This novel was a quick, interesting read. Though the twist at the end was unexpected, I found that the story lacked suspense and the author tried to weave together too many stories and characters. Overall I found the story entertaining and I enjoyed how the author incorporated greek myths into the story.

This was totally different than I expected. The story was really far fetched for me in most aspects of the book. On the other hand, I really loved the Greek mythology touch. It made this story really unique which is hard to come by these days in the world of mystery books. The chapters are short which lets you fly through this read. Not that it's a bad thing, but I really did have a hard time connecting with the characters, so the short chapters were nice to have.

Loved, loved, loved this book! I could not put it down and was so sad when it was over. I particularly enjoyed how characters from The Silent Patient were woven into the storyline. The Greek mythology that is intertwined in Alex's books is so interesting. With a fictional book I don't usually feel like I'll learn something but I have with his books. The main character was kind of annoying. I doubted Zoe's story. There could have been so many suspects throughout the book and the ending was an unexpected turn. Alex has a way with describing locations so that you can picture it in your mind as if you were there as the story is unfolding. Can't wait to read his next book!

I have to say that the Silent Patient was one of my all-time favorite twisting-turning thrillers. I was gobsmacked after reading it and it stuck with me for days afterwards. I say this because my expectations for The Maidens was pretty high and while this was good it didn't quite measure up for me. It didn't compel me to keep reading like Patient. The story didn't grab me as quickly or tightly either. Still enjoyable and will look forward to Michaelides next book!

Not great, not horrible. It was a little slow moving. The main character has some issues and comes of whiney sometimes. We get it, she lost her husband in a freak accident and his sudden death haunts her throughout the entire book. The best part of the book was the very end. The twist did catch me by surprise. I honestly didn't know who the killer was until the last couple chapters. The ending was what saved this book.

I was not a huge fan of The Silent Patient and I liked The Maidens even less. The author tries to weave too much into the plot, like all of the Greek tragedies and the academic setting of Cambridge. It was a lot and confusing to me, a reader who is not an academic and just enjoys basic thrillers. The plot was pretty slow and the characters were weird and frustrating. That said, I did like two things about it - the twist/ending, which I did not see coming, and how he integrated characters from The Silent Patient into the story.

Wow!! The Silent Patient was awesome and Michaelides just prove that not only can he does it again, but improve! He is a young author so there is place to improvement even if, by the quality of the book, it looks like he is already at the top of his game! Solid plot, strong narrative and writing, a true page turner and it all end up with a satisfying ending. Very fun to read! If you like thriller this should be on your summer TBR!!

I was very impressed with Alex Michaelides’ debut psychological thriller The Silent Patient when I read it last year. It was a shocking and compelling read that I just couldn’t put down, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of his latest offering, The Maidens. Set primarily at Cambridge University in England, The Maidens is a twisty, atmospheric psychological thriller that follows Mariana Andros, a group therapist who unexpectedly finds herself at the center of a murder investigation and becomes obsessed with catching the killer.

Mariana is a pretty complex character with a lot of layers, so having the story unfold from her perspective made for a very addicting read. Mariana is a former Cambridge student herself and she also met her husband there, so her ties to the university run deep, especially since her husband has recently died in a tragic accident. Mariana is still grieving and just going through the motions from day to day, so when her niece Zoe, currently a Cambridge student, calls to tell Mariana that her roommate is missing and a dead body has been found on campus, Mariana heads to the university right away. She goes on the premise of offering comfort to Zoe, but when it’s determined that Zoe’s roommate is the victim and that she was a member of a secret all female society called The Maidens, whose members are all hand-picked by the handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor, Edward Fosca, Mariana becomes convinced he must be involved in the girl’s death, especially when it becomes clear that his only alibi are the other girls in his secret society and when another one of them turns up dead. Mariana’s obsession with proving Fosca’s guilt is what drives the action in the story and makes for such an intense, unputdownable read.

