This is a tough book to review because I really struggled in the middle section, almost giving up but I’m pleased I pushed through as it got much better towards the end. I liked the interspersed telephone scripts and snippets from the newspapers or her mother’s book, which gave a different flavour. There were moments of frustration with the main character but since the story is told from her perspective, then I guess those moments added to her character and I just had to put aside my annoyance. Overall this book is a good one.

Arden Maynor, a 6 year old girl who goes missing after sleepwalking one night. 3 days later she is found, against all odds, alive. Her story is plastered all over the news and she becomes a sensation, her mum writes a book about it and it seems the fame will never end.
Every year it gets too much for Arden so when she is old enough she changes her name to Olivia and hides away from the public eye. She goes to university, gets a job in a hospital, has her own place to live out in the sticks with a friendly and caring neighbour but unfortunately lost contact with her mother over the years.
One day a box of her mother’s belongings turns up on her doorstep. This confirms that she has died and Olivia is left to reel in her feelings. Soon after the box arrives, Olivia starts to sleepwalk again, something she hasn't done since the incident. One night she wakes herself up outside of her house standing over a dead body. Now, the girl from widow hill is back in the news but will she be able to find out who this man is and why this is happening around the 20th anniversary of her disappearance.
This book had me hooked from the beginning. There were so many characters that were weaved into the story so brilliantly, I thought I knew who the killer was and what was happening, but I was glad to see that I was wrong. I loved the twists in this and the layout of the story with the newspaper clippings and book extracts and the unreliableness of Olivia’s memories just helped build the mystery.
I especially enjoyed the pace of the story. It was quick and heart hammering in places. I was gripped and it made me nervous to read what was coming. The characters were great and I loved the relationship she had with her neighbour Rick, it was lovely to see that she had someone she could rely on. I felt the story was especially strong in the area of how the plot twists were written in and were unexpected, made for great reading that makes you want more and more.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Pleasantly surprised at the way the story is presented by the main character Olivia, using voicemails, news clippings and other sources to highlight her past and how that's changed her future. Whilst interesting to have an unusual narrative format, at times this can be a little hard to follow and left me with the odd plot hole or some confusion.

Despite the odd difficulty in keeping track, I was very impressed at the subtle twists and turns, throwing me off the scent long enough to be gripped by how the story concludes. Worth reading for the unusual style.

I wasn't sure about this book when I started however it ramped up the pace and was a great read. A dark thriller about a young woman who has changed her identity to hide her famous history. A story of the past coming back to haunt Olivia. Some great side characters with good red herrings. A really good twisty read with a didn't see that ending!

I really like Megan Miranda, and this book was just as good as her others. I haven't read all of her books yet so I am planning to read more.

"Olivia" is just trying to live a normal life away from being known as the girl who survived being swept away in a storm whilst sleep walking. She finally thinks she has found the place where nobody knows the truth but then an unexpected face turns up, one she hasn't seen for 20 years and things being to unravel...

Though I found this book quite slow to start the pace sped up nicely towards the middle/last third. You think you have the story mapped out and then a sharp twist turns your theory completely on it's head and back again! A good quick read.

<b>The Things You Need To Know About Olivia</b>

Olivia wants to move on. That's it. Every day she strives to overcome the memory of a traumatic event she has endured as a child. An event that shaped her into a person she is. A person she doesn't fully understand.

'The Girl from Widow Hills' is a well rounded, tense psychological thriller about survival and a burning desire to keep past in the past. Because this is exactly what Olivia wants to do. She doesn't want to be "The Girl from Widow Hills", but will the past let her go? In this slow-burning story, we follow the first-person narrative of a now-adult Olivia Meyer, who was known in her childhood as Arden Meyner. A girl who sleepwalked into the storm and got swept into the drainage system under a small town, where she was discovered a few days later, against all odds.

Many years later, the girl from Widow Hills wants to keep as far away from this event as she can, but the past has got a way of catching up with us at the least expected moments.

In this cleverly written thriller Megan Miranda explores a number of overarching motifs. The price of tabloid fame, the essence of addiction, the importance of anonymity. Love, trust, and relationships. But most importantly, how the past needs to be reconciled in order to move forward.

The style of the novel is extremely captivating. The atmosphere of the novel is unnerving and claustrophobic. The story builds up slowly and starts picking up the pace to be concluded with a nicely rounded finale. Megan Miranda's writing style is wholesome and captivating. She gradually builds tension but doesn't seem to be able to develop the background characters into full-bodied participants of the narrative. Having said that, the author of The Girl from Widow Hills doesn't resort gimmicks or red herrings. She provides a good, entertaining story.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Atlantic Books for an advance copy of The Girl from Widow Hills. I'll definitely keep Megan Miranda on my radar for future reads.

