From the bestselling author of The Silent Patient comes another sophisticated and hugely original literary thriller revolving around Cambridge classicists and secret sororities.
Waterstones Thriller of the Month for June 2022
From the author of the global #1 bestselling debut The Silent Patient comes a spellbinding literary thriller which weaves together Greek mythology, psychology, and murder...
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 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...
The Maidens is a story of love, and of grief - of what makes us who we are, and what makes us kill.
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
ISBN: 9781409181682
Number of pages: 368
Weight: 260 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 30 mm
Elegant, sinister, stylish and thrilling, The Maidens answers the weighty question, how do you go about following one of the biggest thrillers of the past decade? You write something even better. - CHRIS WHITAKER
Alex has achieved the almost impossible and surpassed The Silent Patient in this compelling literary thriller, which grips from intriguing start to horrifying finish ... A brilliant achievement. - HARRIET TYCE
What a thrilling, heart in throat ride. A great triumph. - STEPHEN FRY
A deliciously dark, elegant, utterly compulsive read - with a twist that blew my mind. I loved this even more than I loved The Silent Patient and that's saying something! - LUCY FOLEY
Alex Michaelides hits a home run in his sophomore effort. The Maidens is a page-turner of the first order. - DAVID BALDACCI
A stunning psychological thriller ... The intelligent, cerebral plot finds contemporary parallels in Euripides's tragedies, Jacobean dramas such as The Duchess of Malfi, and Tennyson's poetry. The devastating ending shows just how little the troubled Mariana knows about the human psyche or herself. Michaelides is on a roll. - Publishers Weekly
The greatest campus novel since The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Packed to the dreaming spires with mystery, murder, emotion and a yearning, heart-aching nostalgia for all that we leave in the past - places, lovers and ourselves when we were young. The millions who loved The Silent Patient will be delighted to hear that Alex Michaelides once again mugs you with a climatic twist that you will NEVER see coming. - TONY PARSONS
Michaelides' stage-setting skills are as masterful here, as they were in The Silent Patient - another tense, cleverly twisted winner. - Booklist
Nothing short of genius. - Woman&Home
[Michaelides'] writing, especially his characterisation, possesses a unique sparkle and more promise than most other writers. - Daily Mail
The Maidens is a compelling read, and delivers its Hellenic thrills in style. - Sunday Telegraph
Stylishly written with a great sense of place, bestselling author Michaelides' second novel is a compelling and complex psychological thriller of the highest order. - Irish Independent
A thriller that deftly weaves psychology, murder and an understanding of Greek mythology - where do we sign up? - Belfast Telegraph
This atmospheric mystery speeds along at such a pace, Michaelides' genius for storytelling is clear. - Woman
Michaelides is a stylish writer who seamlessly weaves Greek mythology, psychology and murder into his writing and this atmospheric thriller keeps you guessing till the end. - Independent
It's a tense, original story set against the luscious backdrop of the ancient university. - Daily Mail, Summer roundup
The Maidens ticks a lot of boxes, particularly if you like a good thriller. It has a fast pace, lots of misdirection, and intriguing backstory and a damaged protagonist. - Sunday Life
Tautly plotted and impeccably paced , it's an intelligent and propulsive second novel. - The Observer
When Alex Michaelides' first psychological thriller, The Silent Patient, debuted in 2019, it skyrocketed to the top of best-seller lists. His follow-up is just as twisty-and involves another suspicious killing. - Time Magazine, European edition
When Mariana’s niece calls her from Cambridge to say that she thinks her friend has been murdered, she returns to the cloisters of her old college, navigating her own ghosts while comforting her niece, and becoming... More
Group therapist Mariana is still struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband when she unexpectedly receives a distressed phone call from her niece Zoe. Tragically, Zoe's best friend Tara has been... More
If you want a Dark Academia sort of read, then look no further!
When I read Silent Patient last year, I didn’t think anything would live up to that rollercoaster of a book, but The Maidens is fantastic! I love how...
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