It is of course a wild, twisty, and suspenseful ride as we follow Mariana on her quest. I loved how unpredictable the story is. It took me in directions I never expected to go and kept me guessing to the very end. As intoxicating as the murder mystery itself was though, I was also very much drawn to both Mariana and to Fosca. I love it when a thriller has complex characters to complement its complex plot. Mariana is such a sympathetic character because she has experienced so much loss and is obviously still trying to cope. Being surrounded by university memories of her dead husband has to be so overwhelming and in some ways, I think she tunnel visions on the murders as a distraction from her own pain. Fosca, on the other hand, is fascinating in his own right because he’s so charismatic. Students line up for a chance to sit in on his lectures and the young women he chooses for his special society are clearly willing to do anything for him. The subject matter he is so passionate about also ties quite closely to the manner in which the girls were murdered. Is it a coincidence or is this guy’s charm all an act to cover up something sinister?

I don’t want to give anything away with respect to the murders, but if you’re looking for an atmospheric psychological thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat and that has an almost Gothic feel to it at times, be sure to check out The Maidens.

Lots and lots of hype over The Maidens......where do I start with this one?

I feel a little conflicted over my thoughts on this one. I was SOO pumped to get an early copy of this one.

A Greek professor, a widowed group therapist, and a special group of students known as The Maidens. Slowly, we see this special group dropping like flies and dying.... what is happening at this university?

I found this novel to be overly slow.... and a lot of aspects of the novel along the way to be unbelievable.

I was a little overwhelmed with the multiple references to Greek tragedies and felt this was an attempt to give more depth to the story.

I also figured out the storyline pretty quickly and was left with no surprises.

The writing was dark and intriguing as his first novel!

Overall, 3/5 stars

Thank you so much to Celadon for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

Since Michaelides' debut novel was such a big hit, it's inevitable that his follow-up book will get a lot of scrutiny. While The Maidens might not make quite the splash as The Silent Patient, it's still a great thriller that will entertain readers who want to indulge in a tight mystery with lots of red herrings. The premise of the book revolves around a wealthy widow, Mariana, who arrives at Cambridge when her niece Zoe contacts her about a murder involving one of her close friends and a college professor. Mariana is convinced the professor is guilty, and she makes it her mission to prove it.

The Maidens kept me entertained for several nights. In short, concise chapters, Michaelides keeps the plot churning forward until the big reveal at the end. While I wasn't surprised by the ending, I did find it satisfying. There's a lot of information about Greek mythology and Tennyson, which will appeal to academic scholars. I don't know if the plot entirely holds up, though. Some of the protagonist's motivation were a little too forced for me, but whenever I read a psychological thriller like this, I always have to suspend my disbelief a little bit.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

This is Alex’s second book and is quite good. He keeps you guessing right until the very end. Definite page turner that will have you staying up late to finish. I loved that he incorporated parts from his first book, The Silent Patient, into the end of the book. Definitely worth the read.
Thank you Celadon books and NetGalley for the advanced copy.
#themaidens #netgalley #alexmichaelides #celadonbooks

i don't typically read books like this so I was hesitant at the beginning and felt like maybe I'd end up liking it. That was until the last 30 mins. The twist was super unbelievable and I really don’t get it ...... wondering if there will be a sequel based off the way it ended, not sure if i’d read a sequel tho to be honest. Did not have pay off I was hoping for,

🤩 My Most Anticipated Book of The Year -Happy Pub Week🤩

When I read “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides in 2019 it blew my mind. Immediately upon finishing, I wanted to pick his brain & he became my new hero. I couldn’t get this fast enough!

“There was blood everywhere...she’d been stabbed many times in her face...her eyes were open staring, STARING!”

This story follows Edward Fosca, a Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, who has quite an interesting following: a secret society of young ladies known as “The Maidens.” They have exactly two things in common: they’re intelligent & beautiful. When the leader of the pack, Tara, is found dead on campus an investigation is opened & everyone is a suspect.

When Zoe, fellow student at Cambridge, fears that her best friend was the body found she immediately calls her Aunt Mariana. After losing her parents at such a young age & being adopted by her aunt, she doesn’t handle death well. She also is worried for her own safety because of something Tara said to her right before she vanished.

Mariana Andros is a group therapist who is dealing with her own grief & patients who are a handful when she gets the phone call. After recently losing her husband, she is far from the person who should be running to Zoe’s rescue ,but the girl has no one else. Mariana was also once a student there & knows the ropes.

But, when she arrives she becomes obsessed with the case & could end up being more of an obstruction than helpful.

