The Maidens - Alex Michaelides

Mariana is a young, widowed Psychiatrist living in London. Her niece Zoe is a student at a Cambridge University.

A young female student gets murdered, Marianna rushes up to see Zoe and quickly gets drawn in to attempting to solve the murder.

I thought the characters were the best thing about it, well formed, multidimensional, with personalities, motivations and memories. I was less impressed by the plot which was fairly conventional and rather slow moving.

There are a lot of references to Greek tragedy, which some readers will probably love.

It was always going to be difficult following up The Silent Patient, sadly, for me this falls well short in comparison.

Netgalley note: The ARC copy was full of anti-copying edits with the author's name, the name of the publisher, and the word 'maidens' added randomly, mid-sentence even mid-word on almost every page throughout the text, as well as frequently changing font size which definitely impaired my reading enjoyment, but hasn't impacted on my review. Definitely the most obtrusive I've experienced in an ARC.

Thanks to Netgalley and Orion.

Alex Michaelides debut novel ‘ The Silent Patient’ was one of my reading highlights last year so I have been eagerly awaiting this follow up novel.

Short punchy chapters kept the plot racing along and the excitement mounting and I was not surprised that I raced through this novel in the same day. My only criticism was the authors insistence on repeating the characters names over and over again in the same sentence / paragraph all the time got a little tiresome for me. A good read but if I am honest not a patch on the authors first novel although it was a great start.

Mariana Andros is a group therapist who is struggling through her private grief of losing her late husband Sebastian. Her niece, Zoe, contacts her to tell her that a dead body has been found at Cambridge University and she suspects it is her friend. Marianna was once a student at the university and it is not long before she suspects the Greek Tragedy professor Edward Fosca is a murderer. The professor is an handsome charismatic man who surrounds himself with adoring young female students known as The Maidens.

When another body is found, Mariana’s obsession with proving Fosca’s guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But she is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything—including her own life.

This is an enjoyable read although there are plot holes and parts that will stretch the readers imagination and belief.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

What a disappointment this book was. I was excited to read it because of its premise - i love mysteries set in academic institutions and especially if they have anhthung to do with department of literature. Then there was The Secret History comparison- which was untterly misleading. The book failed to grasp me from the beginning and everything about it felt forced, especially the Greek mythological characters that were inserted. I did not like the final "twist" either, it's reason felt flimsy at best. But what i didn't like at all was the factual mistake made in the name of the only Asian character in the novel, the inspector Sadhu Sangha. He has been described as a turbaned Sikh and so i think his surname would have been Singh and not Sangha (which i have never heard before). Overall, a total disappointment.

#TheMaidens #NetGalley
A good concept. A must read.
St Christopher's College, Cambridge, is a closed world to most.
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 students.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 cost her everything...
Chapters were short and I predicted that ending almost but yeah it's a good read from the author of The Silent Patient.
Characters and narration of the story are awesome.
Highly recommended.
Thanks to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for giving me an advance copy of this book.

I have been so excited to read this one! I read the Silent Patient in January and immediately made it one of my favourites. So I had high expectations for The Maidens as Alex Michaelides second novel. It was dramatic and tense, and I loved it.

Mariana is a psychotherapist. Her husband Sebastian passed away and she still struggles with grief. Her niece Zoe calls her panicked, saying that a body of a woman has been found near her campus grounds, and she believes it is her best friend. Mariana soon encounters the charismatic Edward Fosca, a lecturer in Greek Tragedy who has a following of young women called “The Maidens”.

I have a small amount of prior knowledge on Greek Tragedy and Mythology so I really enjoyed how heavily this theme ran through The Maidens. The part where Mariana has her own “anagnorisis” or realisation was so dramatic I audibly gasped! The Maidens really blew me away and caught me off guard so many times.

Easily another 5 stars from me!

The Maidens was one of my most anticipated books of this year, and I’m so glad it lived up to the hype.

We first meet our main character, Mariana Andros, as she’s working as a group therapist. She doesn’t actually need to work, but due to her own trauma, she understands how difficult recovery can be; she’s lost almost everybody in her life, so wants to be there for others.

