Spoilers for The Girl From Widow Hills

This post contains SPOILERS and SPOILER DISCUSSION for The Girl From Widow Hills by Megan Miranda. If you have not read the book and do not want spoilers, go instead to my review of The Girl From Widow Hills.

This book (like many Megan Miranda books) has an interesting structure.

First, let’s go over what we THINK we know about Olivia, and then go over what we later learn.

What We Know About The Girl From Widow Hills:

• Her birth name was Arden Olivia Maynor.

• She has a history of sleepwalking.

• One night when she was six, she was sleepwalking during a heavy rainstorm and went missing. Three days later, after search parties and a huge amount of media attention, she was found trapped in a storm drain and rescued.

• Arden’s mother wrote a book about her daughter’s rescue. When Arden entered college, she started going by her middle name, Olivia.

• Olivia lost touch with her mother and, as the book opens, Olivia has received a call saying that her mother died seven months before and was buried in a potter’s field. Olivia is sent a box of her mother’s belongings and opens it with a box cutter.

• As the twenty-year anniversary of her ordeal approaches, Olivia becomes more and more uneasy and begins sleepwalking again. One night when sleepwalking in her yard, she trips over the body of a man. She runs to her neighbor’s house covered in blood. Her neighbor goes out to investigate and finds a body — and Olivia’s box cutter.

• Someone is stealing drugs from the hospital where Olivia works.

• She learns the dead man is Sean Coleman, the one who found her in the storm drain twenty years ago. She’s afraid she might have killed him. Or that he was stalking her for some reason.

• Her friend Elyse, a nurse at the hospital where Olivia works, disappears and then is found dead of an overdose.

What We Later Learn – SPOILERS for The Girl From Widow Hills:

• Olivia’s mother, Laurel, is not really dead. She faked her death and sent Olivia the box of her belongings.

• Laurel was a nurse who was regularly drugging Olivia as a child (spiking her hot chocolate) to keep her docile and make her sleep. The drugs caused Olivia to sleepwalk. She also had a bad reaction to one, fell down some steps and injured herself.

• Laurel staged her daughter’s disappearance (hiding her in their cellar) to explain her injury and hide the fact that she drugged her.

• As the twentieth anniversary of her disappearance approached, Laurel faked her own death and began to sneak into her daughter’s house and drug her again with screw-top wine. That made Olivia start to sleepwalk again.

• Laurel was paying Elyse to steal drugs from the hospital so she could drug Olivia’s wine. Elyse also helped file a report accusing Olivia of stealing the drugs.

• Olivia’s mom was also working at the hospital as a nurse named “Erin” from the hospital? That was a bit weird. Why didn’t Olivia recognize her? And why did she need Elyse’s help?

• Nathan Coleman, the son of Sean Coleman, the man who “rescued” Olivia as a child, had been blackmailing Laurel for years. He didn’t think she deserved all the money she was earning off her lies. Olivia’s mom thought it was Sean blackmailing them, not his son.

• Sean Coleman had come to warn Olivia about his son and then saw Laurel (the nurse “Erin”) at the hospital. When Olivia’s mom saw him lurking outside Olivia’s house it seems like she killed him to keep him quiet.

• When Olivia realizes all her mother has done, they argue. Her mother comes at her on the balcony and Olivia pushes Laurel away. The balcony railing gives way under Laurel’s weight and she falls to her death.

What Did You Think About The Girl From Widow Hills Spoilers?

• I suspected Olivia’s mother from the beginning. Any time there’s a “dead person but no body” situation I’m highly suspicious.

• Laurel wanted to make more money from the twentieth anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance but I wasn’t clear on her plan. I guess she hadn’t figured out the details, tracked down Olivia, saw Sean and panicked.

• The clue from the sleep specialist that Olivia sees was a good one and went right past me! He tells her that sleepwalking can be an side effect of other medications and that she should avoid wine!

• I wasn’t sure about the Sean/Nathan thing and that’s frankly a little confusing. Did Sean find Olivia by accident when he was missing as a child? Was he in on it with Laurel?

• Laurel suggests she killed Sean to keep him quiet but doesn’t flat out confess. The book also suggests Laurel tried to frame her daughter for Sean’s murder by calling the phone in the box of her personal effects to try to wake Olivia up.

• It’s also suggested that Laurel killed Elyse. Olivia thinks she did and Laurel doesn’t deny it. Elyse was a recovering addict and it’s possible that Laurel provided her with drugs and she overdosed.

I felt the resolution was a little rushed and crammed into the end. But it was fun to try to figure everything out.

Join Our Discussion of The Girl From Widow Hills!

Talk to me in comments – what did you think?? I read and respond to every comment, so if you want to be notified of my reply, just click the tiny envelope icon above the comment box and add your email!