappymags.com
Genre: Mystery/thriller
Recommend to: perfect beach read, a medium mystery - not too gritty.
Not recommended to: you have to put up with a little redundancy in the flashback/memories of the flood, but it’s worth it.
Thank you to the author, Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for the ARC and my always-honest reviews. Thanks for keeping me on my porch and the 5 mosquito bites because I could NOT out this down. 😂
Rating: really liked it
Twisty, mysterious, and intriguing!THE GIRL FROM WIDOW HILLS by MEGAN MIRANDA is available now at your favourite bookstore!
Norma’s Stats:
Cover: An eye-catching, intriguing, relevant and beautiful cover with an embossed water drop design that is an excellent representation to storyline. I loved carrying this one around and holding it!
Title: The title immediately intrigued me and is a fitting representation to the storyline. I definitely needed to know all about and what the significance of the story was behind who the girl from Widow Hills was.
Writing/Prose: Well-written, readable, suspenseful, creative, easy to follow, and engaging.
Plot: Interesting, engrossing, edgy, dark, unique, twisty, atmospheric, steadily-paced, and entertaining. I thought this book had quite the interesting premise!
Ending: A satisfying, twisty, pleasing, and surprising resolution that wrapped up really well for me.
Armchair detective skills: Non-existent! I was totally taken by surprise and didn’t guess the end resolution at all.
Overall: This one moved along slowly but the premise definitely had me intrigued and kept me interested and riveted right to the very end to make it quite the page-turner. Would recommend it!
What I loved: Alternating chapters of the mystery from the present day with interview excerpts, news transcripts, and letters from the time when Arden was swept away by the rainstorm.
The characters were interesting and I didn’t know if our main character here was a reliable narrator or not. I absolutely love an unreliable narrator.
What I didn’t love: It was a little bit slow-moving in the beginning and took a little while for me to get into it.
Some of the secondary characters weren’t all that fleshed out and was left with some unanswered questions and plot holes regarding the significance of them to the storyline.
Thank you so much to Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with this beautiful physical copy.