When a second body, another Maiden, is found both Mariana & Zoe are convinced Fosca is to blame. But, one of them is about to become a target of the killer & needs to keep her eyes wide open. No one is innocent.

“It’s a game...it’s a challenge and he’s enjoying it.

Who’s sending strange post cards with Ancient Greek Quotes to the targeted women?

“Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle.”

Some parts were predictable, but there’s one big twist I didn’t see coming!

I liked the prequel aspect & I hope for a 3rd book that takes place AFTER The Silent Patient!

Thank you Alex Michaelides, Celadon Books, Netgalley & Libro FM for my #gifted arc copies in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 ⭐️ Rounded up to 4 for Goodreads.

SPOILERS BELOW:
The reasons why this book didn’t receive 5 stars from me:

1. I feel like the ending was super rushed once we found out what was going on.

2. I didn’t like how Sebastian’s death was left open-ended. Did Mariana actually kill him or did he drown?

3. I thought that Mariana coming to and taking over and being so involved in the investigation was far fetched.

4. I’m still confused why all of those women had to die so that they could be together.

5. Fred was not a character that was necessary and could’ve been left out.

6. I wanted to get to know WAY more about The Maidens and dive into their lives and have flushed our characters.

I haven't yet read "The Silent Patient", the author's very famous first book, although my book club will be reading it in September. I was curious about this one because of the first book's reputation and because I'm a sucker for both Greek mythology and creepy university books, which I understood were in this one.

So, the main character, Mariana, is a group therapist. This interested me because I used to do that for a living myself. Mariana is grieving the loss of her husband, who accidentally drowned while swimming off the coast of a small Greek island while they were on holiday. At the beginning of the book, Mariana is doing an incredibly poor job of setting boundaries with one of her more disturbed group members. Was this supposed to show me that Mariana was an unreliable narrator? I'm not sure, but it sure made me wonder about her judgement. And I never had reason to re-evaluate my opinion of her judgement upward. There aren't enough clues to really figure out the plot, because we see everything from Mariana's point of view and Mariana is oblivious to so many things. Far too many things for anyone, much less a therapist, to be oblivious to.

Mariana's sort-of-niece Zoe calls her to Cambridge to support her when one of Zoe's friends is murdered. Mariana stays on and sort-of-investigates for various mediocre reasons. She quickly fixates on a charismatic yet creepy professor of classics as the culprit (not a suspect, the culprit) and tries to figure out how to get him to tip his hand. This leads Mariana to getting into dangerous situations and keeping law enforcement untrusting of her. (Stupid law enforcement is rampant in this book.) There are cryptic yet sinister post cards turning up in the possession of more young women who end up dead- it turns into quite the epidemic of dead girls.

All of these girls are part of a group called (by who?) the Maidens, and they are all a little too close to this charismatic yet creepy classics professor. Is there some sort of pagan Greek cult going on?

This is really more of a gothic book than a mystery. Mariana is haunted by something that isn't really put into the book until the very end. And the ending doesn't make much sense because it contradicts what we learned early in the book- unless that's Mariana being totally oblivious yet again to something very close to her. There's some neat imagery with shadows, and interesting reference to Persephone and furies, but ultimately that doesn't have much to do with what's happening either. And the book turns on yet another crazy-in-love woman who's been totally brainwashed into being the instrument of destruction for another's goals. And the plot toward these goals doesn't really make any sense.

So, oblivious therapist, crazy woman trope, solution to the mystery that didn't really make sense, and writing that I honestly thought was far more workmanlike than lyrical. This outweighed any mythology and creepy university fun for me and I would not recommend this book.

Mariana Andros, a group therapist, is struggling. She can't get herself to move on from the death of her beloved husband Sebastian over a year ago, and a patient in one of her groups, who has been problematic from the get-go, is beginning to scare her.

When she receives a frantic phone call from her niece, Zoe, a student at St. Cristopher's College in Cambridge, saying that her friend Tara is missing and Tara had said someone was going to kill her, Mariana rushes to Cambridge the next day to be with Zoe. A body has been found. It's Tara and she has been brutally murdered.

Mariana begins to focus her attention on Edward Fosca, a charismatic professor who Zoe reports as the one who threatened Tara. He has a private study group for a select group of girls, a secret society of sorts, whom he calls The Maidens. They are all beautiful, and would do anything for the professor. Tara was one of them.

