Review (New Release): WATCHING YOU by Lisa Jewell

Watching You, an all-new thriller from Lisa Jewell, releases in North America today!

Click here to find the reading group guide, an excerpt, author info, as well as a list of purchase links for different retail sites.

• About the Book: Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighbourhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. And everyone is watching you. As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all—including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie—a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5—excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father. One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother—whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years—is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her. Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam… •

My Thoughts:

Told in four parts from multiple perspectives, Watching You was a well woven mystery. Almost every character gave me an uneasy feeling at one point in time. These neighbours have a different concept of what "Neighbourhood Watch" is! There were many secrets held, assumptions made, and of course, constant creepy lurking and spying in that little town and neighbourhood with the bright coloured houses. With every turn of the page I was trying to figure out who could be trusted, if anyone. The story wasn't a high suspense, edge of your seat read, but it was a well constructed plot and there was an overall creepy tone. As I mentioned, the story is broken up into four parts, and it was only by part three that I had mostly figured out how the mystery was going to unfold, and who had really done what. I say "mostly" because there was one little twist towards the end that I hadn't figured out until right before the information was presented. I applaud Jewell for surprising me with that revelation! Overall, Watching You was a novel that kept me engaged and entertained. It had a different feel from Jewell's other work but it was still edgy and dark.

Colleen

**Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for sending me this complimentary copy for review. All opinions expressed here are honest and entirely my own.**