REVIEW: THE GIRL FROM WIDOW HILLS, BY MEGAN MIRANDA

 

Everyone knows the story of “the girl from Widow Hills.”

Arden Maynor was just a child when she was swept away while sleepwalking during a terrifying rainstorm and went missing for days. Strangers and friends, neighbors and rescue workers, set up search parties and held vigils, praying for her safe return. Against all odds, she was found, alive, clinging to a storm drain. The girl from Widow Hills was a living miracle. Arden’s mother wrote a book. Fame followed. Fans and fan letters, creeps, and stalkers. And every year, the anniversary. It all became too much. As soon as she was old enough, Arden changed her name and disappeared from the public eye.

Now a young woman living hundreds of miles away, Arden goes by Olivia. She’s managed to stay off the radar for the last few years. But with the twentieth anniversary of her rescue approaching, the media will inevitably renew its interest in Arden. Where is she now? Soon Olivia feels like she’s being watched and begins sleepwalking again, like she did long ago, even waking outside her home. Until late one night she jolts awake in her yard. At her feet is the corpse of a man she knows—from her previous life, as Arden Maynor.

And now, the girl from Widow Hills is about to become the center of the story, once again, in this propulsive page-turner from suspense master Megan Miranda.

When we first meet Arden Maynor in her current iteration as Olivia Meyer, she is an adult trying to move beyond the events of her childhood. As The Girl from Widow Hills, she is the story in the news, the little girl who was rescued after three days. One from whom journalists constantly seek more information.

Did nobody really believe the story they were told back then? Does Olivia not remember what happened, or is she part of a cover-up?

When a man is found dead outside her home miles away from where she grew up, in the place she has found to start over, is there more to the original story that will be revealed?

I loved how twisty and unexpected the journey takes us until finally we are offered bits and pieces of the truth. 4.5 stars.

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