When a second Maiden is murdered, Mariana becomes obsessed with proving Fosca to be the murderer. Will she be able to do so before someone else dies? Will her fixation on the case put her in danger?

This is a delightful and compelling read! I enjoy Michaelides' writing style, his pacing, his plot development, and the way he throws in red herrings aplenty to keep the reader off balance. A quick read, and one I would highly recommend!!

My thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for letting me read a review copy of this novel. All opinions given in this review are unbiased and my own.

This was a fast-paced mystery full of twists with a satisfying ending. I enjoyed the Greek tragedy/mythology references. Regular mystery/thriller readers will get a lot out of it.

I love a good book set in an academic setting, especially when it adds an element of mystery.

I enjoyed this, though I did at times feel that it was a bit forced in terms of setting the "creepy" setting. It didn't feel like the setting and the creepiness was as "effortless" as I wanted it to. It felt like too much intentional misdirection. There were also a couple of things I thought were a bit improbable, such as a random therapist being snuck into an investigation and allowed to interview the person being arrested. That did not in any way seem likely.

But overall, I think Alex Michaelides offers a really solid experience, as he did with his first offering. I think he will continue to be an overall reliable option for readers of psychological thrillers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon for this advance reader's copy of The Maidens by Alex Michaleides.

The Maidens is a thriller written by the excellent Alex Michaelides, author of the stellar The Silent Patient. In The Maidens we meet a group therapist named Mariana who is pulled into the middle of a murder spree when her niece Zoe calls and asks her for help. Mariana is grieving her husband Sebastian and struggling with a particularly difficult group member in one of her therapy groups so leaving town to help Zoe sounds like a great idea. Once Mariana arrives in Cambridge she is faced with memories of her early relationship with Sebastian as well as an increasing murder count that hits way too close to home, making her wish that she had stayed in London after all.

Having very recently read The Silent Patient I had very high expectations for The Maidens. It mostly met them, save for the feeling that The Maidens was very similar to most thrillers that I read. I enjoyed the plot and really wanted to find any bit of time to read, which is the sign of a great book, It isn't fair to compare it to The Silent Patient so I will say that The Maidens is a great book in it's own right. Definitely worth your time, thriller fans!

The Maidens is Alex Michaelides highly anticipated second novel. This would have possibly been 5 stars for me, but I just didn't like Mariana, the main character.
I thought the mystery itself was interesting, as well as the clues left in various places, but there was something that just didn't sit right with the clues and where they were pointing me. I knew there was something else there, but just didn't know what it was.
The reveal was surprising, but not altogether a big shock. There were various clues to the reveal.
I didn't understand the need for Henry in the story. Perhaps that was to be a diversion.
I did enjoy learning about Greek mythology, as I don't really have much background in it. I also liked learning a little about Cambridge and the area.
I will look forward to reading the next book from this author, as this novel kept my interest. I loved the short chapters!
#BookishFirst #TheMaidens #NetGalley #CeladonBooks

Mariana is a group therapist who is still grieving the loss of her husband, Sebastien, after his sudden death. When her niece, Zoe, calls to tell her that her best friend has been murdered, Mariana hops on the next train. Zoe lives on campus at the school that Mariana attended and happens to be where she met Sebastien. Mariana quickly becomes entangled in the case as the body count keeps rising when the campus killer strikes again. She becomes determined to prove the guilt of a professor named Edward Fosca, who seems to be too comfortable with his female students.

It pained me to give this book this rating. Michaelides’ first novel, The Silent Patient, is one of my fave thrillers I have ever read. I did enjoy the allusions to it in this one (we meet again Theo). What a fun nest egg for his readers! There was just a lot that didn’t work for me in this one. There was way too much going on to the point that the plot seemed scattered. There were also some random characters that I think were supposed to be red herrings but I am just confused by their purpose (Fred?? anyone??). I struggled with the third person narration and I just didn’t really connect with anyone. The ending was a bit surprising but didn’t pack the same punch that The Silent Patient did. I did enjoy the alternating POVs with the letters but I was just left wanting more. I still highly recommend The Silent Patient if you haven’t got around to it yet!