I loved this; I read most of the book in a single day. Just like The Last House Guest, Megan Miranda has put together another amazing thriller. I really enjoyed how you kept learning new facts about both events slowly, as the character did, and it was impossible to predict the ending. The story is split between two cases, how Arden went missing while sleepwalking and the body that Olivia found now. Each chapter has a section of police report or interview dating back 20 years to Widow Hills, which I found slowed down the plot a little, but it was interesting to see what people were saying at the time and it becomes relevant later. Overall I thought the whole premise was fascinating and Arden/Olivia was a really believable character.

Had to make myself finish this book. I knew from the get go that Olivia’s predicament as a young child was not an legitimate account. The book was boring and a lot of the characters and events had a disassociation with the plot. Book just seemed disconnected and definitely not a thriller.

When she was 6 years old, Arden disappeared during a terrible storm in her hometown of Widow Hills. She was gone for three days and, upon her return, instantly became a media sensation.

Now, 20 years later, Arden lives in rural North Carolina and goes by the name Olivia in order to distance herself from the events of her past. But her past always catches up to her.

I thought The Girl From Widow Hills was a solid suspense story. As always, Megan Miranda’s writing was extremely engaging. I enjoyed the originality of the story and thought the plot was well executed. A great read if you’re looking to escape for a few hours!

I'm such a huge Megan Miranda fan and am so sad to say I didn't enjoy The Girl From Widow Hills at all. I couldn't connect with the characters, found the storyline really unbelievable and was bored. The relationships were weak, it was difficult to understand why some of them even existed at all. And while the ending had an interesting twist I felt as though there were characters in the book that just disappeared... I was left questioning why they didn't get an ending?

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for my review copy!

Quite the page turner! Megan Miranda presents a cast of characters that keep the reader guessing as to who may be involved in the murder of an unknown man outside Olivia’s house. Another compelling story from the author, who has a knack for drawing readers in and maintain the intrigue until the very end.

I enjoyed reading this book. It had a good story to it. I liked the variety of characters in it. I hope to read more books from this author.

wow
i usually don't reach for psychological/thriller/mystery books, but i'm so glad i chose to pick this one up.

i liked the idea of the past paving the way for the present, i liked how olivia had countless representations of who she was and was navigating through it all just to compile her memories of who she was and trying to escape it all to create her own story of herself. it was really cool reading about a strong independent female character that was focused on uncovering the truth of all the events around her.

each character played a role in moving the story forward. i'm so used to focusing on character development and character personalities that it was refreshing that the characters were incorporated differently here. (that's not to say that the characters didn't illustrate development within themselves because olivia definitely did) every single moment, every single encounter moved the story along and brought a new perspective to the table. it also helped fuel suspense as the story progressed and as new characters became suspects.

i actually loved the settings. i loved the setting of widow hills, i loved how it was described and how the community was described, i loved olivia's new setting and how it contributed in framing the tone for all the events that transpired.

there was one thing i didn't get, i didn't understand the significance of the 2 guys that parked on the side of the road when olivia crossed the creek and her property line. i know she didn't want to be seen by them, but maybe i'm looking into that detail too much. maybe the story of nathan looking into all the small details could also be true for the readers collecting evidence throughout.

Arden Maynor was only six when she went missing while sleepwalking during a huge rainstorm. She was found three days later, miraculously alive in a storm drain. The media went wild about it (think: the Baby Jessica rescue back in the early '90s) and Arden and her mother ended up on the talk show circuit, receiving loads of donations, her mother even wrote a book. Arden, on the other hand, can't really remember anything about that horrific incident.

20 years later, Arden's changed her name to Olivia, and has abandoned her old life altogether. She's trying to live a normal life in privacy. She has a house in a small town, she's working in medical administration, and takes care to keep her history completely secret from everyone she knows. All is fine and well unless she discovers herself sleepwalking again one night— something she hasn't done since the accident. It rattles her, especially after another night of sleepwalking, she finds herself standing over a body in her backyard, hands covered in blood.

This book was a slow burn: in both good and bad ways. The opening dragged some, but picked up quickly once Olivia woke up to the body, unsurprisingly. The development through the middle of the novel kept me guessing, and added in layers of complexity, compounding the feelings of confusion around what the truth could really be. There were threads of secondary characters that I would have loved to have fleshed out a bit more, but overall this was a great exploration of the roles we play in the stories we tell ourselves about our lives, as well as what the after-effects of a traumatic event can be like.