This was a good story that kept me intrigued throughout the whole book.
I must admit that I had a hard time to get into it at the beginning but I rarely if not ever DNF a book and I'm glad I persevered as the pieces of the puzzle started to come together with each chapter. I think some twists and turns were predictable but there were other things that I haven’t expected and overall it’s a great story that many people will enjoy.

I’ve read three books now by Megan Miranda and have enjoyed them all so much! This was such an interesting story of Arden and the new life she has created away from something she keeps hidden in her past. Her history of sleep-walking leads us to wonder how a body came to be outside her home. We then learn of the connection between her and the dead man and the story turns to uncovering the demons she has kept hidden. This is such a good book and kept me guessing right to the end.

Twenty years ago, six year old Arden Maynor sleepwalked into danger - swept away in a terrible storm, sparking a search which lasted three days. Miraculously, Arden was found alive, trapped underground, clinging to a storm drain. Naturally, the "girl from Widow Hills" became a huge media story, sparking interviews, appearances and a book by Arden's mother, Laurel, about the experience.

Twenty years on, Arden remembers nothing about her ordeal - she never has - but is only too aware of the effect it's had on her life, changing her name to escape from the endless intrusions. Nobody knows that hospital administrator Olivia Meyer used to be Arden Maynor, the girl from Widow Hills, and that's how she wants it to stay. But inevitably, the past is about to come back to haunt her. She's sleepwalking again, and it seems danger isn't far away...

It took me a while to get into the story, but eventually it did grab me, and I would never have guessed the outcome. Safe to say, I was thoroughly misdirected. A very good read, recommended.

This took me a ;little while to get into, there was alot of detail around the main story that I couldnt link to make it feel relevant, but it all came together wonderfully and I ended up enjoying it alot more than i thought I would!

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Atlantic Books in exchange for an honest review.

I really struggled to get into this book. The Girl from Widow Hills is the story of Olivia, a woman who famously survived a flash flood as a child and changed her identity to escape the press. Her past comes back to haunt her when she finds the corpse of someone relating to her past in her garden and she becomes involved in a murder case. The main reason I couldn't get into this book is I found the plot both linear and hard to care about. The main character keeps the reader at a distance and that made it incredibly hard for me to either sympathise with her or trust her narration. I spent the whole book just waiting for her to actually let me in on what was going on properly.

I also found Olivia's relationships with the other characters very odd. She had a previous romance with her college professor but he was involved so little in the story that I kept forgetting he existed. She might have bene trying to start a romance with her work colleague but I couldn't tell if it was meant to be romantic, even with the main character stating she might like to date him. This links back to the way Olivia was written and me not trusting what she was telling the reader. I didn't buy her relationship with her colleague and it felt like she was plotting something she wasn't letting me know about. Finally, she has a friendship of sorts with her neighbour Rick. At first I was also unsure if this was romantic, especially given that she is stated to prefer older men. It is platonic but again, I never really felt or understood the connection between the two of them.

The plot itself is fine in terms of content, but I never felt particularly compelled or intrigued by it. You don't really know what is going on but the book also doesn't encourage you to try and guess either, meaning that as a reader I was disconnected. On the surface this is a fine enough thriller but I think Miranda has much stronger books (The Perfect Stranger, Fragments of the Lost) and this just didn't do enough for me personally. It's a shame but I still look forward to reading her other books.

Overall Rating: 3/5

This book hasn’t gripped me it has to be said, there were twists and turns quite often throughout this book and ending definitely wasn’t what I expected. My view on who the killer was changed as I was reading and it went back to and fro quite a few times! In this respect the book was good and elements will remain in my memory. The whole back story or Arden is described really well and those are the moments that I think will stick with me for longest.

Despite wanting to finish and keep picking up this book there wasn’t the desperate urge to find out what had happened like I've had with similar books, hence the low rating. I couldn’t find anything especially bad to say, just that it didn’t grip me!

The book has left me with a few unanswered questions and there’s quite a few alarms bells still ringing, is the story really finished or is there another plot twist awaiting us in a next book?

There was a lot more to this book than i first thought. The story spans two decades in the life of Arden Maynor, now Olivia Meyer, forever known as "the girl from Widow Hills" after a traumatic childhood incident. In the present day, Olivia is settled in a good job in a hospital far from the town of her childhood trauma. She has changed identity to avoid the continued fallout from the event. Can you ever really escape? When some of her previous life comes back, in the form of sleepwalking, her new life is turned on its head and she questions everything. What is going on. The story is told from Olivia's narrative in the present day and clips from interviews, books and broadcasts from the past. Intriguing, and a real twist at the end - I did not see it coming. #netgalley #thegirlfromwidowhills

This was a beautifully written, addictive story which I really enjoyed. I’ve been a fan of this author for a while and in my opinion she keeps getting better and better.

