Along the nice neighbourhood of Melville Heights in Bristol, England, two things are well known facts – everyone has their secrets, and everyone is watching you.

20 years ago, a diary of a young schoolgirl reveals an obsession with her handsome English teacher.

Joey Mullen has come back to her hometown following an eventful time in Ibiza, and she is not alone, bringing with her a husband, Alfie. With no money and no proper job prospects, they move in with Joey’s brother, and his pregnant wife, in one of the colourful houses of Melville Heights. Their two-door-down neighbour is Tom Fitzwilliam and his family, wife Nicola and a teenage son Freddie. Freddie is an introverted prodigy, with a disturbing hobby of photographing and following other citizens. He is the one who first notices Joey’s strange behaviour towards his father, one adored by everyone. His father is a headmaster at a local school, attended by Jenna Tripp, one of the only students, and people in general, who is not convinced Tom Fitzwilliam is as innocent as he presents himself to be. One sharing this perspective is Jenna’s mother, who’s convinced Tom is one of many who are following her every move, tormenting her. When the headmaster takes a particular interest in Jenna’s best friend and fellow classmate, Jenna takes it upon herself to find out the truth about Mr Fitzwilliam. The same Mr Fitzwilliam she recalls from years past, caught up in an altercation with a stranger during a holiday trip.

‘Watching You’ is unfortunately one of the few books written by Lisa Jewell I did not connect with. Its biggest flaw in my opinion is that it wasn’t believable. I didn’t think it was realistic that all those people, going through so much, connected with one another in various, mysterious ways, just ended up living in the same neighbourhood at random. It is a strange complaint to have over a fiction novel, but its set-up was simply too farfetched.

‘Watching You’ also lacks substance in the middle. It bombards its reader with hard-to-take-in information right at the start, and then some more at the end, making the journey there a little redundant. The story took too long to develop fully and failed to feed the reader breadcrumbs along the way to keep the interest.

I also couldn’t connect to any of the characters. The narrative perspective changed continuously between Joey, Freddie and Jenna, heavily focusing on the teenage perspective, which I did not enjoy.

Everyone in the story displayed unnatural behaviours, everyone was enamoured with a guy who was nothing special, and the ending felt disconnected from the rest, making me wonder why I had to go through it at all.

I think it is fair to say ‘Watching You’ did not hold my attention well, but not every book can, even when written by Lisa Jewell.