Format: Hardcover, 368 pages
Release Date: April 11, 2023
Publisher: Tundra Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Thrillers & Suspense / Psychological
Blythe and her friends—Gabrielle, and brother
and sister Tucker and Tanya—have always been a tight friend group,
attending a local high school and falling in and out of love with each
other. But an act of violence has caused a rift between Blythe and
Tucker . . . and unexpected bursts of aggression and disturbing
nightmares have started to become more frequent in their lives.
The
strange happenings culminate in a shocking event at school: Gabrielle
is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no
memory of what happened.
Cracks in their friendship, as well as
in their own memories, start appearing, threatening to expose
long-forgotten secrets which could change the group’s lives forever. How
can Blythe and her friends trust each other when they can’t even trust
their own memories?
Kelley Armstrong's Someone is Always Watching is a story about a group of teens at a school with connections, a failed experiment involving memory suppression, and high-stakes action will keep readers turning the pages. Blythe and her friends Tucker, Tanya, and Gabrielle go to a school called Coeus Medical Technologies which is a STEM School. Ever since "the incident," Blythe has had migraines as well as changes to her memories. But nothing could prepare Blythe for what happens next.
When Gabrielle starts muttering that someone is always watching and her parents are not her parents in a manic manner which is massively out of character for her, the last thing Blythe sees is Gabrielle attacking and killing an administrator before waking up to a different memory of what really happened. It seems that only Devon Sharpe, Tucker Martel, and his sister Tanya are aware that something really bad happened and Gabrielle is lucky to be alive.
To make things every more twisted, Blythe’s sister Sydney has been having vivid nightmares and then someone calling themselves Veritas, keeps sending Blythe emails about a boy who slit another kid's throat and hinting that it is someone she knows and trusts. When Devon admits that he is remembering things that supposedly didn’t happen, it has the whole group wondering what is happening and whether they can even trust their own memories or each other.
After the so called "incident", Tucker and Blythe have been forced apart by their parents. However, when Blythe starts having memory issues--as do her other friends--they, along with Tanya, decide they need to get to the bottom of what is happening to them. Since they are not sure who they can trust, they turn to each other to peel back the layers of lies and deceptions in their lives.
This is a mystery that is layered in twists that you won't see coming until the final chapter. Even then, you will ask yourself if what you read actually happened and if you are seeing thru the eyes of unreliable narrators. The characters in this story might be crazy or who might be paranoid for a reason. There are shady scientists, doctors, institutions, and even parents may have their own secrets. Not knowing who among your friends might be a plant or a spy, characters who are not sure they can trust even themselves.
