I enjoyed this story about the impact of the past on the present. A traumatic event happened to the main character when she was a child and she spends her life trying to move on from it.
She has huge trust issues and has difficulty engaging with people in her social circle.
It took me a while to get into the story finding some of her reminiscing is confusing but it became fascinating to discover what really happened.
The twist at the end is revealing and surprising.
Recommended.

I loved this book from the first page. the story is so unique and interesting, I had never read a thriller from the viewpoint of a woman who went missing as a child, and a change of identity is one of my favourite things in a thriller. The main character Olivia was really easy to warm towards, and root for. Throughout it all, I was kept on the hooks, reading page after page, because I wanted to see the best outcome for her, The ending was perfect, with a precise mix of surprise but not unbelievable. I loved this book!

This book is seriously good. The location and characters are written in such a way that they create the perfect chilling atmosphere and you end up not trusting anyone. It starts at a slow pace but the story and characters steadily build up over the course of the book into an addictive read you won’t be able to put down. As for the ending you’ll just have to find out for yourself but you’ll be blown away. One of the best endings I’ve read for a while. A five star psychological thriller.

You jump straight in knowing that there was an incident twenty years ago when Arden went missing. It is now the twentieth anniversary of her rescue. Arden who is now known as Olivia is living a completely different live miles away. This story draws you in straight away and you can’t help feeling that there is a lot more to this story than meets the eye. What really happened to Arden all those years ago? And what is happening to her now?

The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda is one of the best books I have read this year. Great pace, lots of twists and mysteries and a host of fabulous characters. I really had no idea what was going on until the end. What an intriguing backstory and lots of possibilities when it comes to truth and motive. Definitely a five star read. Can’t recommend enough

Overall I found this a bit too slow,though the last part picked up pace a bit.
I felt it ticked all the right boxes,but didn't really have anything that stood out from other books of this kind.

As a six year old child, Arden was swept away in a storm and was missing for days. She was eventually rescued and her mother gained fame from the story when she released a book. Tired of the fame, Arden eventually moved away from Widow Hills and renamed herself Olivia. Years later, the twentieth anniversary of the rescue looms and the stress causes Olivia to sleepwalk. One nights, she wakes to find herself outside with a corpse at the feet... Did she do this or is someone else responsible...?

A thrilling story full of twists and turns, and a variety of intriguing and suspicious characters, a good read overall. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book in return for my honest feedback.

One stormy night, six-year-old Arden Maynor, sleepwalks out of her house and isn’t seen again for days. Her single mother Laurel is distraught, but ecstatic when she is discovered alive in a storm drain by a passer-by called Sean Coleman. Sadly, Laurel and Arden’s lives are altered forever by the media who crave anniversary updates in a frenzy of interest and sensationalism. Arden has no memory of what happened and refuses to attend the interviews. In the interim they are plagued by stalkers, fans and weirdoes, eventually forcing Arden to leave Widow Hills, Kentucky and reinvent her life in Central Valley, South Carolina.
One night, nearing the 20th anniversary of her recovery, Liv is sleepwalking and hears a telephone ringing out. She follows the tone and trips over something. She wakes up caked in dirt and blood. Scared stiff she runs off to alert her only neighbour, who checks it out and phones for help. Later on they discover the corpse belongs to Sean Coleman, her rescuer. A murder squad investigates as Olivia’s life is once again turned-up-side-down.
The following investigation is intriguing, fast-paced and addictive with lots of twists and turns, red herrings and blind alleyways. The story is beautifully woven and the well-crafted and eclectic cast of characters skilfully move on the action at a cracking pace. With issues of stalking, deception, outright lies and manipulation, this novel is one to read if your preference is for meaty and engrossing psychological thrillers. I really enjoyed reading it.
I received this paperback book through my membership of LoveReading from publisher Corvus, sent in return for an honest review. I also received an e-copy through my membership of NetGalley. Thank you for these copies sent in return for an honest review. I have read no other reviews, and my review motive is to recommend and to introduce as many readers as I can to new authors as well as my own favourites. I had never read any of Megan’s novels before and was glad to see that she has a good back catalogue for me to read.

This was brilliant, a slow burn that ramped up. I was convinced several characters were the troublemaker when they were not!