Her only remaining family member is Zoe, her niece, who’s studying at Cambridge University, and when Mariana receives a desperate phone call from Zoe, she rushes to go and help.
A body was found, one of Zoe’s friends, and she was clearly murdered.

Mariana begins asking around, to Zoe and other students and staff, and starts to suspect Edward Fosca, the university’s charming Greek tragedy professor, who surrounds himself with a little society of young women who he refers to as The Maidens.

As she inserts herself further into the investigation, another girl is murdered. Mariana places her reputation and her safety on the line, determined to bring the victims justice.

I adored the academia and Greek myth aspects of this novel. They were woven into it so well, and used to build upon various theories, as well as building upon the general setting.

As this novel is on the shorter side, I was concerned the characters wouldn’t be fully developed, but Mariana is an intensely complex character - Her tragic past influences her decisions in a realistic manner.

I tore through The Maidens in one sitting - it’s a compulsive read, and the ending literally made my jaw drop. I’d recommend for fans of The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, and If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio.

As a fan all things murder and classic mythology, I was very excited to read this. I was disappointed. Very slow, very formulaic, and the writing feels very stilted. DNF

Oooffff what a thriller!! This was my first delve into a book written by Michaelides and was i disappointed.. absolutely not!!

As soon as I got approved for this one.. did I start it of course!! A dark academia thriller that uses Greek mythology intertwined into it.. we’ve got murders,secret societies, nearly every single person being a mysterious character and just that atmospheric and chilling vibe you need/want in a thriller all up wrapped up tight in a bow for your reading pleasure!

Wow i flew this one and I am not even mad about it!! It gave me everything I needed and I left this book feeling so satisfied and shocked by the ending!

With it being a thriller I don’t want to really say anything, just give you those little hints to what you will embark on in this novel!! Ooo it’s a goodie.

4.5/5 stars

A thriller that deftly weaves psychology, murder and an understanding of Greek mythology – where do we sign up? Alex’s second book, after the bestselling and powerful The Silent Patient, focuses on St Christopher’s College, Cambridge. It’s a special place for Mariana Andros, where she met and fell in love with her husband, now deceased. For her niece Zoe, it’s where her best friend was murdered. But there’s something else bubbling under the surface in the college, an exclusive set of students known as The Maidens. They move together and spend time mainly with Professor Edward Fosca, a man who is undoubtedly charismatic, but is he to be trusted? For Zoe’s sake, Mariana returns to the college, despite every corner causing her to remember her husband, and quickly realises that she needs to figure out who is responsible for the murder – for everyone’s sake. But her arrival and investigation catches the attention of a few college inhabitants, and not everyone is pleased.

This novel sounded AMAZING. In fact, it still sounds amazing to me, but I'm unable to review it as the Kindle version is riddled with a massive 'Orion publishing group' throughout random sentences and paragraphs, I tried to read it, I really did, but it completely takes you out of the story, so I shall be purchasing myself a copy on release date.

Short easy chapters got me to half way through this book before I gave up.
Others have talked about plot holes,and various other reasons they didn't enjoy the book.
For me,it was just too bland.
Didn't hold my attention at all.

Others have loved it.
I hope there's more of them than people like me!

Hmm, underwhelmed by this one. 2 stars unfortunately.

You’ve read the burb on this one. Sacrificial murders of young women in Cambridge. Our main protagonist Marianas niece Zoe is attending the college where the murders takes place and first alerts her to one of her friends missing.

Mariana, a therapist, drops everything in London to go to the aid of her only living relative after coming through tragedy after tragedy, including the death of her husband a year previously.

From the start Mariana decides that one of the professors is responsible. A charismatic character who teaches Greek and it’s mythology, he has a small group of female students he gives private lessons to call The Maidens.

This book is only 320 pages long and to be honest it felt longer. So many plot holes, so many obvious misdirections, I was actually bored and uninterested for large portions of this. Mariana is supposed to be a tragic character that you empathize with and feel for but she was wafer thin and annoying, making some frankly ridiculous decisions along the way.