This story gripped me from the start when the reader is first introduced to the intriguing storyline concerning Arden’s disappearence. I found myself quickly intrigued as to what it would have been like to be trapped in such a way and how utterly terrifying it would have been. Having read a few of the author’s books I also wondered if everything has actually happened as Olivia/ Arden remembered or if things weren’t quite as they seemed. All of this helped ensure I was soon thoroughly engrossed in the book as I wanted to find out what would happen and if I was right.

Olivia is a very sympathetic character who I quickly warmed to, especially when I realised how affected by the incident she still was. I felt sorry for her as she seemed to have cut herself off from the world in her remote cabin and hardly has any friends to talk to. I found the fact that she had no memories of the incident very interesting and I slowly felt more concerned about her as I read.

This book was a bit if a slow burner, with the pace gradually increasing throughout the book as the investigation continues. The author manages to blend past and present together really well, using interesting extracts from various sources as snippets from when Arden originally disappeared. There were lots of twists and turns which kept me guessing, along with a few false leads which had me unable to put the book down towards the end.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Corvus for my copy of this book.

My thanks to Atlantic Books/Corvus for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Girl From Widow Hills’ by Megan Miranda in exchange for an honest review.

During a terrifying storm six year old Arden Maynor had wandered outdoors while sleepwalking and was swept away. She was missing for days. Then against all odds she was found clinging to a storm drain. Many people sent donations and Arden’s mother also wrote a bestselling book. They became famous and yet with this came envy from some about the money, attention from over zealous fans and even stalkers.

When she was old enough Arden changed her name to Olivia Meyer and left Widow Hills far behind. Yet with the 20th anniversary of her rescue approaching, media interest in the girl who survived is increasing. The stress has caused Olivia to sleepwalk again on more than one occasion. One evening she jolts awake in her yard with the corpse of a man at her feet!

I won’t say anything further in order to avoid spoilers but this is just the opening in this well plotted psychological thriller. I didn’t feel a particularly strong connection with Olivia and probably felt more in synch with Detective Nina Rigby, who is investigating the case.

Olivia is naturally worried that she is a suspect and isn’t even sure what she may have done in her somnambular state.

I also appreciated the insertion of police interviews, 911 transcripts, newspaper and other media reports.

This was my first experience of Megan Miranda’s work and was impressed with her restrain and focus upon character development. While there were twists, they felt very organic in terms of the overall plot.

I certainly would be interested in reading more of her work.

Another average Megan Miranda read...

I think this is going to have to be my last go with Megan miranda books. This is the fourth book by her which I've read and I've given them all three stars.

I just find her writing, plots and characters really average and not very interesting or engaging.

Her books read like YA thrillers to me, even though they are adult thrillers.

The plot was super average and not that interesting. It wasn't very fast paced or action packed. There wasn't that many twists either.

I never feel any connection to her characters. I just don't really care about them that much.

Her books, including this one, are very slow burn and there was large chunks of the storyline where not much happens at all, so I did get pretty bored while reading.

There was nothing majorly wrong or offensive about this book, it just did absolutely nothing for me unfortunately and will probably be my last read by her

I liked the premise of this story – the protagonist, Olivia, is living under an assumed name to escape the media spotlight that has followed her ever since she went missing at the age of six and was found, against all odds, three days later, clinging to a grating in her town's drainage system. It is interesting to think about what happens to these children, who capture the public imagination, when they then try and go on to live a normal life. In Olivia's case, the public, who were so invested in her being found safely, seem to feel a certain ownership over her. That, and her difficult relationship with her mother, who was keen to profit from the attention the story got them, sees Olivia living a life of relative obscurity and solitude in a remote town, her only friends her elderly next door neighbour and her colleagues at the hospital where she works. When Olivia, who sleepwalks, stumbles across a body in her garden one night, all her efforts to keep her past behind her are thrown into jeopardy. The story is intriguing, and I liked Olivia as a protagonist a lot - imperfect, believable and appealing. For me the ending felt a bit sudden or rushed - the actual conclusion to the plot is really strong, but I wish it had been conveyed in a bit more detail.

I’ve really enjoyed Megan Miranda’s books in the past so I was looking forward to reading The Girl From Widow Hills and it totally delivered. The story follows Arden, who as a young child was at the centre of a huge and unusual news story and has now changed her name and tried to leave her famous past behind her. Olivia, as she is now known is still dealing with the effects of her childhood as an adult and finds herself experiencing sleepwalking episodes. She then wakes up after one of these startling episodes with a dead body right beside her and the story blows up from there.

