Watching Edie is the debut novel by Camilla Way and I have to say that it was an astoundingly good and thoroughly addictive read. This was one of those books that once started was truly impossible to put down and I found myself racing through it at an incredible speed, devouring the entire book in just one sitting. Relatively creepy in nature, this was a book that got right under my skin in a way that I was not expecting and in a way that no book has done in a very long time.
Within the book, Camilla Way introduces us to Edie and Heather, two women who formed an unlikely friendship when they were at school. Having gone their separate ways many years ago, Edie is now thirty-three years old, heavily pregnant and living alone with a lot on her mind so is a tiny bit surprised to open her front door one day and find Heather on the doorstep. Not knowing what to say to Heather, someone who Edie hoped never to see again, memories of the past come flooding back. Just what happened all those years ago that kept these girls apart for so long and why has Heather come to find Edie now?
Whilst I wouldn’t say that either of the characters that we met throughout Watching Edie were particularly likeable, one thing that can definitely be said is that they were thoroughly intriguing. With both Heather and Edie being fabulously crafted, I quickly became involved in their story and was so keen to discover just what happened between them all those years ago. From the very start with Edie’s shock and surprise at Heather arriving at her house being so incredibly palpable, I knew that something signifant had taken place between the two and as the book progressed it delved further into the minds of each of the characters, revealing exactly what made each of them tick.
Watching Edie by Camilla Way was a book with an extremely compelling plot that contained so many twists and turns that I did not see coming and were truly impossible to predict. Camilla has written Watching Edie in a truly fabulous way, with each chapter being told from the perspective of both Edie and Heather, alternating between the past and present day. As the tension built at an incredible pace, you just knew that something big was going to happen and I found that I was both impressed and shocked by what was truly a spectacular ending that will stay with me for a long time to come.
As a book that deserves an incredible amount of both attention and success, Watching Edie is a book that I absolutely adored from beginning to end. A true psychological thriller, written by someone who I feel is an exciting new voice in the genre, I’m thoroughly looking forward to discovering and reading more from Camilla in the future. If I could give this book more than five stars I would!
