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...⁣
⁣
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. 😂

When Arden Maynor was a child she was swept away while sleepwalking during a terrifying rainstorm and went missing for days. Against all odds, she was found, alive. However, the fame, fans, and stalkers became too much and when she was old enough she disappeared. Now she goes by Olivia, who has managed to stay off the radar. But with the 20th anniversary of her rescue approaching, she begins to feel like she’s being watched and begins sleepwalking again. Until one night she she awakes in her yard and at her feet is the corpse of a man she knows from her previous life.

I think this was my favorite Megan Miranda book so far. I thought the plot for this book was different with a little creepy value thrown in. This book does move slowly, however there’s enough mystery and excitement that it does make it a page-turner. My biggest issue was I felt there were a lot of secondary characters and some were unnecessary. The author left a lot of their storylines very unresolved, which I’m not sure if it was intentional.

There were parts of the book that I felt were very repetitive. In between each chapter were articles, 911 calls, etc. from the night Arden disappeared. I don’t believe they brought anything new to the story and acted more as a filler. I was also shocked by the ending. I think the author introduced so many characters to the story to throw you off your track on who the villain was. I’m not sure if I liked the ending or not. Also, for how “slow” paced the book was overall I felt the ending was very rushed and would have enjoyed more explanation.

Overall, great Summer read - not going to change your life thriller, but exciting nonetheless.
Pub: 6.23

I was very excited to dive into this book! It was actually my very first Megan Miranda read. However, this wasn’t quite a 4 or 5 star read for me for a few small but important reasons. I personally felt that our main character Olivia just had a very dry personality. She has clearly endured a lot of trauma in her life, but the narration was very short and almost bland, and I found it difficult to distinguish anything memorable about Olivia other than the history that she is known for. There were also some aspects of the storyline that just didn’t connect or add up for me.

With that being said, this story did have a few interesting and unexpected twists and was easy to read once you got used to the narration style. I also really enjoyed how this story pretty much starts out with a bang, getting right into the mystery aspect.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and was curious as to how it would unfold up until the very end. I would recommend this one to my fellow readers because it is an interesting concept and as I said, did have a few twists. Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this Ebook version in advance in exchange for my honest review! This book is available on June 23rd, 2020!

Quick read. I enjoyed this book and I did not see the twist coming. Thanks to Netgalley for a digital advance copy.

Do you ever read a book and have two completely different thoughts on that book at once? That's where I'm at with this. For most of this book, I was all like, I LOVE THIS BOOK. But then there were a small handful parts of this book where I was like, WTF seriously? COME ON! Well, that is me. Overall, I loved this book. However, there were a few parts that were so UUGGHHH, that I was rolling my eyes.

I'm not going to give you a book report like most of the early "reviews" have done. I'm going to give you a quick rundown of what I liked and didn't like about the book/characters. So here I go...

This, like the authors previous books, is a pretty unique take on reinventing oneself and hiding from one's past. The concept itself isn't new, but the story truly stands on its own as unique. 

The characters in this one worked well for me. Some irked me, but they were supposed to, so I can't be mad about that. The interactions were believable and mostly realistic. I knew who most of the good and bad guys were. Mostly. This is a thriller and mystery. So obviously not everything is as it seems. I was in no way disappointed on the character front.

The flow of the book mostly breezes at a good pace. There are a few lulls that I could have done without. They were filler and completely unnecessary. Some were even eye roll worthy. 

The twists and turns were mostly aha-moments. There were a few that were from left field, that left me shaking my head, but not deal breakers. For the most part, the twists in this story hit at just the right time and had me wanting to get to the end even more.

I think I had an inkling on some of the things that happened at the end, early on. However, I dismissed them. Early on, I glossed over them. I think that was the point though. So when isht got real, I had to shake my head at myself for overlooking some things I thought were insignificant.

There was one loose end that was never really tied up in the book. Many might not even notice it. Maybe we're supposed to assume that it was A or B (so to speak), but it's not explicitly covered in the book. It's been bothering me since it happened. I wanted to know. But now I don't know for sure.

Overall, this book is GOOD. If you're a fan of this author, you will certainly enjoy this one. If you haven't read this author, it will be a good introduction to her work.