The Girl from Widow Hills
Author: Megan Miranda
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Note: Trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
A suspense novel about a young woman plagued by night terrors after a childhood trauma who wakes one evening to find a corpse at her feet.
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.
TL;DR Review
The Girl from Widow Hills is in many ways your standard unreliable-woman-narrator thriller. But it had a good twist and was a lot of fun to read. It also has an actual reason for having the word “girl” in the title.
For you if: You like thrillers or are looking for something fast-paced and fun.
Full Review
Thank you to Simon & Schuster for sending me an early review copy of this book! It comes out June 23rd.
I don’t read very many thrillers because they almost always feel like candy: lots of entertainment value, but no real substance. I’d also almost always rather have my heart broken than racing. But I know a lot of thriller-lovers love Megan Miranda, and I’d heard the twist was a good one, so I decided to mix things up and read it.
Verdict: This book is thriller candy indeed; that white-woman-with-memory-lapses subgenre that is starting to feel like the WHOLE genre. But candy is also delicious and fun, and this book was certainly that.
It’s about a woman who now goes by Olivia, but she was born Arden Maynor. When she was a toddler, there was a terrible rainstorm and flood, and her mother ran yelling into the street that Arden, who had a history of sleepwalking, was gone. Soon the whole country was watch the news with baited breath as the town of Widow Hills banded together to search the pipes. After three days, she was found dangling by one arm from a storm drain and rescued — and today only her memory of that rescue remains. After that, she was known by many as “the girl from Widow Hills” (hence the title and why I can almost forgive it for using “girl”).
But the media attention, along with the demanding sense of entitlement displayed by many of those who had donated or helped, destroyed her and her mother’s lives. So when she went to college she changed her name and kept her original identity a secret from everyone. Now, she works in medical administration in a small-town hospital. But then she starts sleepwalking again, and one night wakes to find a dead body next to her.
At the end of the day, there’s one important question about a thriller: Did you see the ending coming or not? Dear reader, I did not. I did wonder if certain things might be plausible, and some of those things ended up happening and feeding the twist. But I definitely didn’t guess how they would come together, and I was truly still guessing until up until the moment of reveal.
This book was definitely a page-turner, exciting and suspenseful, and a fun way to spend a Saturday (especially during quarantine). If you’re a fan of thrillers or just looking for a change of pace, this seems like it would be a good one.
Trigger Warnings
Drug abuse / overdose
Child abuse
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