I did not see that twist coming! This story is engaging and had me suspecting several different people up until the reveal.
I recommend to anyone who enjoys mystery/thrillers.
The audiobook narrators are soothing and do a good job at creating suspense.

While I liked it, I wasn’t a huge fan of The Silent Patient, mostly because the best part is the twist and somehow listening to it, I figured it out pretty early on in the book. So why did I request an ARC of the second book to review? The description drew me in.

Recently widowed Mariana is a therapist that practices in group therapy. When her niece is distraught over the death of a close friend, she heads off to Saint Christopher’s College to comfort her. Filled with ghosts of her late husband, the location unnerves her.

There is a secretish society, a too involved professor and deaths stacking up. The book weaves the mythology of Persephone and Demeter into the tale. There is no shortage of suspects, even though Mariana has honed in on just one.

What sets this book apart from most of this summer’s mysteries, is it is a suspenseful book written in an artful way. I haven’t read The Secret History by Donna Tartt, but I’ve seen many comparisons to it. And the author was able to weave in some of his home country of Greece. And for those of you who’ve read The Silent Patient, there is a nice surprise.

For me it wasn’t a rip through the book in one sitting, but I read and listened to it over a period of time. It is more of a slow burn, than an edge of your seat thriller. And you might think you’ve figured it all out, but WOW, you will not see that ending coming.

I also listened to the book and the narrators are great. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Louise Brealey set an eerie tone and brought the story to life.

If you like a slow moving mystery with an ending you’ll never see coming, then you’ll like this book.

So many likes and loves about this book 🤩 While many may disagree, Alex Michaelides is stupendous at getting my attention! I have taught English Lit for most of my career, and Greek Mythology was never one of my accolades, but something about the way he incorporated the Greek Tragedies with both of his novels and Tennyson's poetry peaked my interest. This psychological thriller is based around the death of Greek Goddesses and mimicked on the campus of Cambridge University. While a serial killer is loose killing some of the most beautiful girls called The Maidens, the emphasis is on one of the beloved Greek mythology professors, Edward Fosca.

One of Cambridge college's former students and now group therapist, Mariana Andros, gets a call from her distraught niece Zoe that one of her friends has been murdered. Tara was a member of the secret society and had warned Zoe of the professor's desire to kill her. This turn of events sends Mariana on a hunt for the truth while stalking the professor and obsessing with his intentions. Yet, as the evidence against the professor is profound, he has an alibi for each murder that continues to mound.

While Mariana is preoccupied with the crime scenes, you see her vulnerability and heartache over her husband Sebastian's accidental death from the year before. There are so many layers unpeeling in the background of this book. There was something about his death that lingers in the context that shadows much of the story.

The hunt for clues and detective work is addictively written. The landscape, pubs, campus life and the exploration of Cambridge and its traditions is indescribable. I have always been fascinated by the illusions our mind creates....The mind sees what it wants to see...this builds with the other brillant additives he writes into his novel.

Oh, my friend, that twist he transplants into the final chapters will drive you over the edge with shock and desire to read another one from this author. I loved the Silent Patient, but this trumps his writing skills.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for my ARC for my honest opinion. But, I have to admit I waited to finish it with my actual copy from BOTM because as beautiful as the accent was to listen to I found myself desiring the book in hand.

I liked The Maidens but didn't love it. The ending was a little contrived for me but not so much that I couldn't enjoy the story. I did enjoy the references to characters and places in Michaelides previous novel, The Silent Patient.

The Silent Patient was a fantastically written and plotted mystery/suspense novel. I loved every moment of it. Michaelides managed to recreate those same feelings of mystery, truths obscured or hidden just beneath the surface and almost within grasp, and also this building and titillating suspense in The Maidens.

His titles are always so apt and obvious that I feel it is a method that helps to divert attention. His answers to everything are not obvious, they are deeply hidden and only reveal themselves at the most opportune time. However, the way be manages to pull the reader in while also pushing them away is fantastic. I loved this as an audiobook, the male narrator was wonderful and loves the teasing tone he had. It was almost mocking and really helped to push a very specific idea of the mystery that later becomes a spectacular twist.

As it is, the story is absolutely amazing, but I felt as though the audiobook really brought the story to life and added dimension to both the main character and narrator, and the story itself.

