Today I’m absolutely over the moon to be sharing my review for The Maidens by Ales Michaelides as part the blog tour. Many thanks to Anne Cater for the invite and to W & N Books for the gifted copy.
About the book
For Mariana Andros – a group therapist struggling through her private grief – it’s where she met her late husband. For her niece, Zoe, it’s the tragic scene of her best friend’s murder.
As memory and mystery entangle Mariana, she finds a society full of secrets, which has been shocked to its core by the murder of one of its own.
Because behind its idyllic beauty is a web of jealousy and rage which emanates from an exclusive set of students known only as The Maidens. A group under the sinister influence of the enigmatic professor Edward Fosca.
A man who seems to know more than anyone about the murders – and the victims. And the man who will become the prime suspect in Mariana’s investigation – an obsession which will unravel everything…
My thoughts
This is my first taste of Alex Michaelides writing and oh boy am I kicking myself now that his first novel The Silent Patient has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for so long. The Maidens is phenomenal, I blooming loved it.
Starting this book I thought I had an idea of where it was going and where it would end up, I was wrong. To be fair I usually am and would make an absolutely rubbish detective, but I love trying and oh my days did I try throughout this book.
The setting for this book couldn’t have been more perfect, St Christopher’s College, Cambridge. I’ve maybe watched too much Morse on tv over the years but it was so easy to picture the setting, the little corridors, the gardens and secret gate. It was very atmospheric and felt like I was there alongside the characters.
I absolutely love the Greek mythology references, I don’t know much about it but it’s something that has piqued my interest lately and something I’d like to learn more about. Don’t worry if you’re like me and don’t know much, it’s easy to follow.
The characters are well formed and I really enjoyed following Marianas determination to fight her own demons to help her niece Zoe, I was cheering her on the whole way through and hoping and praying she would come out the other side relatively unscathed.
I couldn’t believe how obsessed with this book I was while reading, it had me absolutely gripped. It starts slowish but really pulls you in and as the tension rises so did my pulse. It’s a story you can’t just put down and forget about, it gets right inside your head and even when I finished it I was still obsessing over it.
It’s suspenseful, clever, addictive and quite unsettling and it’s definitely made it’s way into my top 5 books of this year. I can’t recommend this book enough and this review can never do this book justice, if you’re a thriller fan then you need to go and buy it now.
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Thanks for the blog tour support x
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