Not a lot happens really in this. There’s so much in this that really had no part in the book and I’ve no idea why the author thought they were a good idea.

If I were to use two words to describe this they would be boring and silly.

A definite miss for me unfortunately.


Thanks to Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Mariana Andros is a therapist struggling as much to heal her patients as she is struggling to deal with her own grief. All her personal and professional problems get pushed aside when she receives a tearful phone call from her niece, Zoe, however. Zoe is experiencing her first years of independence at Cambridge University but a brutal murder victim is revealed as her friend, Tara, and she needs the comfort of home and the one who raised her. Mariana obliges and arrives at Cambridge to console her closest family member but stays for more than just comfort when her suspicions rest upon dazzling professor, Edward Fosca, even when the police seem determined to look for a culprit anywhere other than in his direction.

This was such an intriguing mystery, which only continued to get more so, with each new clue discovered and each new link to classical and ancient literature unearthed. As a literature student myself, I loved all the references this contained and it ensured this a murder mystery as provocative and disturbing as it was clever and exciting to solve.

I have not yet read Michaelides' previous and renowned thriller, The Silent Patient, yet managed to pick up on some references to the former that had me excited to visit it. A central character from that story featured fleetingly here and the plot was mentioned during two separate parts of this novel.

Dark academia stories will never fail to intrigue me and this one brought together every one of my favourite aspects in this sub-genre: beguiling characters, gloomy atmosphere, an existential undercurrent, and, of course, murders galore! With the slew of characters, who all proved as full of mystery as the plot, and the ending, which provided a series of unexpected revelations I did not see coming, this managed to charm, entertain, and intrigue me throughout.

This did, however, leave me with some burning questions I needed answered and which the author failed to do in an accurate enough manner to find me wholly satisfied leaving this novel. Suspicions were cast on many an individual and I would have liked to have witnessed a resolution to some of the drama surrounding them, when the true murderer was unmasked. However, I appreciated the direction this novel took and can only hope the author returns to this story, or at least some of its characters and themes, and explores them further.

I really loved this – I seem to have a thing at the moment about anything related to Greek mythology and I’ve always devoured novels within university settings…so this was kind of a perfect storm for me.

A killer is on the loose in Cambridge and Mariana, still mourning the loss of her husband, is determined to protect her niece at any cost. An enigmatic Professor, his devoted students known as the Maidens and a strange set of seeming coincidences set her on an obsessive journey towards the truth..

The setting is vividly described and comes alive here, the mystery element claustrophobic and cleverly layered.

The characters pop and the whole thing leads you towards an emotionally charged finale…which may well surprise you.

Overall I actually ended up liking The Maidens even more than the Silent Patient (which gets a nod here too with a little cameo appearance) I devoured it in short order and will be thinking about it for quite some time to come.

Recommended.

A sleek and captivating contemporary thriller set in Cambridge where a winsome and rather mesmerising professor of classics wrecks havoc among the student body especially the female sororities. Greek mythology and the rites of Persephone are some of the dangerous ingredients the reader will stumble upon in this chillingly menacing witch's brew pot of deadly obsession, unbridled passion and murder. A twisty plot and an unforgettable set of characters will definitely keep the reader's attention poised on a knife-edge from start to finish. Lastly, Kudos to Mr Michaelides for creating one of the most despicable male snake in fiction for 2021 with Edward Fosca. It's going to be very hard to top that villainous creep in a literary thriller after this unputdownable page turner. A sure winner to add on your summer wish list and to be enjoyed without any moderation

Many thanks to Netgalley and Orion Publishing for the opportunity to read this wonderful novel prior to its release date

