*2.5 stars ✨

I usually like Megan Miranda’s adult mysteries, but this one didn’t do it for me. Olivia has shed her past since becoming the infamous “girl from widow hills”. Throughout the story you are shown glimpses from her past & you’re left wondering what’s real or not. She’s always had trouble sleepwalking and one night she wakes up over a dead body. Olivia tries to piece together what happened and if it has anything to do with her past. Shady people enter her life, bringing nothing but falsehoods with them. You don’t know who to trust and what will happen. The story was a good pace but the actual mystery was, well, blah/lame. Well written but definitely my least favorite from MM.

*Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to #Netgalley for the opportunity to read #TheGirlFromWidowHills by Megan Miranda. This is my first book by her, but it won't be the last.
This book is a great thriller that kept me guessing. Just when I thought I knew what was happening things changed.
I don't like to give away anything about the book. But I will say, if you get the chance to read this book, you should.

Olivia has been able to reinvent herself since her tragic childhood accident. But when a familiar face comes out of the woodwork just before the 20th anniversary of her accident, she becomes a person of interest in a murder investigation. As she tries to fill in the blanks of her night, partnered with flashbacks, loss, and her real identity threatening to be released, she must get to the bottom of the murder while keeping all of her secrets intact. But she soon finds out, she’s not the only one with secrets.

I liked this book by Megan Miranda much better than her first one. The main characters, fraught by night terrors stemming from her childhood, wakes up to a body on her property and no idea who it is or how it go there. From then on, the twists and turn kept me flipping the pages frantically. I did not find the ending predictable or out of left field. The major twist at the end shocked me---I did not see it coming. Great book, thank you netgalley!

Oh these types of thrillers. Nearly impossible to avoid, but one can prescreen for quality. And with Megan Miranda, it’s a pretty safe bet the quality will be there. This is my third maybe read by the author and she has consistently been standout in the sea of homogenic similar. So what is it about her books that makes them different? Well, the writing, mainly. I mean, Miranda sticks with all the genre formulas, so you get your split narrative and your women in crisis and your plots twists, she just doesn’t it all really well and fits it all into a context of something dangerously close to a proper literary novel. So here you have a story of Arden, a young girl from a small town who undergoes one of those freak of nature storm disappearances that rivets the nation so and, once she is found 3 days later, becomes something of a symbol of positive motivational things. Eventually, public affection and attention turns ugly as these things are wont to do, so Arden changes her name, moves away and starts over. Now the 26 year old adult Olivia has a perfectly orderly attention free life, until one night, sleepwalking, she stumbles onto a corpse in her backyard, and not just a stranger either, but the very man who has rescued her two decades ago. Then his son turns up. Asking questions, Suddenly everyone’s asking questions and a meticulously crafted safe and quiet life Olivia has built for herself is no longer safe or quiet. In fact, there’s suspense at every corner. And just when you think it’s more or less sorted out, Megan Miranda delivers one final plot twist so brutal and nasty and messed up, it totally elevates the book from good to very good. If you’re a genre fan, you know the plot twist is coming, but it’s still really something. A doozy. A memorable doozy. So yeah, this was fun, a really fun read, as immersive as these things ought to be, helped in no small way by the fact that most of the narrative takes place in the present, interspersed with excerpts from Arden’s past in forms of interviews, newspaper articles, etc. And Arden/Olivia does well as a protagonist, nowhere near as annoying as some millennials can be, somewhat unreliable, just enough to be intriguing without being frustrating and tough enough to deal with all the crap life puts her through. I enjoyed this one and was thoroughly entertained. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview The Girl From Widow Hills by Megan Miranda. Miranda brings to life the story lines for women of all ages. She is a very good story teller and draws you in to the plot.
In her latest, Miranda tells the story of a young woman with a strange past. She survived being out in the elements for several days, was rescued, and became a flavor of the week for some time. Her name is now Olivia, but she used to be Arden and for 20 years she's been running away from that child.
Olivia has a new life now, but her past is coming to get her and she can't run fast enough from it. Someone is watching her and she's getting more scared by the day. Because Olivia has secrets and she wants to keep them buried.
Good Read - I think too much detail n the writing made it hard to keep the focus. Although the details can be helpful, sometimes they are too much.
3 stars.

This was a fast-paced thriller about a woman who was swept away during a rain storm while sleepwalking when she was 6 years old. It took the community three days to find her clinging on to a storm drain. To escape the media attention, she eventually changes her name and moves away. She starts rebuilding her life but then as the 20 year anniversary of her rescue looms, people from her past start appearing in her new life. A gripping read.

Megan Miranda has done it again. As a big fan, she has never disappointed. Riveting, suspenseful thrillers. Couldn't out it down til the end. Highly recommend to other fans of Megan Miranda & even to those who haven't read her work yet.

I really loved this book!! It had so many twists and turns. It kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next!! This was my first book by this Author, and it won’t be the last!! Quick read!! Highly recommended!! You won’t be disappointed!!

I was really intrigued and excited to read this novel. Megan Miranda delivered a suspenseful page turner that had me guessing until the end. I didn’t completely love the ending and felt myself wanting more but this was still a good read overall. The Girl From Widow Hill has an eerie vibe throughout and is darker than some of Miranda’s more recent work. This novel was hard to put down and I wouldn’t suggest starting right before going to bed. It features Olivia/Arden who had gone missing for days as a child only to be found miraculously alive and clinging to a storm drain. She was the center of the news at the time and disappeared from the public as soon as possible. As the 20th anniversary approaches, Olivia knows it’s inevitable that people will begin to wonder about her again. She feels like she is being watched and begins sleepwalking again only to find the corpse of a man she knew from her previous life.

