Title: Because I’m Watching
Author: Christina Dodd
Series: Virtue Falls #3
Faith restored in Dodd, who now writes more suspense than romance
I was really worried about Dodd after Obsession Falls, but Because I’m Watching restored my faith in her storytelling capabilities. I wonder now if I was simply jarred by her switch in genre, because I can see her talent and skill, but these kind of books just aren’t what I associated with Dodd in my head. I do now. I’m glad to see this book was classified more as suspense/thriller/mystery than romance, though some places still say romantic suspense. I can see where they’d get that, but the romance was not the main plot here, it was a subplot that shared time with Kateri’s POV. Dodd’s officially jumped on the suspense bandwagon, and she seems to be settling in quite nicely…though I’ll miss her steamy romances.
After some time in a mental institution, Maddie Hewitson moves to Virtue Falls, Washington, to try to live normally. But that’s hard to do when ghosts lurk in the shadows, when nightmares keep her awake. When she falls asleep at the wheel and crashes her car into the front of Jacob Denisov’s dungeon—er, I mean “home”—Maddie convinces the town she’s a menace. Convinces Jacob, too…until he starts to suspect how sane she actually is, and wonders who would go to such trouble to drive her crazy.
This book was very, very good. In fact, the biggest problem I had with it doesn’t have anything to do with the story—it’s the cover. It. Is. Terrible. Orange and teal isn’t my favorite color combination, so the title and author text turned me off first. Then I felt it, and I do not care for the texturization. I don’t know what it is the texture is supposed to represent, and for a while I thought it had been a mistake, that something strange had happened to my copy before it got to me. But I think it may weirdly represent condensation, what with the runny hand print and all. Then there’s the weird pattern over the whole cover; it’s small, but almost looks like very fine screen-door mesh or denim material. I don’t know what the point of that is, either. And finally…the woman. The woman with the black hair…and red eyebrows. For fuck’s sake.
The plot was certainly interesting, and while it wasn’t completely predictable or cliche, I could still see what was coming by halfway through. Chantal was the most mysterious of the neighbors Jacob met, so she was on my radar from the get-go. Andrew also acted suspicious from the get-go, so I knew he was involved somehow. I was slower to catch on to the fact that Chantal was one of Maddie’s tormentors from the asylum, but by the third time Maddie thought/talked about it (what is it they say about mentioning something three times to make it stick with the audience?), I figured her tormentors were still harassing her for some reason. I wasn’t sure how the tormentor and Andrew had teamed up, but that was easily explained. Money and sex make the world go round!
I really cared about the characters. I didn’t think I would relate to them, because I’ve never experienced anything as unbelievably horrific as they had, but I actually did connect to them a little, now that I think about it. I could empathize with Maddie, who longed to find someone who would believe in her, believe that she wasn’t crazy. And I could empathize with Jacob, who was incredibly depressed, drowning in guilt and failure and shame and helplessness. I liked them a lot, and I was impressed by their character arcs. Their progress was steady and their personalities consistent. I was so proud of Maddie when she kept her head and faced down her demon, and I was so proud of Jacob when he decided he had something to live for.
However, because I’m me, I do have a couple of nitpicky things to complain about. One—how would Jacob or anyone know the exact height and weight of a stranger? It drives me nuts when authors get lazy and a character takes once look at someone and can give their exact height and weight. Sure, someone can be trained or just plain have a good eye, but I’m still highly doubtful. Two—I could tell Dodd felt the need to satisfy her romance fan base, because she tried really hard to get Jacob and Maddie to reach all the romance benchmarks (have amazing sex, say “I love you,” and at least propose marriage) by the end of the book, and she tried even harder to make it seem well-paced and natural. I didn’t buy it. I could understand that they connected to one another emotionally and became friends, but their “falling-in-love story” didn’t quite seem organic to me. I cut slack about their rather strange willingness to share their past nightmares with each other, I could maybe see how that would come about, but when they exchanged “I love you”s, my eyebrows shot up and I thought, Really? All you really know about each other is how fucked up you are and why, but hardly any of the other mundane details. Honestly, though, I don’t really care, because I was just glad they had each other.
Oh, and Kateri. I like her and care about her, but something about her storyline still strikes me as off. I’m not sure how to explain it… Dodd managed to tie her into the story by the convenient fact that Kateri is sheriff, and we watch Kateri go through her life…but she never gets much of a conclusion, because she’d clearly being maintained as a kind-of main character whose story just hasn’t been told yet. And I don’t think I’m okay with that. If I’m going to pay for a book—a hardcover, no less—and get emotionally involved in the plot and characters, damn it, I want some resolution. I don’t want to be strung along to ensure future sales. Good business strategy, perhaps, but it pisses me off. And it’s not just Dodd—I have the same beef with Jodi Thomas. I love her books and eagerly anticipate each one, but in her current series she has a couple of charcters that she’s strung along since Book 1 and hasn’t had them reach their conclusion yet. Ladies, if you’re going to write a series about a small town and its residents, fine, but make each book complete, please.
Speaking of loose ends, there are a couple here, but I don’t have nearly as many questions as I did when I finished Obsession Falls. The ones here have to do with Kateri—see what I mean?—and will be part of the next book, as evidenced by the sample chapter at the end.
Overall, a wonderful, freaky thriller that I would highly recommend (while sweeping Obsession Falls under the rug…)
