Down the street is the new headmaster Tom Fitzwilliam, specifically brought in to rescue the local school from looming disaster. Tom is charismatic, charming, suave...well you get the picture! He makes all the ladies swoon. As well as some of the school girls too. This title keeps popping up whenever I browse the kindle bookstore. Guess I must have read similar titles before. So far I have resisted, but whenever I see a positive review my resistance is weakening 🙂

I was able to figure out the first twist, but that was due to the clever hints that Jewell laid out in the previous chapters. This was an intriguing character driven mystery that had me diagnosing all the characters at every turn. There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying. However, while the neighborhood’s exterior is charming and enviable, if you pay close attention, you will see another side to Melville Heights. You may notice some residents have strange habits, some behave badly, are masking dark obsessions, or hiding painful secrets, and some … like to watch… Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam…WATCHING YOU is definitely a study in human nature with nosy neighbors being the focus. It seemed that everyone was spying on someone with Freddie being the major one. While I finished the book, I have to say some of the disturbing elements were too extreme and unfortunately, it’s a front and center storyline for much of the book. I don’t want to spoil anything but if you have any questions about it, just let me know. BUT ... friends out there who have read this book, please HELP ME! What in the world did I miss at the very end?? The brown hair? Whose was it? Nikki’s as a teenager? Viva’s? Was it not a suicide but a murder? By him or by her, or were they both in on it? I have re-listened to chapters trying to figure it out, and know it was a significant lightbulb moment, but I am just stymied and feel like a bit of a dunce. Or maybe it’s his young newlywed neighbor, a woman with a crush who tends to put herself in precarious situations.

Welcome to Melville Heights - an idyllic, family based, wealthy neighborhood that is the kind of place everyone wishes they could live. Except for the fact that nothing is as it seems. Behind the picturesque closed doors of these painted beauty houses lies dark, ugly and sinister secrets. The kind of secrets that inevitably make it to the light of day through MURDER! Thank you so much to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Lisa Jewell for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.A picturesque street in a nice neighborhood in England. Painted pastel houses with cozy surroundings. Behind closed doors, someone is watching... Melville Heights, Bristol, England, is a prestigious row of pretty, vividly painted houses that stand proudly overlooking Melville. However, behind the attractive facade someone is watching and waiting, and what develops will stun its inhabitants to the core!

The teenagers are the stars in this novel. Freddie and Jenna were my favourite characters. Freddie, with his first crush (with which his brilliance cannot help him) and Jenna with her struggles to maintain a normal life living with her paranoid mother. I even became fond of Joey, despite her poor life choices. Tom Fitzwilliam lives in Melville Heights, he is the headmaster of the local academy - a charming and popular member of the community, especially with the ladies! But if I’ve painted a picture of perfection, well of course that’s not the way it will go, because behind those very expensive twitching curtains, lies a darkness and someone will end up paying with their life.

And then the word came to her, the elusive word she’d been chasing through her thoughts. The look that Mr. Fitzwilliam had given. It has been predatory. We also have some important themes and topics woven and integral to the story which were dealt with so sensitively such as Asperger's syndrome, the grooming of young girls by a predator who also happens to be the headmaster, suicide, and infidelity (amongst others). The central theme of being watched or being the watcher is what elevates this novel from what I consider typical suspense to something much creepier in feel. There’s a host of participants running rampant throughout, the mystery found in deciphering which of the watchers/watched are in fact driven by dark motives.