I may have been one of the last thriller-lovin’ bookstagrammer to read The Silent Patient (I finished it in May!) so I was really looking forward to checking out The Maidens.

The premise: Mariana Andros is a group therapist grieving the recent loss of her husband. She gets a frantic call one night from her niece after the murder of her friend in Cambridge. She drops everything to go comfort her niece--the closest living relation either of them has to each other.

When Mariana meets Greek Tragedy professor Edward Fosca, she’s immediately on guard. Fosca is apparently the leader of a secret society of female students at Cambridge called The Maidens, to which Zoe belonged. Mariana is determined to connect Fosca to her death and do everything she can to protect her niece.

Thoughts:

What I liked: The setting. The novel was pretty atmospheric. I loved the Cambridge setting, and could easily picture scenes playing out around the campus.

The concept of The Maidens and its ties to Greek mythology was intriguing.

The pacing was pretty good.

What I didn’t like:
This very much felt like a slow-burn, which I can totally appreciate if the character development is nearly perfect. I just felt like Mariana didn’t live up to her full potential as a main character. I felt myself drifting away from the plot pretty frequently because I just wasn’t that interested in her for a lot of the book. I just felt like she was missing… something.

Maybe I was just at the tail end of a great thriller streak, and this just fizzled a bit more than it sizzled for me at the time. Who knows. It’s a solid three to maybe 3.5 if I had to give it a star rating, so I'll round up ;). I think it’s worth checking out if you are a fan of pretty big plot twists.

Narrated by Louise Brealey, with a few chapters interspersed with narration from Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, it’s worth a listen if you love audiobooks. I think if this is on your tbr, it’s one I’d recommend listening to! Thanks to Macmillan Audio for an ALC of The Maidens via NetGalley.

This book was so good. One of the best suspense/mystery/thriller whatever you want to call it, that I have read in quite some time. You follow Marianne and then a mysterious male who the reader believes is the murderer through the book. Michaelides has such a fantastic ability of building characters where the reader feels like they have solved the mystery, only to have their mind totally blown with the actual reveal. I finished this book and just stared off into space for a good ten minutes because my mind was blown. Cannot wait for more works from this author!
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley who provided this free as an audiobook prior to release for review. All opinions are my own.
4*

I jumped at the chance to review this audio book for the narrator; Kobna Holdbrook-Smith in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series is a long-time favorite.

Mariana, a recent widow and therapist, is called to Cambridge to support her niece, whose best friend has gone missing. There are an abundance of suspects, and Mariana fixes on one early, Edward Fosca, a classics professor with a cult-like following of young women.

The story is ok, with an interesting setting among the colleges of Cambridge. I found the inbred intellectualism of the characters increasingly annoying as the book proceeded. Mariana is supposed to be brilliant, but apparently her grief over her husband’s death has blinded her to some obvious clues. Fosca is self-absorbed and arrogant.

Holdbrook is a secondary narrator in the story, and the role he is given is disappointing.

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

Alex Michaelides sets up his highly discussable psychological thriller in the iconic British university town of Oxford and one of it’s equally iconic campuses. The setting immediately brought me back to Dorothy L Sayers “Gaudy Night” which is one of my favorite Golden Age British Mystery novels, even though the Latin quotations there are Ancient Greek quotations here. Michaelides approaches The Maidens with a skillful hand and an eye for the mystery/thriller novel while expertly intertwining dark academia and psychological influences. You do have to suspend disbelief at times since I would expect even a place so steeped in tradition would have an eye on a male professor having his private tutoring circle consist only of beautiful girls and calling them “Maidens” but if you are willing to roll with that it is an engrossing thriller that will keep you invested until the very end - and end I did not like very much but I’ll let you decide for yourselves. I think this is a good one for book clubs since it provides fodder for discussion.
I loved the narration by Louise Brealey and Kobna Holbrook- Smith - it definitely made me feel right there in Oxford along for the ride !

