When Mariana’s niece Zoe calls her to tell her that her best friend was murdered by their campus, Mariana runs to her. In trying to help her grieving niece Mariana is caught in a web of lies and deception. She’s convinced she knows who the killer is, and will stop at nothing to get others to believe her.
I have not read Alex Michaelides’s previous novel The Silent Patient, but his writing is compulsively readable. I felt like I flew through this book and enjoyed the narrative he laid out. I particularly enjoyed the classical references throughout and how they were used in the post cards. But the final twist was not exactly one I loved, it was unexpected though.

Elegant and suspenseful, unlike anything else in library shelves. Mystery and suspense readers will rejoice over this one.

** spoiler alert ** 4.5 ⭐

Thank you so much to NetGalley for giving me an early copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!

The Maidens is a dark academia book following an outsider named Mariana Andros. She is a group therapist with a tragic life, losing almost everyone that she has ever loved except for Zoe. One night Zoe calls Mariana and talks about how one of her good friends goes missing. Mariana ends up going to Cambridge University which is where Zoe goes to school and essentially becomes a detective to figure out this murder as well as others that start popping up along the course of the book.

This book was a wild ride from start to finish, however, it did take a bit to get into. After about the 30% range is when I really started getting into the book. I really enjoyed how the author brought in elements and characters from his last book, The Silent Patient. It was really surprising making those connections, it actually made me gasp out loud! The twists I enjoyed as well although, one of the twists did fall a little flat for me which is why the story is 4.5/5. My favorite aspect of the book was the implementation of Greek mythology, it made the story really unique and different from anything that I have ever read before!

Before I speak to the wonderful book Alex Michaelides has brought forth in The Maidens, please allow me to say a few words about his first book, The Silent Patient. No doubt, The Silent Patient, was one of my favorite books of 2019 and possibly of all time. I love a good thriller. I adore one that takes me by surprise and one that makes me gasp when the bad guy is revealed sends me over the moon. The Silent Patient met all three of my criteria for a GREAT read! Don’t get me wrong I’m not re-reviewing The Silent Patient, nor am I downplaying the quality of The Maidens. In fact, I believe they are on nearly equal footing.
Like many, I put my deductive skills to work on thrillers. I so enjoy working alongside the detective or in this case, the therapist, to ferret out the villain. I’d like to believe I’m pretty good at doing just that. However, The Maidens had me fooled until he last couple of chapters. That depth and story-telling skill made this an even more challenging read. One of the pieces that contributed to the challenge were the many references to Greek mythology. I don’t have much familiarity with this area of study, but it certainly added to the suspense and setting.
Again, like The Silent Patient, A. M. created some complex characters. The pro-tagonist, Marianna, a troubled soul, and her niece, Zoe, both still mourning the loss of their husband and uncle. Both embroiled in the mystery of a serial killer at Cambridge, where Zoe is enrolled. Add a cast of supporting characters in the form of a chance meeting on the train, a professor with a cultish aura about him, an odd custodian “cleaner” and assorted others all lend themselves to the development and movement of this story.
I sped right through The Maidens, virtually all in an afternoon. It was nicely structured into shorter chapters and made for easy, pleasurable reading. Thank you, Net Galley and Celadon Books for the opportunity to read and offer my review.

I wish I had been more invested in this book as I was with Michaelides first novel, The Silent Patient. I so badly wanted to LOVE this story, but the main character really REALLY got on my nerves. She made me not want to read any more. I know....grief is HORRID and I expect no less when I lose a close loved one, but reading about her and her grief for more than half the book, just killed it for me.

THAT being said, it definitely plays a part and comes full circle as to why it is so important so I don't feel like it was a total waste of time. I found myself not really having to push to read this book but it wasn't calling for me. I never got to a point of the book calling for me to pick it up and read.

I never try to guess the killer in stories like this but you can't help thinking many times "Is that him/her? Or is THAT him/her?" and trying to connect some dots. I will say I suspected the real killer but I couldn't put together the pieces for it to work out. I was definitely surprised by the ending.

The Maidens was a super interesting book. It grabbed my attention and was enthralled from the beginning. I loved the college campus setting & I loved the focus on Greek mythology. This was a great dark and suspenseful novel with a very good twist at the end.

