Chevy Stevens | Always Watching

Happy Sunday! This week was definitely a whirlwind. I came into it fully prepared to finish Always Watching, That Night, and Those Girls by Chevy Stevens. Well, then I was hit with a cold that forced me to sleep all week. So, last night I finished Always Watching.

In the lockdown ward of a psychiatric hospital, Dr. Nadine Lavoie is in her element. She has the tools to help people, and she has the desire—healing broken families is what she lives for. But Nadine doesn’t want to look too closely at her own past because there are whole chunks of her life that are black holes. It takes all her willpower to tamp down her recurrent claustrophobia, and her daughter, Lisa, is a runaway who has been on the streets for seven years.

When a distraught woman, Heather Simeon, is brought into the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit after a suicide attempt, Nadine gently coaxes her story out of her—and learns of some troubling parallels with her own life. Digging deeper, Nadine is forced to confront her traumatic childhood, and the damage that began when she and her brother were brought by their mother to a remote commune on Vancouver Island. What happened to Nadine? Why was their family destroyed? And why does the name Aaron Quinn, the group’s leader, bring complex feelings of terror to Nadine even today?

And then, the unthinkable happens, and Nadine realizes that danger is closer to home than she ever imagined. She has no choice but to face what terrifies her the most…and fight back.

My Review: 

So, I really struggled with the first 75-90 pages of this, but once it took off, it TOOK OFF. It took some getting used to with the commune storyline and what Nadine went through as a child, but once I got comfortable with it, the book really flew by. The suspense was intense and did not settle down until the end of the book.

Stevens did a fantastic job with Nadine. I really just absolutely LOVED her character. She was so caring and easily lovable. I loved the fact that there were so many little mysteries that were tied into one another relating to Nadine's past and present. Stevens did a great job of bringing new storylines in and tying old ones up throughout the book. It was so easy to get lost in this one that I didn't even plan on finishing it in one night, but I'm so glad I did. I would say my favorite thing about this one is how amazing Stevens is at introducing characters and having them ALL serve a purpose. Not just someone for a character to bump into in a coffee shop, but actual purpose and that relate to the story. It's like every single character is building together this plot like a spiderweb and each character is important and necessary. 

So, yes. Chevy Stevens has still got it. I loved the ending to this one as well. Everything wrapped up rather nicely in the last quarter of the book and the ending didn't leave me with any questions. I'm very glad I caught up with this one. 

Rating: 4/5