I seriously enjoyed this book. I actually read it pretty much in two sittings which I hardly ever do because it is so intensely readable. At the end of each chapter I wanted to know more and more about what was actually going on with Olivia. One of the most interesting aspects of The Girl From Widow Hills is the sleepwalking. I always think there is something innately spooky and sinister about sleepwalking. The idea that you could leave not just your bed but your house and have no recollection of it or control over it is frightening, and in this book it puts Olivia in an incredibly vulnerable position because she doesn’t really know what she has or hasn’t done. The long and overwhelming affects of trauma are also starkly obvious in her life. I don’t think we always consider the fact that people who are in the middle of an event that completely captivates the public have to go on and live their lives afterwards and deal with the attention of the public and the media for, quite possibly, the rest of their days, whether they like it or not. I liked Olivia as a character and wanted her to understand what was happening to her which is part of what kept me turning pages late into the night.

The Girl From Widow Hills felt really original and different to me. Sometimes in this genre the plots can start to feel like you’ve already heard them several times and that definitely is not the case here. The story feels unique and rather unusual. There is a real sense of tension and a dark undercurrent to the story which is dealt with in a beautifully subtle and clever way by Miranda. If you are looking for something a bit different which will keep you completely engrossed then I would highly recommend this book.

The Girl From Widow Hills is a unnearving psychological thriller split between two time lines. Arden Meyer was washed away in a storm aged six after sleepwalking outside her house. Missing for three days, the story made the national news, and her rescue was seen as a miracle, putting her and her mother centre of attention. Twenty years later, still trying to escape the limelight, and lead a normal life, Arden has changed her name to Olivia Meyer and moved to the small town of Central Valley pretty much in the middle of nowhere where no one knows who she really is. But can you really out run your past, and as the twentieth anniversary of her dissapearace looms, she finds someone from her past has come looking for her. When she begins sleepwalking again she finds herself standing over the body of a man, putting her anonymity in danger, and she is left wandering if she is capable of murder.

The main part of the book is narrated by Olivia, but there are also chapters of interviews, broadcasts and 911 calls from 2000 when Olivia, then Arden went missing. This inclusion brought to the fore just how many resources nation wide were brought in to help find Arden, and how people became invested in her story. In the present, Olivia has spent the last ten years running from that fame. She and her mother had to move from Widow Hills to escape the attention and the nasty and threatening letters that also came with the fame; people wanting to know what happened to the money they were sent and that her mother was paid for her book, the disbelief in her story and her lack of memory. Olivia has spent her life running, looking over her shoulder to see if a reporter was following her and always frightened people might find out who she really is. It is no surprise that at twenty six she has a very small circle of friends; Rick, her neighbour who keeps an eye out for her, and Elyse and Bennett at her work at the local hospital. She has been estranged from her mother for quite a while when she is told she has died, and Olivia receives a box of a few of her mother’s things. This is the catalyst for her sleepwalking beginning again, and finding herself standing over the body of a man from her past with no recollection of how she got there.

Olivia’s first person narrative makes this a more personable book to read. As the book progresses I could feel her tension rise, the fear that she may have killed the man, and the paranoia that she was being watched. After her friend goes missing as well, unnerving her even more, Olivia doesn’t know who to trust, maybe not even herself, or her past. I hadn’t really thought about the dark side of fame before, especially unsolicited fame. The accusations levelled at them were horrible, people seemed to think they owned a part of them and as such Olivia and her mother were accountable to them, its not suprising Olivia suffered from PTSD and wanted to be anonymous.

Megan Miranda covers some very dark issues in this book including murder, suicide, stalking, drug addiction and manipulation which when uncovered seems to add more questions than answers to Olivia’s story. The plot races along, with red herrings, and so many twists and turns it left me reeling and unable to put the book down; this was anooher book I just read in a day. The writing grabs from the first paragraph, because lets be honest, the story of a child going missing and then being found after hope was running out fascinates us all. It is intersting that Olivia’s story has always drawn the public’s attention, and it is also this backstory that drew me to her as a reader, I wanted a happy outcome for her after all she had been through. The sleepwalking idea adds to the tension and uncertainity in this book, Olivia has no recollection of how she came to be outside or what she has done, and has to ask herself could she be the murderer. Memory, or lack of it play a big part in Olivia’s story in both past and present.

The Girl From Widow Hills is a haunting and atmospheric psychological thriller. Megan Miranda takes a unique look at the missing child scenario, the darker side of being thrown into the public eye and it’s effects on those who were caught up in it. The paranoia, lack of memory and sleepwalking give a disturbing and chilling feel to this well plotted and intelligent thriller that has a touch of Hitchcock about it (it would make a brilliant film). Another brilliant thriller to add to your bookshelves.