Thank you to Netgalley for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Olivia has been sleepwalking again. The 20 year anniversary of a childhood traumatic event is approaching. Back then, she was known as Arden Maynor and disappeared for 3 days when she was swept away during a major storm (while she was sleepwalking).

The current story centres around the murder of a man that Olivia finds on her property. She is awakened during a sleepwalking episode and trips over his body. Who is the man? Did she do it or was it someone else? Is Olivia in danger and is it connected to those childhood events, when she was known as the girl from Widow Hills?

This was a quick, easy, and enjoyable read. It was easy to become immersed in Olivia's life and her encounters with those around her (her friends, Bennett and Elyse; her neighbour, Rick; and the police officer investigating the crime). I had lots of ideas as to what had happened and I found that I was very wrong!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and Simon & Schuster for an opportunity to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

What an ending! I didn't see that one coming!

Olivia Meyer's new life is still haunted by Arden Maynor's miraculous survival when the six year old was swept away by a flash flood and was missing for three days. Sleepwalking ties them together, as does finding a dead body one night.

The plot was a twisty and constantly building tension keep the 'couldn't put it down'-ness high.

Another fantastic thriller suspense by Megan Miranda.

What a great thriller! The whole time I kept wondering what happened 20 years ago and what happened now. There were a few twists I wasn't expecting. It is definitely a read for the summer.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for a copy of this book!

The Girl From Widow Hills is the third Megan Miranda novel I've read and easily the most intriguing.
Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Arden Olivia Maynor became famous at age six when she sleepwalked out of her house and got swept away in a rainstorm flood. The search and subsequent rescue made national news and as an adult, she actively distances herself from that identity.
When the man responsible for her rescue is found murdered in her yard, Arden - aka Olivia - is face-first into her past.
The chapters alternate with news clips, documentation and writings from her childhood event, adding an air of authenticity to the story.
Honestly I wasn't a huge fan of The Last House Guest and All The Missing Girls. This book was slow for the first quarter. But once the action kicked in, I couldn't put it down. Twists I didn't see coming from a mile away!
The Girl From Widow Hills has been the redeeming Megan Miranda novel for me - recommended!
For release on June 23, 2020.

The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda
3.5 Stars out of 5.

The Girl from Widow Hills is a psychological thriller whose trope is part urban legend part reclaiming of one’s narrative. As a 6-year-old, Arden, was swept away one night while sleepwalking and found 3 days later following a terrifying ordeal. The small and once obscure town of Widow Hills was catapulted into nationwide fame as the hunt and rescue of little Arden is sensationalised across every media outlet. As with abrupt fame Arden’s life is never the same and becomes untenable resulting in her moving and changing her name. Now known as Olivia, she is faced with the 20-year anniversary of her disappearance and rescue. Despite attempts at starting over and disconnecting with a tortured identity, Olivia discovers a murder with connections to her past and she is forced to go back to where. But what will she find? Will it be as she remembered? Or are there secrets long buried that will fracture her past, present and future?

With an enticing plot line, the story itself is quite intriguing and I enjoyed many aspects of this novel, particularly in the second half of the novel. Unfortunately, I found I did not connect with any one character which could be due to the characters not being rich enough for me or some parts of the narrative being added in but not fully developed. All this to be said, The Girl from Widow Hills was a good book for a light summer read.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the electronic ARC in trade for an honest review.

What a fantastic story.
Plenty of twists and turns that will have you wondering who Olivia can trust. A surprise twist at the end of the book I definitely didn't see coming.
I'm so glad I got to read this book.
This author has a new fan.

"This was what people wanted. They wanted it all. They wanted to fit you in a box. Hold you in the palm of one hand. Sum you up in one sentence. The shorter, the better. So they could understand who you were, and the role you were intended to play for their benefit."

This psychological thriller centres around a story from 20 years ago in a small Kentucky town where a little girl named Arden went missing. The hysteria surrounding the search for her swept the nation until, three days later, she is miraculously found. The plot of this novel takes place in the present day, after Arden has grown up and moved away, trying to escape the events from her childhood that changed her life. She is traumatized not onl;y but what happened to her when she was six, but also by the way the world demands so much from her now, expecting familiarity and gratitude, expecting her to be special.