This is going to be a must have for the summer beach bag!

If you do a lot of reading, you will inevitably come across a handful of books that you feel are flawed, that have some critical issues, or that you just plain old don’t like very much.

I encounter a fair number of books like this every year and mostly consider it a cost of doing business write-off when it comes to reading. That said, I’m pretty picky and have learned what to avoid such that I rarely end up reading books that are truly just bad.

Alas, The Maidens is that truly bad book I try so hard to avoid.

I was greatly looking forward to reading this given the premise, and I didn’t mind the early chapters. It was clear that this wasn’t going to be the excellent work of literary dark academia that I’m always seeking, but I thought it might be a reasonably entertaining thriller with a good setting.

Sadly, it’s just a badly written book with a poorly structured plot.

The dialogue is wooden, repetitive, and stunted. The solve comes out of nowhere, is completely implausible, and doesn’t add up with the material from earlier chapters. It somehow feels like it isn’t possible to guess the ending because the entire book is a series of pointless red herrings, yet when you get there it makes you heave a giant sigh as though this cockamamie, eye roll-inducing conclusion is exactly what the book (as the narrative deteriorates) signaled that you should expect.

There are many male authors who can write convincingly from a female perspective, but Michaelides is decidedly not one of them. All of the female characters are idiots, even the smart ones. And Mariana is the biggest dingbat of them all.

She’s very beautiful because of course she is, and very good at her job (except that she’s actually quite terrible at it). She violates all kinds of professional tenets for psychotherapy and according to laughably trite armchair psychologist Michaelides, has all kinds of latent Freudian daddy issues. Yikes. But by god, she’s gonna Scooby Doo her way to solving this mystery even if it gets her arrested or kills her. And in the end, she doesn’t solve anything. She basically face plants into the truth while chasing after an inexplicably nonsensical theory that she can’t prove.

Then of course we have the standard bad thriller manipulation tactics used to explain why a psychopath is a psychopath: Mom and dad were mean and, surprise! An unnecessary, gruesome pet death during childhood!

I don’t expect every thriller I read to be an object lesson in beautifully wrought language or to boast a flawlessly cerebral plot, but I do expect better than this book, which is several dozen major rewrites away from publication quality.

Good cover, though.

This was a really strong follow up to The Silent Patient. I loved the setting and atmosphere of the school and the mysterious club. The story was definitely intriguing and kept my interest throughout. The main character definitely made some decisions that were bothersome or ridiculous, but that is typical in mystery/thrillers. Definitely recommend.

This was a GREAT book, though I will say I think "The Silent Patient" wins on my favorite Michaelides novel this one was a close second. The writing in this is beautiful, you can tell every detail is thought out thoroughly.

Mariana is a struggling widow that works as a group therapist in London. Navigating through her loss she is jolted into an episode of panic when her niece Zoe calls her to inform that a student in Cambridge (where Zoe attends) has been murdered. Mariana rushes to the university to be by Zoe's side and encounters a number of characters that raise suspicion. First is Fred, a clumsy man that takes an instant liking to her and then Professor Fosca who has an elite group of students called "The Maidens." Mariana takes on the role as amateur detective and tries to navigate who is murdering students while also supporting Zoe through the loss.

I read this book in less than a week and wanted to have more of it when it was finished. I cannot state how much I loved that there was a crossover of characters from "The Silent Patient" (what's up Theo?). It gave me a familiarity and excitement on seeing that character in a new light.

Thank you to Alex Michaelides, Celadon Books, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Blog posting link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPlYWJsrHJu/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Goodreads review posted: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3734586641?book_show_action=false

3.5🌟 Happy Pub Day to The Maidens!

Thank you @netgalley & @celadonbooks for the advanced copy! Pub date for The Maidens is today, June 1st!

The story follows Mariana, a group therapist, who becomes fixated on the murder of her nieces best friend at Cambridge University. Her niece’s friend was part of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens and Mariana is convinced that the professor who leads this group, Edward Fosca, is guilty of the murder (despite his alibi). The story had me hooked and really picked up towards the end - I was shocked by the ending!

