Review: Watching You by Lisa Jewell

WATCHING YOU 
Lisa Jewell
Publication date: December 26, 2018
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Adult
Format: Audio (10 hrs 50 min)
Source: OverDrive

GOODREADS  *  AMAZON

S Y N O P S I S

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…

M Y   T H O U G H T S

I seriously love Lisa Jewell’s brand of mystery/thriller. Maybe because they are less thriller and more domestic drama/character study with a mystery woven into the mix. And Jewell manages to combine all of those elements so well.

Watching You starts with a crime scene – a murder. Only we don’t know who was murdered, or who did it, or why. I love a thriller that starts with a murder and then takes the reader back and allows the events to slowly unfold. You know what’s coming and it adds this feeling of being on the edge of your seat with the tension mounting chapter after chapter.  

There’s a wide and varied cast of characters that we follow in Melville Heights. Among them:

Tom: The charismatic headmaster at the local school.

Nicola: Tom’s much younger wife.

Freddie: Tom’s teenage son who watches everyone from his bedroom window.

Joey: A disillusioned 20-something, newly married and living with her older brother.

Alfie: Joey’s husband.

Jack: a successful surgeon and Joey’s brother.

Rebecca: Jack’s pregnant wife.

Jenna: A student at Tom’s school.

Told from multiple points of view, each character brings pieces of information that moves the story forward. Just as I started to make assumptions and form theories more information would come to light, forcing my perspective to shift again and again. By the second half of the book my feelings about some characters had completely reversed. Police interviews interspersed throughout the book provide even more information and give clues about where the investigation is heading.

In Melville, there are eyes everywhere. Always watching. But things are not always how they seem – and people are not always who they appear to be. And you never know what’s going on behind closed doors. Or who is capable of murder. With hidden threads that formed unseen connections, the narrative was paced perfectly and delivered twists and turns that made for a totally addictive read. 

4.5/5 STARS

Review: Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

Genres: Mystery, Thriller

Release Date: April 17, 2018

Format: eARC

Source: Atria Books/NetGalley

Find it here: GoodReads

Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, the youngest of three. She was beloved by her parents, friends, and teachers. She and her boyfriend made a teenaged golden couple. She was days away from an idyllic post-exams summer vacation, with her whole life ahead of her.

And then she was gone.

Now, her mother Laurel Mack is trying to put her life back together. It’s been ten years since her daughter disappeared, seven years since her marriage ended, and only months since the last clue in Ellie’s case was unearthed. So when she meets an unexpectedly charming man in a café, no one is more surprised than Laurel at how quickly their flirtation develops into something deeper. Before she knows it, she’s meeting Floyd’s daughters—and his youngest, Poppy, takes Laurel’s breath away.

Because looking at Poppy is like looking at Ellie. And now, the unanswered questions she’s tried so hard to put to rest begin to haunt Laurel anew. Where did Ellie go? Did she really run away from home, as the police have long suspected, or was there a more sinister reason for her disappearance? Who is Floyd, really? And why does his daughter remind Laurel so viscerally of her own missing girl? 

Back in the early-2000’s I read everything Lisa Jewell wrote. At that time she was all about romance and women’s fiction and I inhaled each and every one. Then she made a shift to mystery novels and, since that’s not usually my genre of choice, it’s now been several years since I’ve read anything from Jewell. But the synopsis of Then She Was Gone captured my attention and I was instantly wondering what happened to this girl named Ellie, who is this man her mother meets a decade later, and why does his young daughter look so much like Ellie.

Told by several narrators, we get pieces of the story doled out at the perfect pace. While a few aspects were easy to figure out, most kept me guessing until the very end. Jewell did an amazing job of gradually unraveling the threads of Ellie’s history and weaving other strands together to create Laurel’s present-day.