This was my first Megan Miranda book and it will definitely not be my last. I absolutely love her writing style, and the creepy, somebody-is-watching atmosphere she created. The tone from the beginning leaves you questioning almost every character, the plot twisting in on itself, so that both the reader and the main character don't know who to trust. The ending was a fantastic sucker punch that I didn't see coming and I absolutely loved it.

This is an intense psychological thriller with so many twists and turns you won’t know what is going on till the last chapter. This book had me from the first chapter and it held me till the last word. I loved the style of writing with the chapters going from one time frame to another, introducing more of the back story and building each characters persona. This is the type of book that you should pay attention to everything you read so you can try and figure out who the guilty party is. Ever loose end is tied up nicely by the end of the book and I was excited to figure it all out yet sad that the book was over. It is a well written book with lots of thought put into every chapter. I look forward to reading more by this author. A big thank you to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for the chance to read the ARC. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. This is the second book I have read by this author, I read the one before it and unfortunately just like that one, I couldn’t get into this one either. I found the book too slow and it just didn’t capture my interest.

I could not get into this one, which was really disappointing because I've loved her previous novels.

For the past few years I’ve eagerly awaited the start of summer because with it comes so many new thrillers! The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda was one of my most anticipated summer reads, and I was so happy when I got an electronic copy. It’s the fourth book by this author I’ve read, and I was so excited to see what it was about.

Unfortunately, The Girl from Widow Hills didn’t meet the high expectations I had. Perhaps that’s my own fault though; I loved the author’s previous books so much I was expecting my mind to be blow away. While it didn’t capture my attention enough to read the entire book in one day, it was still enjoyable overall.

The story follows Olivia Maynor, who used to go by the name of Arden. She changed her name after leaving home to escape her past. When Olivia was young, she went missing and was at the center of a nation-wide search and rescue, which found her after three days, holding on to a storm water drain. Don’t worry, I promise these aren’t spoilers; it’s all in the book’s description.

Every year, on the anniversary of the event, Olivia once again finds herself at the center of attention. She gets letters in the mail from people who remember watching the event on TV, calls from reporters, and terrible messages from people who think the entire thing was staged. In order to escape from all the noise she moves far away and changes her name. That is, until the 20th anniversary rolls around and things start to get weird again.

Once again, Olivia has unexpected and unwelcome visitors. She’s stressed and starts sleepwalking, and then the unimaginable happens: she wakes up outside over a dead body. All of her worst fears start to unravel as she has to reveal her past and her personal secrets in order to figure out what’s going on.

This book has all the elements that make for a good story: a mysterious death, unreliable characters, and a questionable past. However, I found the plot to be slow, and there wasn’t anything that got me hooked into guessing what was going to happen.

That being said, there were still elements of the book that I enjoyed. The small-town setting was creepy and helped set the tone for the story overall. The settings in this author’s books always add to the overall atmosphere. I also enjoyed the fact that Olivia suffered from bouts of sleepwalking, because it added a sense of mystery. This characteristic was the only thing in the book that left me truly guessing.

Overall, The Girl from Widow Hills left me feeling lukewarm. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. If you’re looking for an easy read that will keep you distracted from the real world for a few hours, I’m sure it would fit the bill. If you’re looking for something more gripping, I suggest checking out Megan Miranda’s last book, The Last House Guest, instead.

Thank you to the publisher (Simon & Schuster Canada) for an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley. The Girl from Widow Hills comes out on June 23, 2020, and can be purchased wherever books are sold.

Megan Miranda is another author who seems to have a new book a year, though I have only read one, The Perfect Stranger , which I expected to be a typical whodunnit, but was pleasantly surprised by the how Miranda crafted a story that seemed to lead you in one direction but ended up somewhere completely different. The Girl from Widow Hills was much the same; a strong mystery that kept itself out of reach and intriguing enough to push me from start to finish for a quick read.

And it was good. Again, I was surprised with how well Miranda lays everything out and then gives you something completely unexpected, even though the pieces were there all along. The mystery you thought you were unraveling wasn’t even the main focus and then surprise, you are blindsided.

This makes me so excited because I read a lot of books like this and more often than not it’s just another okay read. Something that follows a formula and even if I didn’t totally expect the ending, it never really makes a big impact. But Miranda makes an impact and that makes me so happy. This was refreshing.