Overall I really enjoyed The Maidens. I was a big fan of The Silent Patient and was really looking forward to diving into this new novel by Alex Michaelides. I also loved that there were some character connections from The Silent Patient too!

This one was a very worthy follow-up to The Silent Patient. There was a great ending that I did not see coming, although I had guessed the psycho early on, I just did not know how or why, and a really creepy college setting. I could easily picture everything in my head. What kept this from 5 stars? I just could not connect with Mariana. I did not dislike her, I get that her much loved husband recently passed away, but she was just bland to me. Her scenes with Fred were actually my favorite character interactions. I also felt a little overwhelmed by all of the Greek Mythology, but that's more from pressure I placed on myself for not knowing or remembering a lot of that than anything the author did. And yes, I do know that Greek mythology is a big feature in this author's books, just my personal feeling this time. I was not able to put That Silent Patient down and this one took a minute to get into. Once I did, though, it was on! I also enjoyed revisiting Theo, but did I miss something? Did The Maidens take place BEFORE The Silent Patient? I was confused there. Maybe I am just not intellectual enough to appreciate the full experience of this one, but overall I did really enjoy it and cannot wait for another one!!
A HUGE THANK YOU to #NetGalley, Alex Michaelides and Celadon Books for this ARC

Mariana is a group therapist and recent widow, who is called to go back to her old university when her niece's, Zoe, friend is murdered. There she will do whatever it's on her power to prove one of the most distinguished professors is the murderer.

I didn't know what to expect from this book as I haven't read anything from this author before but I was pleasantly surprise. The book did start slow and for mw it didn't pick up the pace until about 25-30% into it. However, I found the book extremely interesting and very well written. I love greek mythology so this book was right up my alley. The mystery was great and it kept you guessing right until the end.
I will definitely be reading future titles by this author.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Unpopular Opinion Alert ~

Let me start off by explaining that a two rating for me means: That it was just ok and that I may have liked some parts … So hey, maybe you’ll love it.

That being said, I didn't love this one ... thought I would because I loved The Silent Patient so much.
Were my expectations too high I wonder? But no ... I just could not get into it. Very slow burn for me. There were so many things that I should have loved about this book given the premise and content but everything just kind of fell flat. I even wondered why certain elements were written in… choppy, hard to get my head around.

I did get to the end and was intrigued about some elements nearing the end but sadly didn’t save it for me.

I read this one with my friends over at Killclubreads and look forward to discussing as a group.

Thank you to Celadon books & Netgalley for an advance

Having enjoyed The Silent Patient, I was eager to read this one -- and I enjoyed it even more! Mariana, a recent widow, gets a call from her niece, Zoe, who is a student at Cambridge. Zoe's best friend has been brutally murdered. Once Mariana goes to Cambridge to support and comfort Zoe, several more students are murdered, so she starts to investigate why these murders are happening and who could be culprit. All the twists and turns make this one hard to put down. At one point or another, I suspected almost every one of being involved. I did not seeing the ending coming, which is they best way to end a thriller. You will definitely want to add this to your must-read list!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e ARC of this book.
A slow moving plot but short chapters which helped move it along.
A psychological thriller that doesn't match up to The Silent Patient.
I found it hard to like any of the characters and put all the men on the list of suspects.
I hated the ending which while unexpected, was dropped like a bomb and the book was over. Didn't hate it but also did not love it.

Michaelides was born in Cyprus and now lives in London. His first book was "The Silent Patient" which in 2019 was the best-selling debut novel in the world. This book is his second novel and is another thriller. The main character is Marianna, a group therapist who is still mourning her husband who died a year earlier. When her niece Zoe calls from college in tears, Marianna drops everything to go to her. Zoe is scared, as her friend Tara has been murdered and she thinks her professor Edward Fosca killed her. Tara had admitted that she had been sleeping with him and he had threatened to kill her if she went public. When Marianna determines that the policeman in charge is an idiot, she starts her own investigation and after meeting Fosca she is sure her niece is right. This is a fun thriller, steeped in Greek mythology, that even has a nod to his first book in it. It is a great recommendation for fans of the genre.

