Watching You by Lisa Jewell

Goodreads blurb:

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…


Holy moly macaroni! I was happy to be approved for an ARC of this via Netgalley, but I had no idea how intensely I'd be sucked into the world of Melville Heights and Tom Fitzwilliams. 

Immediately we find out that everything is not what it seems in this posh neighborhood. Joey is there to find herself after an impulsive marriage, but instead of putting down stable roots, she's immediately drawn to Tom, the man everyone seemingly admires. Tom's teenage son is constantly watching people from his room, taking pictures, and making notes. And Jenna's mother is convinced that a secret mob of people are out there, trying to drive her crazy.

And who exactly is Tom, the charismatic "fixer" of schools, the man who sweeps his family into a new city every few years because of his career? Is there something darker on his agenda?

It was fascinating for me to go into this book with presumptions about who these people were, only to be steered, through strong story-telling and character development (yay!!!) to wildly different conclusions. The whole novel was intensely interesting, and heartbreaking in turns as well.