This is another great thriller from Megan Miranda! I love her writing style and this book did not disappoint. It kept me guessing until the end and has a nice surprise that I thought might happen, but didn't really see coming. She does a great job of flipping back and forth between events 20 years prior, but still creating a story that can easily be followed. This book kept me up at night to see what happened next. It was a quick read for me because I wanted to find out what really happened so bad!

Thank you to the publisher for an early copy of this highly anticipated book. The Girl From Widow Hills by, Megan Miranda is a 3 star read for me. It definitely is not one of my favorites by this author. I felt myself not following the story nor caring about the characters. I also felt that the romance took the front seat for this one, and felt that the thrilling aspects were not there. Unfortunately it was not a page turner for me like the rest of Megan Miranda’s books, but I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

The Girl from Widow Hills is a psychological thriller filled with plenty of twists and turns. There is plenty of family drama. This is my second book to read by Megan Miranda. I enjoy her quick-paced writing style.

This was my second book by Megan Miranda after The Last House Guest and I went into it with only a vague look at the description, eager for a thriller to lose myself in. Unfortunately I thought this book was just ok. I didn’t really feel a true mystery was being unraveled until the last quarter of the book. We know from the start that the protagonist has been sleepwalking and stumbles upon a body that she may or may not have killed. We also know that there’s a past she is trying to escape from, so clearly these two things are connected. However I didn’t feel that the connection between the events was well established even when we find out who the dead body is. This further solidified that the events are connected and are intimately tied to the narrator, but the reasons why are not laid out in a way that kept me on the edge of my seat, desperate to figure it out. The writing is solid, I just felt the connections from point A to Z - the little clues constantly building and unfolding that you want in a great thriller - were meandering and not too engaging.

THE GIRL FROM WIDOW HILLS has a compelling mystery at its heart, as well as a sympathetic and yet inherently unreliable narrator, which combines to make for a fun read. I liked that Olivia/Arden's unreliability was based more in trauma, PTSD, and faded memories as opposed to actively trying to hide something from the reader, and her inability to recall various facts and truths felt believable as opposed to your usual run of the mill purposeful deceit you sometimes find in narrators like her. The mysteries also kept me guessing and wondering, and I'm pleased to say that this time around it took me a long while to suss out what was exactly going on. By the time we got to the ending, even if it seemed a little farfetched, I felt that enough groundwork had been laid down that I could ultimately get behind it. I also quite liked the idea of how these high profile victims of disaster who have a very public triumph or 'happy ending' can become victims of that high profile. The way that the public turned on Arden for not being grateful enough that she was rescued as a six year old child may have seemed cynical to some, but I absolutely believed that such a thing could happen in real life.

THE GIRL FROM WIDOW HILLS was a solid thriller, and while Miranda and I have a hit or miss relationship, it encourages me to keep on going back to her books.

Gripping story of the mom from hell. When Arden was six years old she was swept into a storm drain for 3 days while sleepwalking. After her ordeal, Arden became a household name and not always for the right reason. With an addict for a mom, Arden desperately tries to escape her past and all the notoriety that comes with it. When Arden is finally settled and happy with a new name and a new start her past comes back to haunt her. Excellent mystery thriller that was very fast paced and impossible to put down.

Can you ever escape your past? What do you do when people won't leave you alone and everyone wants something from you?

Arden Maynor became known to the nation when she was swept away by flood waters during the night when she was six years old. Police, firemen, rescue squads and townspeople in her town and the surrounding areas searched for her and prayed for her. She was found three days later, clinging to the grate of a storm drain. Her life would never be the same again.

As the nation celebrated, Arden struggled to get over the trauma of what she went through. With reporters and TV shows calling all the time, Arden just wanted to be left alone. Her mother, however, felt differently. She enjoyed basking in the attention, and was all too happy to cash in on offers from newspapers, magazines and TV shows. She even got a book deal. But with the fame also came the strange people, the stalkers, the creeps; and with every milestone anniversary it started all over again. It is no wonder that Arden moved hundreds of miles away Widow Hills as soon as she was old enough. She changed her name hoping to start afresh, never telling anyone about her past.

