Watching Edie – Camilla Way

Psychological Thriller
5*s

This is one book that has a menacing edge right from the first to the very last page; a psychological thriller you won’t want to miss!

Heather and Edie were friends as teenagers when despite outwards appearances, the more confident Edie found in Heather someone who understood her. Heather unused to best friends was besotted by her new friend. For Edie having just moved to the area, she found in Heather someone who had an affinity for the things that interested her. After all she too was interested in more than boys and clothes despite appearances to the contrary. Inevitably a boy does come into the equation when Edie meets Connor, and with it comes the expected changes that occur when a girl becomes besotted with a boy.

Right at the beginning of the book we are given a clue that something happened between the two girls, what that was is a mystery, and years later, Edie is terrified that one day Heather will come looking for her. And of course, that day comes, a day when Edie holds her new baby in her arms in her London apartment hears a knock at the door… What the outcome of that visit will be, I could only imagine!

The author has absolutely nailed the plot so that the tension mounts as the story switches not only viewpoints but time periods. We have the ‘before’ as told by Heather and the ‘after’ as described by Edie. With both parts written in the first person present tense both stories are equally enthralling with that ‘peek behind the cushion’ feeling never far away. Camilla Way has got the tone absolutely right, the characters have been given a satisfying mixture of attributes, giving this reader no doubt that they are real, their actions and reactions genuinely authentic. All the clues to the storyline are set out early on, the knock on the door starting a chain of events in the present that moves the plot inexorably onwards. It is a long while since I have had such a feeling of dread each time I turn the page.

I have deliberately curtailed my reading of psychological thrillers having become wary of tales told with obvious devices to move the plot along featuring such damaged characters that you have to wonder how they get dressed in a morning, this isn’t one of those books. The plot is convincing the mounting terror although palpable, feels entirely justified. Often when stories are told in the past and the present, one story feels far more important than the other. Again, Camilla Way has avoided this pitfall; I absolutely needed to know what happened in the past, but equally I was suitably terrified about what the outcome of the storyline in the present would be. It takes a truly accomplished writer to make you care about the characters they have created, especially when you know that they have, or will, commit an act of atrocity, and yet, I did care about both Heather and Edie. I sympathised with their struggles, their perspective on the past casting a long shadow over their present so that the story turned into a bit of a battle between the events I was reading, and a wish that everything had been different for the two young girls who made an unlikely friendship at the very beginning.

With well-drawn, jump off the page characters, Camilla Way has written a book about friendship that will stay with me for quite some time. Watching Edie therefore gets a ringing endorsement from me!

Watching Edie will be published by HarperCollins UK on 28 July 2016. A shorter version of this review was submitted to Lovereading UK in return for them providing a copy of this brilliant psychological thriller for this purpose.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph (June 7)

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

My opening this week comes from Watching Edie by Camilla Way which I was sent for review by lovereading.

Blurb

Beautiful, creative, a little wild… Edie was the kind of girl who immediately caused a stir when she walked into your life. And she had dreams back then—but it didn’t take long for her to learn that things don’t always turn out the way you want them to.
Now, at thirty-three, Edie is working as a waitress, pregnant and alone. And when she becomes overwhelmed by the needs of her new baby and sinks into a bleak despair, she thinks that there’s no one to turn to…
But someone’s been watching Edie, waiting for the chance to prove once again what a perfect friend she can be. It’s no coincidence that Heather shows up on Edie’s doorstep, just when Edie needs her the most. So much has passed between them—so much envy, longing, and betrayal. And Edie’s about to learn a new lesson: those who have hurt us deeply—or who we have hurt—never let us go, not entirely… Goodreads

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First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Intro

PART ONE
After

Outside my kitchen window the long afternoon empties of light. I look at London stretched out far below, my dripping hands held poised above the sink. The doorbell rings, one long high peal; the broken intercom vibrates. The view from up here, it’s incredible, like you’re flying. Deptford and Greenwich, New Cross and Erith, then the river, and beyond that there’s the Gherkin, over there’s the Shard. From my top-floor flat here on Telegraph Hill you can see forever and as usual it calms me, soothes me: how big it is, how small I am, how far from where I used to be.
The doorbell rings more urgently – whoever it is putting their finger on that buzzer and holding it there. The night hovers.

This extract comes from a proof copy.

So what do you think? Would you keep reading?

Please leave your thoughts and links in the comments box below!