Hands up if you loved The Silent Patient??? 🖐🖐🖐 So did I!!! 👊
It’s one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read. Absolutely original. Combining dark academia and psychoanalysis, with a dash of Greek myths. Here Alex Michaelides mixes the same ingredients and gives us something completely different.
Set in the same universe as his first novel, where Theo Faber even makes an appearance, The Maidens follows Mariana. She’s in her late thirties and widowed for over a year now, but still unable to move past her husband’s terrible demise. She works as a group therapist. She’s self-employed. Her job is complicated by a group member called Henry who’s become transfixed by Mariana and is muddying the boundaries by stalking her.
Then one evening she gets a frenzied phone call from her orphan niece, Zoe. Zoe’s a surrogate daughter for Mariana, who has no children of her own. Zoe’s best friend has been found stabbed in the cobbled streets of Cambridge. Will Mariana come? Unable to turn down her niece Mariana gets the next morning’s train to Cambridge. At the funeral Zoe confides in her aunt her suspicions about Professor Edward Fucardo (I can’t remember the spelling 😬). He’s an English professor who’s a minor celebrity of sorts with a small number of female students who formed a private group led by him. Zoe is convinced her friend, who was also a Maiden, had an affair with him and he killed her. Unfortunately the professor has an alibi but Mariana assures Zoe that she’ll get to the bottom of the case. She doesn’t want to leave her niece alone in a city where the killer still roams...

This was a rather fun read. I did feel if you look closely you’ll see cracks in the book. Honestly I wished I loved this more. I found that there’s too many unsavoury males characters (Sebastian, Edward, Fred, Henry, and Morris) who felt a-bit cliched and interchangeable. The whole Maidens thing wasn’t as fleshed out and atmospheric as I would’ve liked it to be. Comparisons with The Secret History is inevitable and the latter is just such a high standard. The Secret History is a classic and The Maidens couldn’t capture what the former did so exquisitely. On its own merit The Maidens was an enjoyable read nonetheless with the therapist playing amateur detective. I found the writing immersive with references to therapy fascinating and I loved the setting of Cambridge. This a fun, escapist read. If you’re looking something light in the suspense genre with an academic feel to it, you’ll enjoy this one ☝️

I absolutely adored The Silent Patient. It was hands down one of my most favourite thrillers reads and one that I recommended and gifted the most. A dazzling debut!!!!! So when I got approved The Maidens I actually jumped with joy...🥳🥳🥳

The Maidens is narrated from the POV of Mariana, in third close person. Mariana is 36-years old. She’s grieving the death of her husband, who drowned one morning when the couple were vacationing on a Greek island. She’s a group psychotherapist.

One evening Mariana gets a phone call from her niece, Zoe. Her best friend has been murdered. Zoe’s parents died when she was 6-years old, and she was adopted by Mariana and her husband. Incidentally Mariana doesn’t have any children and so Zoe is like her daughter. Upon receiving a distressing call from her, Mariana gets on the first train to Cambridge from London. It’s in Cambridge our story is set, the university town where Mariana herself studied. Zoe tells Mariana about professor Edward Fosco, who has an elite group of female students referred to as The Maidens. Zoe’s friend was a maiden, too. Mariana becomes obsessed with Fosco and is determined to find the killer, in order to ensure her niece doesn’t become a victim.

This was a thrilling read. Very fast-paced 💨💨 I read most of it in a day alongside many cups of tea ☕️ and cake 🍰 later glasses of wines 🍷 It was unputdownable!!!! Just the perfect escapist read. I did prefer The Silent Patient over The Maidens if I’m honest. I did think if you overanalyse The Maidens you’ll find flaws. It’s a light suspense read, where you do need to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy the ride. But the whole thing is so immersive that I didn’t mind and was game for the ride 😉 I felt so nostalgic for Cambridge, where I spent many summers, and the prose is so good. Michaelides obviously knows his Freud and psychoanalysis. Mariana was such a fascinating character, and Theo - protagonist of The Silent Patient - makes an appearance too although the events of that book hasn’t happened yet. This a fun, suspense read set in a dark academia setting.

Even better than <i>The Silent Patient</i>, <i>The Maidens</i> is a mystery set within the elite world of Cambridge University and heavily influenced by tragedy. Exquisitely written, well-paced, and featuring a cast of complex characters, this is sure to be a hit book this summer.