But the past doesn't let go that easily. With the 20th anniversary of her rescue approaching, Olivia finds that she is reliving the trauma of what happened to her. She feels as if she is being watched, and she's not wrong. When she stumbles over a corpse in her back yard one night, she finds herself cast into the spotlight once again.

The Girl from Widow Hills is a very entertaining and suspenseful read that is well worth your time. The author keeps the suspense at a level that makes you want to read on and on. A perfect escape from the stress of our global pandemic!

My thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for allowing me to read an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.bookbub.com/reviews/1556891300

Megan Miranda writes good suspense. This novel is no exception. Miranda does a fine job of possibly implicating various characters and then throwing a twist into things. She did nice work here of creating flawed, but understandable and relatable, characters. And she doesn't tie everything up in a neat little bow, which for some may be off-putting, but I found it to be very much a positive.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 4.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

20 years ago 6 year old Arden was swept away by a flood while sleep walking. She was missing for 3 days, but was miraculously found. Her story was a media sensation. After this incident she was given medication and stopped sleep walking. Now, 20 years later, she has started sleep walking again. She wakes up, feels something very sticky on her hands, realizes she is outside, and then sees a dead body. What happened in her backyard??? Megan Miranda's writing and her fast paced story line made this book a very quick and enjoyable read. A great book to read on the beach!

I have read books by Megan Miranda before but this one has to be my favorite. At first, I didn't see myself rating this book too high. As I continued reading though, I grew to like it even more. There were twists that I seriously did not see coming and I was pleasantly surprised by the ending. This read was very fast paced and I loved how small things that didn't make sense to me in the beginning came full circle and were explained by the end. Miranda really did a great job with this one!

I kept hearing about this book
I was excited to read it!
I started it at bedtime and had to finish it next day, I did not want to stop reading.

Girl needs to protect
-herself
-her past
-her story
Nobody can really know.

Two worlds collide - dream/reality … one echoes in other

I admittedly was not a fan of the authors last book. I think I may have given it 2 stars. 🙈 But WOW, the author has redeemed herself with The Girl From Widow Hills! This was a rollercoaster of a story that left me with my jaw dropped. I read this in a buddy read and I’m so glad we chose this for our buddy read! This book gave us a lot to discuss! I actually used the word “shook” when discussing the final twist...I’ve never used that phrase before in my life! But y’all...it left me SHOOK!⁣
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Arden was swept away in a rainstorm one night as a child while sleepwalking. She was found alive days later, clinging to a storm drain. The fallout over becoming an overnight celebrity led to Arden changing her name and disappearing from public view as soon as she was old enough. Now it’s the 20th anniversary and she begins sleepwalking again, leading to her jolting awake in her yard. But she’s not alone...⁣
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This book of suspense had me frantically turning pages. I suspected everyone and trusted nobody. The twists are executed fabulously and the conclusion was a shock and a delight. This was a 5⭐️ for me. My thanks to @simonandschuster for the gifted copy.

First off, I want to say thank you to Netgalley for Providing me this ARC. I LOVE Megan Miranda and flew through ALL of her other books.

Secondly, I could not get into this book sadly, I wanted SOOO much to like it and I have been on the edge of my seat waiting to read this but it just didn't hit the mark for me.

The Story is based on a little girl (Arden) who disappears during a storm and Miraculously found three days later alive. With the Miracle though, comes the nobility. It was all to much for Arden, and when she became of age, she legally changed her name to Olivia in hopes to have a fresh start, But soon after, Olivia finds out her mother is dead and a mysterious box shows up on her door step with belongings from her mother that trigger the nightmares and sleepwalking all over again. With a man dead and Olivia's memory practically gone of the event. Who will be the killer?

