He states that he was with The Maidens during both of the murders though Mariana is still unconvinced. There’s definitely something sinister going on at Cambridge, and she is sure that it involves the professor. Mariana is convinced that Fosca is the murderer and when a second body shows up - also mirroring a Greek tragedy - her obsession with the man grows even more potent. We also learn that Tara had confided in Zoe on the night of her murder that Professor Fosca had threatened to kill her. As for The Maidens, the group appears to be a cult that includes only young girls (his “favorite” students), all who wear long white dresses and come across as zealous and a tad creepy. Described by others as “dazzling,” Fosca is so well-liked by the students that they erupt into thunderous applause at the end of each of his lectures. We learn that Tara was a member of a secret campus society called “The Maidens,” led by the handsome, charismatic Greek Mythology professor, Edward Fosca. Sure enough, the body turns out to be Zoe’s friend Tara who was brutally murdered in the MO style of a Greek tragedy. Mariana drops what she’s doing and rushes to her niece’s aid.

A body has been discovered near campus, and Zoe believes that it’s her friend Tara. One night, she gets a panicked phone call from her niece Zoe who’s attending school at Cambridge.

She also appears to have difficulties setting boundaries between her and her patients, especially one of them who is harassing her and has frighteningly crossed into stalker territory. The Maidens is a dark academia “whodunnit,” and the story follows a troubled London-based group psychotherapist named Mariana Andros who is grieving the death of her husband Sebastian, who passed away a year prior. That being said, I was super excited when I learned that Michaelides had come out with a new thriller. I did a video review of it a while back, so I’ll put a link to that video up above. Alex Michaelides is the same author who wrote “The Silent Patient,” a book that I really loved and gushed about on this channel.

The maidens michaelides review