This book reminded me of Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” but did not draw me in like the aforementioned book. I preferred “The Silent Patient.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45300567

OH, MY Sweet Baby James! This book, The Maidens, is Unbelievable. I wanted to write in all caps, and, yes, this would have deserved every single capital letter! The Silent Patient, the author’s debut novel, was absolutely amazing, and I could not recommend it to enough people. Everyone I know who read it were like me and thought it was the best book they read that year, and still read it based on my recommendation and love it. Including the friend who is taking it to the beach next week. This book will be no different, and I cannot wait to spread the word any way that I know how. This may sound bizarre, but I finished the book on Monday, but it took me til now to find the right words to say about a book which leaves me speechless.

When it comes to The Maidens, I am simply floored. For a follow-up novel after the author’s debut, it not only lives up the hype, it exceeds it and deserves even more I, for one, cannot wait to help put it out there. The hits keep on coming! I love the story woven by Alex Michaelides and learned a lot about Greek mythology, the UK college institutions, and various aspects of university life. From the moment the book begins you are hooked. There may have been a couple of times when it felt a little slow, but I am glad I kept going. After you get into the rhythm, you cannot put it down. (I may have sneaked a peek and read a little here and there when I was supposed to be doing something else.)

Mariana gets a call from her niece, Zoe,, who is at college in London, upset because her closest friend has been murdered. Mariana who practically raised Zoe as her own when tragedy struck Zoe's family, drops everything to be with her niece. Mariana is also dealing with her own loss after losing her husband she loved for many years, and is struggling with overwhelming grief. Mariana is now a therapist who conducts group therapy with a few interesting characters.

Zoe feels uncomfortable with a particular professor who she feels is linked to the crime. So begins the trip down the rabbit hole where Mariana believes the professor may be involved as the killer. Soon, other girls begin dying as well, and Mariana's obsession with the professor, who is popular with a certain group of young women called The Maidens, grows more and more. The Maidens is a term tied to Greek Mythology and only adds suspicions as the professor teaches the Greek Tragedies. The story behind the name does not do him any favors in Mariana's eyes, and as each girl is found with postcards in their possession with a Greek quote written on the back just prior to their death, Mariana begins spiraling. Finding out who is the killer comes to a peak when Mariana receives her own postcard.

Alex Michaelides is my kind of author! I felt like I knew what was happening, but at the same time I Literally told myself, Autumn, you know you are not right or not completely because he is better than that. And he was. And he totally got me! This is another reason he is a master... He found ways to tie back to The Silent Patient that made me audibly gasp at the doctor's office with his first intro of a reference to the debut novel. Then there were little things along the way that made me have to go back and reread the first book again! If you read this one first, you will still be surprised when you go back to the first book. I cannot wait for another book! Please, do not make us have to wait as long, but if it takes that long to deliver another work of perfection, I will gladly wait.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the great honor and privilege of previewing The Maidens in exchange for an honest review.

Lots of twists and turns in this one. My initial thoughts confirmed but with an additional twist. Loved the nod the the Silent Patient.

I read the Silent Patient, the debut by this author, and while I thought it was good I was not sure if it deserved all the fanfare it was given. I had higher hopes for this second book, but I was disappointed again.

Mariana, a psychiatrist with her own set of baggage issues, comes to the rescue of her niece, Zoe, who is currently attending Cambridge, after one of Zoe's friends is murdered in a rather brutal fashion. The seeds are planted that Edward Fosca, a professor with a gaggle of beautiful student followers, "The Maidens", is the murderer. Mariana is obsessed with proving this to be true. She decides to investigate everything herself and protect Zoe from all the horrors that follow.

I have to say, I read a lot of cozy mysteries and this is basically a badly written cozy mystery with more gore and a horribly boring supporting cast. Mariana is one of the most unlikeable protagonists I have ever come across. She is shallow and naïve and thinks she wants to save the world but pushes everyone away. Zoe waffles between pathetic and terrifying and will do anything for getting sympathy. Fosca is to be frank, a total poser. He sounds like a brilliant professor but the rest of him is just plain icky.

I imagine I am rather alone in thinking this book was overall pretty terrible. I did like the play on Greek tragedy and some of the clues in the book but for the most part it was a snooze fest and Mariana's investigation tactics make even the most amateur cozy sleuth look like Hercule Poirot.