Megan Miranda & Sleep

What does sleep have to do with the current Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen? Megan Miranda will tell all of us in a virtual event on Facebook Live on Monday, June 29 at 5 PM MST, 8 PM ET. That’s when she’ll talk about The Girl from Widow Hills. You can pre-order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3fR9FnN

If you’re curious, you can also check out her article “Five Novels of Insomnia, Sleepwalking, and Fear of Slumber” written for CrimeReads. https://bit.ly/3duELA0

Here’s the summary of The Girl from Widow Hills, which will give you a hint why Miranda is writing about sleep.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last House Guest—a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick—comes a riveting new novel of psychological suspense about a young woman plagued by night terrors after a childhood trauma who wakes one evening to find a corpse at her feet.

Everyone knows the story of “the girl from Widow Hills.”

Arden Maynor was just a child when she was swept away while sleepwalking during a terrifying rainstorm and went missing for days. Strangers and friends, neighbors and rescue workers, set up search parties and held vigils, praying for her safe return. Against all odds, she was found, alive, clinging to a storm drain. The girl from Widow Hills was a living miracle. Arden’s mother wrote a book. Fame followed. Fans and fan letters, creeps, and stalkers. And every year, the anniversary. It all became too much. As soon as she was old enough, Arden changed her name and disappeared from the public eye.

Now a young woman living hundreds of miles away, Arden goes by Olivia. She’s managed to stay off the radar for the last few years. But with the twentieth anniversary of her rescue approaching, the media will inevitably renew its interest in Arden. Where is she now? Soon Olivia feels like she’s being watched and begins sleepwalking again, like she did long ago, even waking outside her home. Until late one night she jolts awake in her yard. At her feet is the corpse of a man she knows—from her previous life, as Arden Maynor.

And now, the girl from Widow Hills is about to become the center of the story, once again, in this propulsive page-turner from suspense master Megan Miranda.