Mariana Andros has been struggling. After losing her husband while on vacation in Greece, Mariana has attempted to bury her grief in her work. A group therapist, Mariana surrounds herself with those struggling through life and while the job initially gave her a reason to get up in the morning, it has now become another burden. But Mariana’s grief is interrupted when she gets a frantic call from her niece, Zoe, at Oxford. Zoe’s closest friend has been murdered and she needs Mariana. Without hesitation, Mariana rushes to her niece’s side and discovers that the murder victim was a member of a mysterious group of students called the Maidens, who study Greek under an American professor named Edward Fosca. Though loved and adored by most, Mariana suspects Fosca is not as perfect as he is portrayed to be. Ignoring the advice of friends and fellow work professionals, Mariana decides to investigate Fosca and his Maidens in hopes of discovering the truth.

After reading Alex Michaelides’ debut, The Silent Patient, I became hooked on his writing and did not hesitate to pick up Mr. Michaelides’ attempt at dark academia, a genre that has become a favorite of mine. This book differs slightly from the traditional dark academia book as the main character isn’t a student but a family member of a student who may be involved in what is going on. I thought that was an interesting idea and a nice way for Mr. Michaelides to make his book stand out against other dark academia books.

The story is well written, though I would not say it has the same hook as The Silent Patient. With Mr. Michaelides’ first book I was hooked from practically the first page but with The Maidens I was able to put it down and do other things. That is not to say the book wasn’t interesting, but it didn’t have the same grab as The Silent Patient.

Of course, I was very curious to say what kind of twist Mr. Michaelides would pull at the end of the book and I will say that it was very well executed. It’s not the same mind blowing twist as The Silent Patient but it is a good one nonetheless. Everything is tied up well and the reason for why the murders are occurring made good sense and show how deranged the murderer was.

What I also really enjoyed about this book was how Mr. Michaelides melted it into the same “universe” as The Silent Patient. I like when authors mention other characters or places from different books as it is something I do with my own works so I liked how Mr. Michaelides combined characters from The Silent Patient into The Maidens. I’m looking forward to who he brings in to this third novel, The Fury.

Overall this is a very well written book and while I wouldn’t necessarily put it in the top three best books of dark academia I would say it is very much worth the read. I’m looking forward to future works by Mr. Michaelides and what other twists he has in store.