Always Watching (edition 2013)

by Chevy Stevens

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Fiction. Thriller. HTML: She helps people put their demons to rest. But she has a few of her own... 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. Sometimes you can leave the past, but you can never escape. Told with the trademark powerful storytelling that has had critics praising her work as "Gripping" (Kirkus), "Jaw-dropping" (Publishers Weekly) and "Crackling with suspense" (People magazine), ALWAYS WATCHING shows why Chevy Stevens is one of the most mesmerizing new talents of our day… (more)

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Member:	ted74ca
Title:	Always Watching
Authors:	Chevy Stevens
Info:	St. Martin's Press (2013), Hardcover, 352 pages
Collections:	Read but unowned
Rating:
Tags:	None

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Always Watching by Chevy Stevens

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Psychological

BooksInMirror | Feb 19, 2024 |

“It's impossible, I think, to save everyone, but if we help even one person in our lifetime, then we succeeded.”
― Chevy Stevens, Always Watching

I just could not get into it. Of all Chevy Stevens books that I have read so far, this is my least favorite.

SPOILERS:

Cults make for a very interesting subject but this story I could not get into. I thought parts of it were predictable and also the main character..Nadine..spoke very clinically and I could not immerse myself although I sure tried.

Then it became very predictable and a little to out there for me. Or maybe I have just seen to many movies and read to many books about cults. For whatever reason this is the one book so far by Stevens that I have given less then a 3 to. I just could not become involved. (

)

Thebeautifulsea | Aug 5, 2022 |

Great story. I love how the author tied this book in with her previous one, but not so that you would have had to read them in order to understand her plot. (

)

Jen-Lynn | Aug 1, 2022 |

DNF. Felt super forced and the writing definitely didn't make up for it. (

)

sparemethecensor | Apr 17, 2021 |

Dr. Nadine Lavoie practices psychiatry in a hospital unit. However, being a psychiatrist doesn't keep her from difficulties in dealing with her own personal and family issues. Her husband died and she is still trying to deal with his death, her daughter is addicted to drugs and lives on the street, and Nadine's relationship with her brother has become distant. Adding to all of these, one of Nadine's patients commits suicide. That patient, Heather, recently lived in a commune with her husband and since leaving the commune she had become fearful and felt that she was being watched.

Nadine lived in a commune with her mother and brother when she was a young girl. Coincidentally, both communes shared the same leader. Nadine is plagued by bad memories of that time. And she has buried them deep in her subconscious. During the counseling with Heather, Nadine begins to resurrect those memories. And remembering leads her on a mission to find out about her own past and to expose the leader of the commune.

The book is not a page-turner as compared to other books by Stevens. The plot and characters were just enough to keep me interested. However, I'm glad I kept reading because Stevens did escalate the plot as the book reached its conclusion. (

)

Rdglady | Nov 20, 2018 |

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Always Watching

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Fiction. Thriller. HTML:

She helps people put their demons to rest.
But she has a few of her own...
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.
Sometimes you can leave the past, but you can never escape.
Told with the trademark powerful storytelling that has had critics praising her work as "Gripping" (Kirkus), "Jaw-dropping" (Publishers Weekly) and "Crackling with suspense" (People magazine), ALWAYS WATCHING shows why Chevy Stevens is one of the most mesmerizing new talents of our day

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