It’s traumatic for her to return, but she forces herself to because Zoe needs her. The place is tied up with memories of Sebastian for Mariana, so she hasn’t visited Zoe there since his death. Zoe is at the same college at Cambridge that Mariana and Sebastian were at when they met. Mariana and Sebastian (the dead husband) have cared for Zoe since her parents (Mariana's sister and brother in law) were killed in a car accident when she was six. At this point we learn that Mariana and Zoe are all each other has left now, as their entire family has died. Zoe fears the worst and wants comfort from her aunt. She gets a call from her niece, Zoe, a student at Cambridge, upset that her best friend is missing and that the body of a student has been found murdered. Quick plot wrap up: fourteen months after his death, Mariana is still mourning the death of her husband. And once I was irritated by the ending, a lot of other little details which had pricked at me over the course of the book became bigger problems in my mind. I know thrillers are meant to have a twist, but this one just came from nowhere and was just really far-fetched. But the ending really let me down, with its ridiculous twist. Both the narrators were good (can I confess, I actually started this one because Kobna Holdbrook-Smith was a narrator and I could listen to his voice forever) and I was generally predisposed to enjoy it. I liked the idea of the exclusive group in the academic setting and the general setup to the situation.

I mostly enjoyed this thriller, really I did.

The maidens alex michaelides