Thanks to Edelweiss + and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was able to read this book thanks to NetGalley. I am a huge fan of Megan Miranda and am thrilled to have been able to read and review this ARC. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and loved the storyline.
Olivia is a single women with a good job, friends, as well as a dark past. When she was a child she was a sleepwalker and she got swept away in a huge rainstorm and lost for several days. The fame and attention following the events did not treat her well so she changed her name and moved away. But the last continued to follow her when her rescuer ends up dead near her yard. This book kept me second guessing until the end and I will be recommending it to my friends and book clubs.

Thank you to NetGalley for an arc of The Girl from Widow Hills.

I was pleased when my request was approved because the premise sounded intriguing.

Two decades ago, Arden Maynor survived a traumatic event that made her infamous. But, fame and money wasn't what it was all cracked up to be.

Now, with a new life, name and career, all she wants to do is forget about her past and move forward with her life.

But, as we all know with these types of books, the past has a way of creeping up on you, whether you want it to or not.

The formulaic hallmarks of a mystery can be found here:

Arden is an unreliable narrator, plagued with sleepwalking episodes and a murky memory of the trauma she had survived in childhood.

An uncomfortable and uneasy relationship with her mother

Unreliable friendships or very little friends to call her own

The writing was good, as was the twist, though I guessed right but, the pacing dragged.

At times, the narrative was repetitive, as if the author had to fill up the pages with unnecessary detail to make her quota. For example, Arden constantly mention how she didn't remember anything, how her mother made money off the event, how the only things she did recall was dampness, gray, cold, etc.

Overall, this was a good read and I know most readers would enjoy it.

This book was a little hard for me to get into at first but once I did I couldn't wait to finish it. It is written well, with great detail. It is full of suspense and I loved the creepy feeling I had the whole time! I would definitely recommend!

I received this ARC from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to Megan Miranda, Simon & Schuster, and Netgalley for providing me with a digital advance copy of this novel.

As a young child, Arden Maynor was famously and miraculously rescued after being swept away into a storm drain. Years later, in a new town with a new name, she is trying to live an anonymous life, when she begins sleepwalking again. Suddenly, her life is thrown into chaos and her life is in danger. What really happened to her all those years ago? And who is coming after her now?

The Girl from Widow Hills is a well-executed thriller which kept me eagerly turning the pages until the end. The plot is very well done — I was surprised throughout — and the writing is also quite good. I recommend this novel for readers who enjoy thrillers and I very much look forward to Miranda’s next book.

What. Just. Happened??? Great who done it with such twists and turns. Hard to put down! But the ending!?!? I haven’t decided if I love it or hate it. Let’s just say I was not expecting that last twist!

Another great book by Megan Miranda. I enjoyed the Atlantic City setting and found this to be an enjoyable suspenseful fast read. I would definitely recommend this one! Thank you for the advanced copy.

Arden was a child when she had a terrifying experience of being swept away by a powerful rainstorm. She went missing for three days. Rescuers found her clinging to a storm drain. She has tried very hard to leave that part of her life behind. She moved to a different city and changed her name. However, as the twentieth anniversary of her rescue come closer, Arden is afraid her story will resurface and people will try to find her.

I find the story to develop at an extremely slow pace. Part of this is because everything was written in extreme details. The style of writing was overly described. For example, Arden walked into a store, not only was the store was described as far as the layout but what type of program the clerk was watching. It made reading frustrating as it seems like the plot was at a standstill. The overuse of commas in a sentence made the reading a very hard, almost like a run-on sentence throughout the book. I read all the way into chapter 5 and still the story has not been developed nor did the story look back to the past. It was stagnant. The story picked up and was interesting around chapter 26, which was almost the end. It does have a very nice twist at the end. I also did not get a sense that I knew the characters very well. They were definitely underdeveloped. I had to really push myself to finish it. It took me a long time to finish this book. 

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was given this book by Net Galley for an honest review-
Arden is a little girl who sleepwalks.
And then there is a rainstorm and Arden is found missing. The town begins a search for the missing girl.
They say it is a miracle they have found her clinging to a storm drain.
Her mother capitalizes on her missing daughter and writes a book.
Arden hates the publicity and changes her name and moves.
But then there is the feeling of being watched and once again she begins sleepwalking.
Is the past coming back to haunt her? What really happened when Arden disappeared?

This story takes place in two times - one, when Arden Maynor went missing during a flash flood and was found days later, somehow miraculously still alive - and two, in the present day, when she has grown up and changed her name. I do not want to give much of anything else away for risk of spoiling.

I will say that this story was fairly compelling - I found myself engaged at the start, though during a few plot twists and plot points I found myself a bit more confused about exactly how things were progressing, and the ending, while certainly on par with the thriller genre, felt a little bit more predictable than I might have liked.

I did like the author's writing style and the different forms of storytelling present in this book.

3.5 stars.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

There’s such a glut of suspense novels on the market today, your novel really has to stand out, and The Girl from Widow Hills does not make it. The plot starts out with an original concept, the characters are well written, and it’s a page turner until you’re almost at the ending, when it falls flat, predictable and disappointing. There are hints along the way to guess what’s ultimately coming, and I’m wondering why the author didn’t stop with the other protagonist.