Hello fellow book lovers! I hope you are all loving this amazing weather we’ve been having in the UK. It’s safe to say that summer is here. I’ve managed to squeeze one more book into this month bringing my total reads to 3 which is better than what it has been. So what book is behind door number 5? Lets find out…..
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…
This is the second book written by Lisa Jewell that I have read and I’m pleased to say that I enjoyed it as much as her previous book Then She Was Gone.
The story opens with a murder where we don’t know who the victim was or who murdered them, we are then taken back a few months to find out how the story unravels. Throughout the story we meet many characters who feel that they are being watched or are in fact watching people themselves. It was really interesting to read the different perspectives and it made me wonder how much watching went on in my own street. It’s safe to say I shall be keeping a closer eye on my neighbours from now on haha!
Of all the characters we met I liked Freddie the best, he seemed a bit strange but you could tell that there was nothing malicious or vindictive about him. He was just a boy trying to understand the world from his point of view. Lisa Jewell does a great job of introducing characters, who you think are not as important so much so you almost forget about them until BANG they have become a key player in the game. The depth of her characters and the attention to detail is second to none.
As with the previous book I did not see that ending coming. With any good psychological thriller nothing is as straight forward as it seems but the conclusion we ended up at took me by surprise. I even found myself empathising with the murderer and questioning what I would of done had I been in their shoes?
Another great 5* read from Lisa Jewell, I can not wait to get my hands on some more of her books.
So that leaves me with 15 more books to read from this challenge but I’ve also managed to tick another one off my Beat The Backlist Challenge too so win, win!
Bookworm Blogger 
Leave a comment