Then She Was Gone feels as much like a character study as a mystery. I found it interesting that despite few of the characters being particularly likable, I was still fascinated by their actions and their motivations. From Laurel, who was never warm and fuzzy to start with and became only more distant after Ellie’s disappearance, to the charming Floyd and his precocious daughter, to Laurel’s beleaguered ex-husband Paul, and her somewhat estranged other children. Jewell brought these characters to life and humanized them to an extent that I found myself genuinely invested in their lives.

We know fairly early what happened to Ellie, but it’s the how and the why and all the repercussions that provide the intrigue. As one who isn’t accustomed to the content of mystery/thrillers, there were several scenes when I was truly horrified and utterly heartsick by events that took place. Jewell used the multiple points of view and the dual time frame to craft a story that kept me completely enthralled until the very end. I highly recommend this twisty domestic drama/mystery.

4.25/5 STARS

Note: An advance reader copy was provided by Atria Books. This is no way changes my opinion of the book or the content of this review.

Review: Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent

Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent

Series: No

Genres: Psychological Thriller

Release Date: August 22, 2017

Format: Audio

Narrators: Sam O’Mahony, Roy McMillan, Kevin Hely, Tracy Keating, Stephen Hogan, Kathy O’Brien, Steven Laverty, Michele Moran

Source: OverDrive

Find it here: GoodReads | Amazon

I expected more of a reaction the first time I hit her.

So begins Liz Nugent s astonishing debut novel a chilling, elegantly crafted, and psychologically astute exploration of the nature of evil. 

Oliver Ryan, handsome, charismatic, and successful, has long been married to his devoted wife, Alice. Together they write and illustrate award-winning children s books; their life together one of enviable privilege and ease until, one evening after a delightful dinner, Oliver delivers a blow to Alice that renders her unconscious, and subsequently beats her into a coma. 

In the aftermath of such an unthinkable event, as Alice hovers between life and death, the couple s friends, neighbors, and acquaintances try to understand what could have driven Oliver to commit such a horrific act. As his story unfolds, layers are peeled away to reveal a life of shame, envy, deception, and masterful manipulation. 

With its alternating points of view and deft prose, Unraveling Oliver is a page-turning, one-sitting read that details how an ordinary man can transform into a sociopath.

WHAT I LIKED:
I very rarely venture outside of the contemporary romance genre. It’s my happy place and I’m good with that. But I took a chance on something different with Unraveling Oliver and I’m so glad I did. I’ve seen some people comment that the story was slow and repetitive but I didn’t find that at all. I was riveted from the very start and loved the gradual parceling of information as small nuggets of Oliver’s life were shared. 

Oliver has beat his wife into a comatose state and everyone is shocked, including Oliver who says he was “fond of her, in my way”. Outwardly, Oliver is handsome, successful and charming, if not a bit private. But he is also cold, controlled, shockingly self-absorbed and practically emotionless. Was he born like that or did his upbringing and environment make him that way? I was fascinated by the series of events that led to his violent attack and kept pondering the nature vs. nurture aspect of the story. What makes a sociopath?

The story is brilliantly told through eight different points of view including a childhood friend, Oliver’s mistress, an estranged half-brother, and Oliver himself. There are so many layers to the story and it was fascinating to see the full picture begin to take shape as more of the past was learned and more pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. There were so many threads that were woven together, lives that intersected, and I was amazed at Nugent’s ability to create such an intricate web and then slowly untangle it.

The narration was perfection and played such a big part in my enjoyment of the story. The voices, the accents, the delivery – all were so distinct and brought the story to life. Oliver’s cold delivery, Barney’s plaintive chronicle, Eugene’s disjointed and utterly heartbreaking thoughts. Each voice added to the overall enjoyment.

This would make an excellent book club or buddy read because there are so many questions raised and so many points perfect for discussion.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:
Honestly, not much. If I was feeling nit-picky I’d say that the final chapter could have been a teeny bit longer. It would have been interesting to get just a little bit more of each character in the aftermath. But that’s just wishful thinking and I was totally satisfied with the ending.

4.5/5 STARS

HAVE YOU READ UNRAVELING OLIVER?