I have been a big Megan Miranda fan since All the Missing Girls and have since read almost all of her books. They are all REALLY good to excellent! This one no different. The story centers on Olivia, now an adult, who had a very traumatic childhood incident she does not remember. The story is told in present day and through news articles and interviews from the past. I have noticed this sort of storytelling in several recent books here lately and I like it. This book is also a great commentary on how the media takes control of things and everyone wants to be included in the drama. Very fast paced and definitely kept me guessing with a WHOA! kind of ending!

Thank you to NetGalley, Megan Miranda and Simon & Schuster for this ARC!

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy to The Girl from Widow Hills. I spent the evening devouring this book (seriously, I read it in a few hours.) I literally didn’t want to put it down.

We meet Olivia, a hospital administrator, who seems to enjoy her job and her time with a few close friends. Intertwined with newspaper articles and reports from 20 years ago, we learn about a super traumatic incident in her childhood, how it’s affected her adult life, and her slow realization that it’s coming back to haunt her. Part murder mystery, part unreliable memories, with a definite reminder that you can’t run away from your past, I absolutely loved this book. I highly recommend it and will be reading her other books in the near future.

I can’t say anything more without possibly ruining the book, so just read it when it comes out in June, mkay?

Shockingly entertaining. No, really, I'm dead serious. Here we are long time listeners: Me without complaints. I know, I know, I'll give you a moment to recover from your intense shock.

"Everyone wants to be a part of a story. Sell your words, your friends, your soul. Watch what happens. Be careful. There's no going back"

This was a fast-paced psychological thriller/mystery that kept me interested and guessing.

Very bingeable! Arden/Olivia was a great protagonist, if a bit flippish in her behavior. I was intrigued to read about how she had survived and moved on from her past trauma. The relationships she makes all felt a bit artificial, but I still enjoyed the story.

The last chapter was the best because it kept me wanting more!


If you like domestic thrillers, wondering about past exploited children and you can't sleep and need a good binge read this is the book for you!

I have to say I was hesitant to read this one, I feel like there have been so many thrillers out lately that they are not thrilling anymore! But I enjoyed an earlier book of Megan Miranda’s so I though I’d give this one a chance. I’m glad I did. It kept me interested and guessing throughout. And when I thought it was done, surprise!

I was beyond excited to get this advanced reading copy of Widow Hills after reading, and loving, Megan Miranda’s book, The Last House Guest. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Mary Higgins Clark sparked a love of reading in me as a teenager, and Megan Miranda’s books give me that same joy and excitement I felt as a teenager falling in love with books. Megan is an expert at character development, and her books are very unpredictable. I highly recommend this book and I will be a loyal reader of hers from now on.

4.5 stars

Okay, first things first. One of the stranger things about reading this novel was that I started out having an oddly similar experience to the main character, which is not to say I sleepwalk or that I got swept into a drainage system during a freak storm. But every time Olivia walks into a room she gets a rush of deja vu – as if people she knows she's just met are somehow familiar from another time and place. And during the early chapters of The Girl from Widow Hills I kept getting that same rush.

I knew this story. Only I didn't. A 6-year-old sleepwalking child surviving underground in a small town for three days, subsequently to be rescued by one guy as the entire country looked on?

No way. Except...

It finally reached the point where I stopped reading, hopped onto Google and started typing in random phrases. For some reason, my subconscious mind forced me to type the word “well” into the search bar. And there it was – the story of Jessica McClure, the 18-month-old girl who fell into a well and almost died. For three days CNN broadcast the rescue efforts live, including reports of her singing snippets of “Winnie the Pooh” from the bottom of the well. Even President Reagan chimed in and the photo of the guy that rescued her won a Pulitzer Prize. I'm sure you can fill in the rest – a visit to the White House, a made-for-tv movie, the talk show circuit, tons of articles, a book. (If you haven't read the book, I recommend not googling until after you finish – there are a couple of bizarre similarities – spoilers).

Once I had that out of the way, I could get back to the novel. Because though there are flashbacks and transcripts from two decades earlier interspersed between chapters, the story primarily takes place in 2020. Olivia – formerly the famous Arden Maynor – has done everything she can to put her past behind her. She's changed her name, cut off relations with her mother and hidden her life story from even her closest friends. Over the years, Liv's dealt with reporters, stalkers, and – when she was still in school - jealous peers. With the 20-year-anniversary of her rescue coming up, she fears her story will resurface and destroy the new life she's made for herself. What she doesn't anticipate is that she'll start sleepwalking again. Or that she'll wake up outside with a dead body at her feet and her hands covered in blood. A dead body that happens to belong to the man who rescued her.

Has she just murdered the guy who saved her life? If not, who has? And why did he travel hundreds of miles to visit her home in the middle of the night? Thus begins what turns out to be a thrilling, well-plotted page turner. There are plenty of people Olivia suspects, including herself, and we don't find out the truth until the final twist. I'm a big fan of unreliable narrators so I loved Liv's uncertainty about her actions in both the past and present. I also really enjoyed piecing together events via bits and pieces of transcripts, old articles, book excerpts and interviews. Finally, I liked Miranda's writing style more than I expected I would. I always highlight favorite sentences as I read but I found myself doing that more than usual while reading this novel. My only critique is that I felt some of the secondary characters could have been a bit more developed (and there was one key twist I did guess early on).