It’s been a very long time since I’ve read a book until late at night, refusing to go to sleep because I needed to finish it and see the things finally unravel. This was my second Megan Miranda book and it took me completely off guard.

Somehow Megan Miranda created an engaging, intoxicating read that is impossible to put down. «The Girl from Widow Hills» doesn’t add anything new to thriller themes I’ve read before. [I’ve probably read too many thrillers and nothing can surprise me anymore]. However, it didn’t really matter because of the way it was written.

Yes, there were some twists that I predicted and there were twists that took me completely by surprise. But that wasn’t the strength of this book. Megan Miranda didn’t rely on twists to keep her readers at the edge of the seat, she relied on her writing, on creating strong emotions - fear, anger, confusion, that were able to escape the pages of the book right into the readers’ minds.

I honestly don’t remember the last time a book made me jumpy or the last time I was so engrossed in the story my own pulse went wild from the fictional events.

I can feel that this will be the book to vote for in Goodreads Choice Awards this year. This is my prediction, guys and I hope I’m right. I hope more people read and love it just as much as I did. Megan Miranda might become one of my favorite authors, and I’m definitely going to pick up more of her books in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atlantic Books for this advanced reader's copy in return for my honest review. I loved last summer's The Last House Guest so I was delighted to have the opportunity to read this summer's thriller. This one will definitely be another big hit. A psychological whodunnit filled with twists. Read this over the weekend and couldn't put it down.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Atlantic Books for an advance copy of The Girl from Widow Hills, a stand-alone thriller set in the fictional town of Central Valley, South Carolina.

Olivia has changed her name and moved to Central Valley to escape her past because twenty years ago Olivia was Arden, the eponymous girl from Widow Hills, Kentucky who was missing for three days and was found in a storm drain. Now it seems Arden will be the story again when, sleepwalking, she stumbles over a dead body in her backyard.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Girl from Widow Hills which is a slow burning but compulsive thriller that mingles past events with present developments into a satisfying whole. No, it’s not entirely plausible but it’s told by Liv in the first person in such an enraging way that plausibility doesn’t matter. I liked the format, Liv’s narrative interspersed with snippets from events, like 911 calls, her mother’s book and newspaper articles.it puts her experiences in context and generally suggests that her narrative is reliable and true, insofar as she remembers. I think the conclusion is clever and I didn’t see it coming, but I was so caught up in the story that I didn’t have room to think about where it was going or who was doing what.

I really liked the overarching theme of the novel, the perniciousness of fame. Liv didn’t ask to be the girl from Widow Hills and has sought to avoid the limelight ever since but it seems that the public think they know her and everyone else wants a piece of her. It made me think and illustrated things I’d never thought of and it’s all just woven into the fabric of the novel. More cleverness.

I felt heart sorry for Liv. She’s a lonely person, holding herself and her secrets close and there’s reasons for that but it damages her friendships. I’m not sure that she fully understands what is happening to her in the present and she has no memory of what happened in the storm drain so she wanders about in a fog, a relatively clear sighted fog but still a fog. It’s fascinating.

The Girl from Widow Hills is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

The Girl from Widow Hills is an incredible tale of Olivia who found fame as a child in a tragic accident.

I don’t think I can say much more without giving away parts of the plot. I must admit when I first started reading I thought this was a low star book. I found everything was obvious. It’s NOT! Stick with this and you will not regret.

Summer hit!

WOW. What a story. A thrilling 'whodunnit' with psychological twists, an underbelly of tales, mystery, lies, murder, and many suspicious characters both past and present. A thrilling cautionary tale that in a world of crazed media frenzy, book deals and national stories; your past may never leave you, no matter how you try to leave that chapter of your life behind.

Thank you to Atlantic Books and Netgalley for my free advanced reading copy of this book. My opinions within this review are entirely my own and not in anyway influenced by my gifting of this book.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. This was an okay read, okay storyline, okay characters and cannot say any more

Arden went missing from home when she was six years old and was found days later holding onto a storm drain. She became famous for this incident and her mother wrote a book about her misadventure.
Years later because of all the publicity she now lives under a different name and tries to keep her identity a secret.
Unfortunately she has always has been a sleepwalker and this will lead her into more trouble.
A slow moving story that failed to hold my interest.
Thank you to NetGalley and Atlantic Books for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Megan Miranda has once again delivered a great story

The book is a slow burn, things happen and it is all very tense and eerie. However, the ending is anything but that! I greatly enjoyed reading this and would recommend it!

