I received a complimentary copy of THE MAIDENS by Alex Michaelides. Thank you to Celadon Books!
THE MAIDENS follows Mariana, a young woman who runs group therapy groups, but is herself struggling with depression and grief following the death of her husband. His niece Zoe is attending the university in Cambridge that Mariana once attended. As she is the only real family left for Zoe, she immediately responds to Zoe’s distressed call when a friend has been murdered.
Poking around a bit into the story behind this young woman’s death, Mariana discovers a lot of secrets wrapped up with the school’s traditions. Clues keep circling back to the story of Persephone in ancient Greek mythology and Mariana is determined to help unravel how this relates to the present day.
This book was such a highly anticipated read with an author I knew I liked, a dark academia setting, and issues of mental health and therapy. Thankfully I wound up really enjoying this one! This takes some pretty dark twists (the main trigger warning in this case would be a major spoiler, so feel free to message me privately if you want that). The book kept up a good dark atmosphere throughout!
I found the mystery to be engaging. Having seen the twist in THE SILENT PATIENT coming, I was pleasantly surprised that this book did manage to catch me unaware with some of the ending. There were a few things I expected, but I was never sure. Mariana was an interesting character to follow, wrapped up as she was in her grief with her husband and her intrigue with the murder.
I would recommend this one for the thriller fans! THE MAIDENS is out on June 15!