As interesting as Alex Michaelides’ debut novel, The Silent Patient was, I wasn’t necessarily in the market to find out about any more of his work. Strangely enough, his second novel, The Maidens, appealed to me based off the brief “new in paperback” description given in my mother’s People Magazine subscription. I only really paid attention to Michaelides as the author when I looked it up at my local library.
This book was a quicker read for me than his debut, but the sick twists at the end were just as jaw-dropping. We meet Mariana, a Greek living in London still mourning the sudden and accidental death of her husband, Sebastian, one year prior. She’s a psychotherapist who’s got a rather difficult group of patients, but our time spent with these people is cut short when she’s called to Cambridge by her niece, Zoe. Evidently there’d been a brutal murder, at which Zoe’s friend was the first victim. You read that right.
After Mariana shows up somewhat reluctantly at the college where she met her husband, other female students start showing up just as brutally murdered. From there, Mariana can’t help but to insert herself into the investigation even though she’s clearly taking leads and running with them based off her emotions. Not really something a psychotherapist should be doing, but according to an old professor she’s a true empath (hmm…Will Graham anyone?!). Mariana also seems to be quite popular with a lot of gentlemen on campus, but she’s obviously still impacted by her husband’s passing.
That’s all I feel I can say about the novel without giving away that insane and honestly disturbing ending. It’s definitely something that could trigger people so I’d say read at your own risk. With that being said, I really enjoyed Michaelides’ second work of fiction. Who knows when he’ll release something else, but I’ll definitely have my eyes peeled for it now.