Just okay. I’m not a die-hard Alex Michaelides fan. I finally read The silent patient earlier this year and I know his new book was a most anticipated read for thriller lovers but I found it underwhelming. Like his first, this one revolves around a therapist- this time a group therapist who ends up acting as an amateur detective thinking she knows who is behind a series of murders at her niece’s college (shocker - she doesn’t). I will give the book this - I did not expect the ending but I didn’t find it quite as jaw-dropping as the ending in his last book. There is also a cameo of Theo and his “silent patient” at the end of this book that will no doubt thrill Michaelides fans. Overall this was a quick read, the middle dragged a bit but the end was satisfying and there were lots more references to Greek mythology that seems to have become the author’s trademark.

I absolutely loved Alex Michaelides's first book "The Silent Patient". I kept checking online for any information on his next book. When I heard it had been released I was desperate to find it. At first, the best I could do was the sample. I devoured that and kept looking for the book. All I was able to find was the audiobook.

“The Maidens” was an excellent book and I highly recommend it. I didn't like it as well as “The Silent Patient”. Considering that was one of my favorite books of all time, I would not let that deter you. I might have enjoyed it more if I had read it instead of listening to the audiobook. I think my adult ADD sets in when listening instead of reading and not being able to reread portions as I go.

I loved the way Alex connected the two books slightly. Both Theo and Alicia are discussed. That was exciting for me. Is it wishful thinking, or does this mean there will be a third book? I hope Alex keeps writing.

The ending in “The Silent Patient” was so shocking and good I reread it and went back further in the book to read and see if I saw any of the clues the second time. It reminded me of my addiction to the movie “The Sixth Sense”.

However, I did not have the same reaction to the ending in “The Maidens”. It did have shock value, but I didn’t like it. It was a little too twisted.

Thank you Brad Pitt for making a movie of The Silent Patient. I can’t wait for the release.

I received this galley from NetGalley.

This is a slower burn of a thriller but in this case I thought it worked. I love campus settings and when you have alleged bad behavior by teachers and students I am always here for it, and that is what we have with this story. Edward Fosca teaches Greek Tragedy at Cambridge University, and is loved by both teachers and students alike, but mostly by members of a secret society of female members known as The Maidens.

Mariana Andros, o former student, is a brilliant (but troubled) group therapist called in to help when a friend of her niece, Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge. She quickly becomes fixated on The Maidens, and is convinced Fosca is behind it, and that there is something sinister going on with the ancient traditions. When another body turns up, she moves from convinced to obsessed and proving Fosca’s guilt is her only goal. She will stop at nothing to prove this untouchable man is behind it all, no matter the cost.

Overall I really enjoyed this one, I did not see the twist at the end coming, but thought it was a bit odd, if that’s the right word, but being a thriller I went with it and as I have said before, when I don’t see the ending coming then it is great in my book. The audio for this is really good, I loved the dual narrators and they did a fantastic job keeping the creepy atmosphere going the whole time.

Thank you to Celadon Books, LibroFM, and NetGalley for the gifted copy and ALC to review. I highly recommend you add this one to your list!

{Thank you to Netgalley for this advanced listening copy of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴 by @alex.michaelides!}⁣
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I'd been dying to get my hands on this book and I'm so glad I ended up listening because the audio was so so so good! I finished it in less than 48 hours...which basically means I was walking around my house with ear buds in while doing all of the things.⁣
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I was immediately drawn into this story. Cambridge was the perfect beautiful yet ominous setting. The protagonist was a bit emotionally unstable therefore possibly unreliable. There were lots of sketchy males lurking about. Every element just added to the unputdownableness of this audio. ⁣
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In the midst of unending red herrings, I actually guessed one of the biggest reveals. It truly just made me feel completely validated and added to my listening experience. I finished while out on a walk during my lunch break and burst back into my office to inform my co-workers that "I knew it!" (Their reactions were underwhelming to say the least.)⁣
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In Michaelides fashion, there was more than one big reveal and I definitely didn't see them all coming. ⁣
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Definitely recommend. I will say this is not 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘗𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵. I've seen a lot of people comparing the two but this is a very different vibe. Personally, I think I might have liked this better. Maybe. Still undecided. ⁣

