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Title: I am Watching You (you can Buy on Amazon here)
Author: Teresa Driscoll
Published: 1st October 2017
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense
Pages: 301
Format: E-Book
Rating: ***** (5/5 Stars)
About: When Ella Longfield overhears two attractive young men flirting with teenage girls on a train, she thinks nothing of it—until she realizes they are fresh out of prison and her maternal instinct is put on high alert. But just as she’s decided to call for help, something stops her. The next day, she wakes up to the news that one of the girls—beautiful, green-eyed Anna Ballard—has disappeared.
A year later, Anna is still missing. Ella is wracked with guilt over what she failed to do, and she’s not the only one who can’t forget. Someone is sending her threatening letters—letters that make her fear for her life.
Then an anniversary appeal reveals that Anna’s friends and family might have something to hide. Anna’s best friend, Sarah, hasn’t been telling the whole truth about what really happened that night—and her parents have been keeping secrets of their own.
Someone knows where Anna is—and they’re not telling. But they are watching Ella.
Review: I feel really bad for saying this, but I had never heard of Teresa Driscoll until recently.
Thankfully, me and a few other people that I work with decided to start a book club and this was actually the first book that was picked. The best choice ever is all I can say.
I know that a few of them haven’t finished this book yet, so I’ll say it now, please don’t read any further. I don’t want to give away any spoilers! I don’t I’ve put any in this review, but just in case, stop reading now.
I’ve never actually been a person who picks up a thriller as their first book of choice. I love a good romance or any young adult fantasy books, so I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this.
Truth be told though, I’ve never read anything so frustrating! And yet at the same time, I absolutely loved it.
I think what makes a good thriller/suspense book is the fact that I didn’t want to put it down. Driscoll is great at leaving you on a cliff hanger at every single end of a chapter.
You’ll get halfway through a chapter and be like oh great I’m going to find out some new piece of information and then it would just end.
I had no clue who the bad guy was, or even the good person until I got to the very end.
Sure I had a few theories, even my dad (who hasn’t read the book) gave a pretty good suggestion of how he thought the book would end when I was telling him about it. But neither one of us came close.
Maybe that’s because we just weren’t thinking like a suspense author would, or maybe Driscoll is just incredibly skilled at her writing?
Either way, I couldn’t put it down.
The first evening I read it, I had my boyfriend Luke sat next to me and he seemed really concerned at first because every time I read a chapter I just gave the biggest sigh – I’m not a patient person and hate waiting to find out what is actually going on.
But Luke just laughed at me when I told him that the book was just frustratingly good!
When it comes to the book’s storyline though, I thought that it was a very clever idea and not something that I would have been able to come up with.
The only thing that I wasn’t a fan of was the alternative character viewpoints for each chapter. You’ve got the Witness, the Father, the Friend, and a few others.
I get that this was to help with the plot, but I’ve never been a fan of this sort of thing, as I always like to get invested in one character at a time. However, I do have to say that it still worked.
Ella, who is the witness, is a fantastically written character. I appreciated her part, although I failed to understand why she was blamed and ridiculed the way she was. She did absolutely nothing wrong. But I guess that’s just showing the faults of other humans who blame whoever they can.
The only character that really did annoy me was the Friend – why didn’t she say anything, why did she decide to omit the truth? If she was a real person then you could say it was her fault that her friend disappeared, as she didn’t tell the police everything.
Other then that though, a lot of thought has been put into this book and I’d happily say that if you want a good suspense book then this is perfect for it. Just make sure you only start reading it when you have enough time. You won’t want to put it down.
I’ll definitely start reading a few more of Driscoll’s book from now on though!
CastlesandTurrets 