This was a book I randomly picked and I absolutely LOVED it, I couldn't put it down and it's a good thing we are in lockdown otherwise I would've been super tired at work. The main character Olivia was extremely likable and I thought it was genius how the author let us in on how people who had that sort of back story really feal.
It is so true! I realised whilst reading it that we do get invested in people like Olivia and we do want to know that they ended up having a good life and that there is some meaning to it all.
What I never thought about is how people like Olivia must feel with the intrusion we constantly want into their lives, especially on bit anniversay dates.
One of the things that really surprised me was the ending, I did not see it coming which is unuasal for me. I will 100% be buying her books

Interesting and intricate story,with lots of twists and turns. Believable characters and a look at how one incident affects many.

73+

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Liz Barnsley rated a book really liked it

less than a minute ago

The Girl from Widow Hills

by Megan Miranda (Goodreads Author)

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Read in April 2020

A few books in and I think it's safe to say that I'm a huge fan of the way Megan Miranda writes and plots her psychological thrillers, The Girl From Widow Hills was a page turner of a read with an intriguing central protagonist. 

This author tends to turn her nose up at the general trend within unreliable narrators, Olivia doesnt drink excessively , doesn't pop pills at ridiculous levels nor does she conveniently forget things at just the moment it would reveal truths or act in illogical ways. This makes her journey authentic and believable, the twists when they come genuinely realistic and this is why I rate Megan Miranda highly.

Olivia is trying to escape her past as "The Girl From Widow Hills" swept into a storm drain as a child whilst sleepwalking, miraculously survived who then became a story. One her own mother was all to keen to cash in on. Now with her name changed, living a fairly anonymous and normal life, her random sleepwalking reemerges. She doesnt know why, but one night there is a dead body there in front of her...

The writing is wonderfully immersive, the tale unfolding hugely addictive. Did Olivia kill this man? Who is he? There are no monsters in her past, no danger she has been hiding from, just reporters and people who feel they own her life, but something has changed and she needs to know what...

This is clever because of that set up- it is unpredictable because there are no guesses to be made in the usual way - plus you have a hugely intriguing set of characters who can't be immediately placed into boxes and a single point of view to filter events.

Overall I really enjoyed this, it's a pleasure to read a novel that doesn't try to slap you in the face with a twist you will always see coming but simply unwinds the tentacles of one girl's life until the truth of it all becomes clear.

Recommended.

Twenty years ago six year old Arden Maynor from Widow Hills, Kentucky was swept away during a bad storm, her mother Laurel believed she had been sleepwalking. Three days later, she was found underground and clinging to a drain cover by Sean Coleman. She was injured but alive. The media go wild and her mother spoke freely to them over the years which was quite lucrative. Fast forward twenty years and Arden has changed her name to Olivia Meyer, she’s working as a hospital administrator in Central Valley, N Carolina. This is her story which backtracks through various sources to the incident that made her and her mother famous and in the present day where a series of terrible events occur which places Olivia and in danger but through this she learns her truth.

I like the way Olivia’s story is told as it’s tense, creepy, mysterious, intriguing and terrifying at times. She is ultimately a survivor, she’s stronger and braver than she realises as she’s had to put up with judgements, assumptions, jealousy and threats. She has trouble at times separating fact from fiction, the real memories from the false, and her state of confusion and lack of trust is well conveyed. She has lived with subterfuge, secrecy and lies since she was a little girl and this would mess with anyone’s reality. The story is full of twists, revelations and events that cause her to shutdown and panic at times. The ending is one I genuinely didn’t see coming and kudos to Megan Miranda for that!

However, there is some repetition especially in the telling of Arden’s story and the pace in the middle is a bit slow although the last quarter of the book makes up for that.

Overall, it’s a well written book, with interesting characters and an intriguing storyline which I enjoyed.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Books for the ARC.