Another page-turner from Michaelides!
This story is a dark academia, totally atmospheric story about the therapist who recently lost her partner when he died. They had been caring for a girl that was in need of parents as a small child and who is now at university at Cambridge. Their daughter, Zoe, was approached by a visiting professor who is from the USA. He has the unusual custom of choosing a group of girls at university that he considers the most impressive and talented and invites them to a secret group, The Maidens. They are all attractive and intelligent young women who have come from privileged backgrounds. Then the member closest to Zoe is missing and found dead. This starts Mariana’s attempts at solving the mystery of who was behind the murder.
The thriller nature of the story was great. If you have read his first novel, there is a lot of similarities here. This maybe due to how recently I read The Silent Patient.
My only critique is the ending is over-the-top in parts and then a let-down in other aspects.
Overall, I really enjoyed this and would recommend it.
I enjoyed the written version of this one better than the audio. The narrator did a fine job and it did not detract from the story. However, given the Greek names and stories, I preferred the written version. For my personal reading.
#TheMaidens #Netgalley #CeladonBooks #MacmillanAudio

This book was a 4 star read until the twist.

What I liked:
-the literary references: I'm a literature nerd/English major, so I really appreciated the nods to mythology and poetry.
-cameos of characters from The Silent Patient: It just tickles my fancy when authors do this. It kind of reminds me of Stephen King's universe.
-the setting: I have a strong desire to visit Cambridge University now.
-how it kept me guessing: I was constantly thinking about who the killer could be and making predictions in my mind.

What I disliked:
-who the killer turned out to be: I just didn't see the connection between why the murders of young women were committed. (I'm trying not to spoil anything) I just don't understand what the motivation would be based on that character's confession.

Overall, I'm glad I listened to it, and the audio copy is very pleasant.

I would rate this book 3.5 stars. The Maidens was definitely a bit of a slow burn. The book is sectioned into "parts", and the first few parts were slow. There was also a lot of background about Greek history with Greek Gods etc., and got a little confusing and boring at parts. However, the book definitely picked up by about 60% through the book. I love books where you don't know what will happen, and although I made many guesses as to what would happen, I didn't guess the end of this one, just like in The Silent Patient. I listened to this book as an audiobook, and really enjoyed the narrator for both parts, especially Mariana's voice. The book also has short chapters, so it was quick to get through. I also really enjoyed the setting of this story, and especially with the audiobook version, it was easy to picture and help you get invested in the plot. The end third of the book was definitely 4-5 stars, but the first 2/3s bring the overall total down since it was quite slow.

Thank you to Netgalley, Alex Michaelides and Celadon Books for the advanced audiobook.

I really liked how the narrator performed on this audio. It was very refreshing that she had the right accent to put the story in perspective. This was a great story by Alex Michaelides. I couldn't help but feel heartbroken for Marianna and her loss of Sebastian. It was real easy to beleive Edward Fosca was the murderer. By all intents and purposes everything was pointing to him. The way he carried himself didn't deter from that either. He had a mysterious quality to him. The fact that he was having private meetings with just his female students should have thrown up alot of red flags, and I don't see how any college would allow that to go on. I immediately had my back up about Zoe. I knew there was something quite not right about her. You could tell she was hiding something that would eventually blow up. All in all this was a great psychological thriller. The murders themselves were so gruesome and very tragic. The greek mythologies throughout the story made it all the more interesting. Alex Michaelides knows his stuff. He writes so well about psychology and the deep aspects of mental illness. I also loved the fact that Theo from The Silent Patient made a cameo....we all know what happened there! All in all I am happy with this book, and look forward to reading more of Alex's books.

I did not finish this audio book at about 25%. It was nothing to do with the narrator's who were great. But, I just was not into the story line and the main character. I will not be posting this on other platforms.

Thoroughly mysterious, page-turning and oh so binge worthy! I absolutely loved the narrator and pacing of the audio and I very much enjoyed the Easter eggs of The Silent Patient, too. Solid sophomore thriller from Michaelides - very smart!

I expected to like the book. THE SILENT PATIENT is probably my favorite psychological thriller, so there was little doubt I would like this one.

What absolutely blew me away, however, was the audio quality. Not only were the narrators absolutely perfect for their roles (I say “roles” because they definitely brought the same amount of gravitas to this performance as an Oscar-winning actor) but the music setting the tone at the beginning and the overall quality of the audiobook makes this a fantastic production. This is what an audiobook should be.