# Read the first page of The Maidens by Alex Michaelides Read the opening of The Maidens by Alex Michaelides free, no signup. A therapist becomes convinced a charismatic Cambridge classics professor is killing students. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/the-maidens-alex-michaelides - Genre: Thrillers - Year: 2021 - ISBN: 9781250304476 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781250304476&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781250304476 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781250304476 ## The opening Edward Fosca was a murderer. This was a fact. This wasn't something Mariana knew just on an intellectual level, as an idea. Her body knew it. She felt it in her bones, along her blood, and deep within every cell. Edward Fosca was guilty. And yet—she couldn't prove it, and might never prove it. This man, this monster, who had killed at least two people, might, in all likelihood, walk free. He was so smug, so sure of himself. He thinks he's got away with it, she thought. He thought he had won. But he hadn't. Not yet. Mariana was determined to outsmart him. She had to. She would sit up all night and remember everything that had happened. She would sit here, in this small, dark room in Cambridge, and think, and work it out. She stared at the red bar of the electric heater on the wall, burning, glowing in the dark, willing herself into a kind of trance. In her mind, she would go back to the very beginning and remember it all. Every single detail. And she would catch him. No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. —C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed A few days earlier, Mariana was at home, in London. She was on her knees, on the floor, surrounded by boxes. She was making yet another halfhearted attempt to sort through Sebastian’s belongings. It wasn’t going well. A year on from his death, the majority of his things remained spread around the house in various piles and half-empty boxes. She seemed unable to complete the task. Mariana was still in love with him—that was the problem. Even though she knew she’d never see Sebastian again—even though he was gone for good—she was still in love and didn’t know what to do with all this love of hers. There was so much of it, and it was so messy: leaking, spilling, tumbling out of her, like stuffing falling out of an old rag doll that was coming apart at the seams. If only she could box up her love, as she was attempting to do with his possessions. What a pitiful sight it was—a man’s life reduced to a collection of unwanted items for a jumble sale. Mariana reached into the nearest box. She pulled out a pair of shoes. She considered them—the old green trainers he had for running on the beach. They still had a slightly sodden feel about them, with grains of sand embedded in the soles. Get rid of them, she said to herself. Throw them in the bin. Do it. Even as she thought this, she knew it was an impossibility. They weren’t him; they weren’t Sebastian—they weren’t the man she loved and would love forever—they were just a pair of old shoes. Even so, parting with them would be an act of self-harm, like pressing a knife to her arm and slicing off a sliver of skin. Instead, Mariana brought the shoes close to her chest. She cradled them tight, as she might a child. And she wept. How had she ended up like this? In the space of just a year, which once would have slipped by almost imperceptibly—and now stretched out behind her like a desolate landscape flattened by a hurricane—the life she had known had been obliterated, leaving Mariana here: thirty-six years old, alone and drunk on a Sunday night; clutching a dead man’s shoes as if they were holy relics—which, in a way, they were. Something beautiful, something holy, had died. All that remained were the books he read, the clothes he wore, the things he touched. She could still smell him on them, still taste him on the tip of her tongue. That’s why she couldn’t throw away his possessions—by holding on to them, she could keep Sebastian alive, somehow, just a little bit—if she let go, she’d lose him entirely. ## Books with a similar feel - [The Therapist by B.A. Paris](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-therapist-b-a-paris.md) - [In the Blood by Lisa Unger](https://uncovered.ink/read/in-the-blood-lisa-unger.md) - [The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-good-daughter-karin-slaughter.md) - [The Tower by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-tower-gregg-andrew-hurwitz.md) - [The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-kind-worth-killing-peter-swanson.md) - [The Terminal List by Jack Carr](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-terminal-list-jack-carr.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.