If you're a Megan Miranda fan, you'll probably like this one and if you're not, The Girl from Widow Hills is a good place to start. Much thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ooh! Some twists and turns with this one! I have read one other book by Megan Miranda and I enjoyed that one as well. The Girl from Widow Hills held my attention and kept me coming back to see what was going to happen next. I child is swept away while sleepwalking and is found three days later. She grows up and finds herself waking up in her yard with a dead body in front of her and blood on her hands. Did she do it? If she didn't, who did? Why is she sleepwalking again? I didn't completely love the ending but I'd definitely recommend this to other readers who love thrillers!

This is my third try with Miranda as I know her books are always very popular. Something about them just doesn’t jive with me, but I know lots will continue to enjoy her work.

Arden (now Olivia) was a child star for a heroic rescue of her when she wandered into a flood while she was sleepwalking. Now she has grown up and fled from the spotlight her mother thrust her in but as things from her roast keep showing up she is struggling to make peace between who she is and who she was. Can she be both victim and criminal? A great thriller with a very surprise ending I was not ready for!

Megan Miranda is a very enjoyable mystery writer, and this latest is a winner. A woman (Olivia) who experienced a sensationalized trauma as a child is now, in the present, suddenly forced to deal with the troubled past she tried so hard to leave behind. Things escalate and go in all sorts of twisty directions.
The story takes off immediately, moves at a great pace, and kept me guessing. Olivia's character is so damaged that she can be frustrating at times, but I still had empathy for her. Most of the twists were not predictable and the end was a nice surprise.
As usual, Megan Miranda does not disappoint!

One word: unputdownable! Wow, did I just absolutely love this one. A haunting and atmospheric novel filled with rich prose and interesting/fleshed out characters. The plot was magnificent too!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have read a few other books by Megan Miranda that I have enjoyed, and this one was no different. I enjoyed that there were two mysteries here: 1) What's the deal with the dead guy outside Olivia's house? and 2) What really happened to "the girl from Widow Hills"? I also enjoyed the addition of the newspaper articles/interviews/etc. that showed the unfolding of the events in Widow Hills when Olivia/Arden was only six years old. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a good mystery/thriller.

“The Girl from Widow Hills” is the newest suspense novel by Megan Miranda.

The main character Arden Maynor is having to deal with the 20 year anniversary of the 3 days she spent missing and as a 6 year old and then found in a storm drain.

Once again, Miranda has written a unputdownable thriller that I read in one day. I always look forward to her books.

Several times throughout this book I thought I had it all figured out, but the ending was a brilliant twist that I didn't see coming! I love a good mystery and this one kept me guessing the whole way. Megan Miranda does suspense like no one else and this is no exception. Loved it even though it kept me second guessing myself!

Summary:

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.

This book is fast paced right from the start with non-stop twists and turns. The perfect thriller!

I loved this book!! It was so intense!! It was full of twists and turns and Ah-ha moments, I couldn’t put it down!! I would definitely recommend this book to everyone who loves a good mystery!!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

This is my favorite Megan Miranda book that I have read so far. I loved the thrill! This book gave me a suspecting feeling the entire time and I felt that way the entire book.

Olivia is actually the famous Arden who as a six year old got swept away during a storm and got saved miraculously after three days under a grate. She has now changed her name to escape all the attention and works in a hospital in North Carolina. After twenty years, she finds herself sleepwalking again, something that hasn't happened since the incident all those years ago. But this time, she wakes up around the dead body of someone from her past and with blood on her hands.

She is now the suspect and the press is again hounding her. She is unable to make sense of her situation as she remembers neither what really happened that night nor as a kid during the actual incident. As she uncovers the current investigation, she also inadvertently uncovers the past mystery as well.

It is a page turner and perfectly works as a psychological thriller. The ending was definitely not something we could have imagined. The story in the middle was slightly repetitive - about the missing links in her childhood story, how she remembers none of it, how it made hardly any sense, how miraculous that she survived three days in such situations, etc. Apart from these repetitive parts, it was a fast-paced one. All the characters are a bit suspicious and it made it more interesting as everyone seemed to be hiding something.

Olivia’s relationship with Jonah is mentioned a few times but it didn't seem to have proper closure and just did not add much to the story. With the life she has had, I would have loved an epilogue about her future and any chance of her getting together with Bennett. I say this because there seemed to be some connection between them.

Megan Miranda has definitely done it again!

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The ending was not what I was suspecting. Olivia has a traumatic past and it creeps back to her 20 years in a twisted way. She wakes up from sleepwalking to find a dead body of a man who once found her twenty years ago. Who killed him? Will people connect the dots that these two are connected in someway?

Megan Miranda does it again! Such an amazing page turner! I couldn't put this one down. The Girl from Widow Hills is twisty and puts you on the edge of your seat. I love how in depth each character is as well. As I was reading, I felt like I was actually beside Olivia witnessing events with her.

Olivia is her new name for her new life. Once known as Arden Maynor, Olivia wants to leave the past behind her. Arden disappeared into a horrible storm, while sleepwalking, and was miraculously found alive days later. She was only 6 at the time and she can't remember anything from that time period. She also doesn't want to. She just wants a fresh start, away from all the publicity.

The 20th anniversary is coming up. She knows there will be a renewed interest in the case. Unfortunately, she begins to feel as if someone is watching her, waiting in the shadows. Olivia begins sleepwalking again. She wakes up outside having no idea how she got out, since the doors to her home were locked. Then one night she awakens outside and realizes there is a dead body at her feet, her hands covered in blood. What has happened? She soon learns this is a man from her past, her past as Arden. Everything she has worked so hard to accomplish the past few years begins to unravel. Soon, everyone will know her story again. This time, will she be the victim or the accused?

I highly recommend giving this one a read! This is a suspenseful book that you will not want to put down!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC.