Review By Harsimran Kaur

If revenge could brew the insatiable greed of the soul and make the heavens bleed to judge the ignobility of the dejected spirit, such a personification pompously engenders self-denial and inconspicuously threaten its own existence. We contemplate the past to validate an excrescence of emotional palettes for a conceivable future. The past and the present are intermingled to create a future bereft of our insecurities and inhibitions. But, life has a different story to tell as relationships don’t churn the desired fodder we wish to feed our inner soul. We see the same plethora of emotions in the characters so vividly defined by Alex Michaelides.
The characters in “The Maidens” carry an agglomeration of the inclusive thoughts predating the discordant mind subjecting it to repulsive chicanery. It is a story about the fickleness of the mind, its manoeuvres to achieve the incomprehensible. With such prudence, the author has conjured the irrationalities of the mind, making it an impressionable read from the start. “The Maidens” is an interesting transition from the author’s first book “The Silent Patient”, but definitely has traces of his intellectual capacity.
The author’s selection of characters is based on the reluctance and acceptance of their own vulnerabilities. Mariana Andros, a punctilious group therapist, invaded by a Sisyphean grief finds herself embroiled in a world of secrets penning a trail of truths and falsifications. She feels an indelible need to protect Zoe, and moves Heaven and Earth to extrapolate the tragedy that could engulf her niece.
Zoe, a student of ST Christopher’s College, Cambridge, is crestfallen by the on-going apparatus in the university and feels threatened by a deluge of eccentric revelations. She foresees Professor Fosca a crucial suspect in the draconian acts of murders. Mariana espouses Zoe’s concerns making Fosca a malignant conspirator.
An entourage of maidens around Edward Fosca implacably festers suspicion giving Mariana a plausible junction to control the tracks going astray. Being an articulate and mystifying personality, Fosca a hard fish to catch!