I really liked this concept and I did like Arden/Olivia as a character. But, at the beginning oft the alternating time period chapters there were interviews/ new articles of the past story. This would have been a really neat build to the story But I felt the articles/interview didn't lead anywhere and were repetitive..

I do think this book was over all an easy read, and Megan Miranda's writing is affluent. If you can get past the Repetitiveness of the book, overall it was a great story with a shocking end.

Run of the mill mystery/thriller. Keeps you going, but not much depth. At times, repetitive. Here’s a question. Do publishers require a specific word count? Just askin.’

Thanks NetGalley for allowing me to read and review.

This was a fun thriller that kept me turning the pages; I raced through it in only two sittings.

The story is about Arden Maynor, who as a child was missing for three days following a flash flood; media coverage of the search and Arden's miraculous rescue turned her into a national celebrity. As an adult, Arden thinks she has succeeded in creating a new life for herself away from the fame and everything that brings: she goes by Olivia, has no contact with her mother, has never told anyone about what happened to her when she was six years old. However, things go wrong when Arden/Olivia is notified that her mother has died, and not long after that Arden/Olivia's childhood tendency to sleepwalk returns, and one night she wakes up next to a dead body. Arden/Olivia is used to keeping people at a distance and hiding her secrets, so of course she doesn't know who to trust anymore, because nearly everyone in her life is a suspect - including herself.

Overall I thought this was a well-crafted psychological thriller. The story starts out simple enough, but quickly becomes more complicated as details about Arden/Olivia's disappearance and its effects on her are revealed, both through the main story, and in transcripts of letters, 911 calls, and interviews that are dispersed between chapters. I was so invested in this book that I stayed up late reading it, then got up early to finish it before work the next day - I absolutely didn't see the ending coming until the last few pages when I finally saw where Miranda had been leading me all along.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for providing me this ARC of Megan Miranda’s latest. I had read one of the author’s books in the past and thought it was only average but decided to try again with The Girl from Widow Hills. Wow, what a difference. I thought this book was excellent. I could not figure out who the guilty party was and kept see sawing back and forth and second guessing myself. When it was revealed, I couldn’t believe I didn’t see it coming but I didn’t. Any one who is already a Miranda fan will of course love this, but if you haven’t read her and just enjoy a good mystery, start here.

Megan Miranda’s books have been on my to-be-read list for some time now and I have finally read her most recent book and it was amazing. I was up late into the night finishing this book!

Arden Maynor is known as the child who surprisingly survived three nights in a storm drain during a flood. It was widely believed that six-year-old Arden had been sleepwalking when she left her home and became lost.

Once rescued, Arden had no memory of her ordeal, but she did have some lingering effects from the trauma of the event. Due to the publicity, Arden decides to change her name and moves to a new state, working in administration at a small hospital.

When Arden gets word that her mother has died, she seems to have a sudden relapse of sleepwalking. She receives a box in the mail with her mother’s things, but there was not much inside and most of the items related to her disappearance as a child.

One night when Arden is sleepwalking, she stumbles across a dead man at the edge of her property. Even though she does not recognize him, she finds out he is a man from her past.
At this point, Arden begins questioning everything she knows about herself and the people in her life.

The ending had a surprising twist that I didn’t see coming. I highly recommend this one to readers who love a good mystery/thriller. This is one that you won’t want to pass up!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read an advance copy and give my honest review.

'I'm the girl who survived.'

Although this is Arden/Olivia's line, it should have been mine. This was not a terribly interesting book. Dare I say, I was bored through ninety percent of the story.

Mildly atmospheric, yes, but even that felt diluted to me...just like the characters and the mystery itself. I was underwhelmed.

And can I just mention, as an RN who has worked at multiple hospitals around the country, I've never seen or heard of one like 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 stars
Pick up your own copy on June 23rd!

**Many thanks to the publisher for my review copy.**

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 and Simon & Schuster 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. 😂