“HISTORY IS FUCKING WILD.”
And with that, buckle up because Alyssa Cole takes us on a ride!
This year I’ve read two of Alyssa Cole’s contemporary romance novels so when I heard she was publishing her first thriller, I was excited to read it!
When No One Is Watching follows Sydney, a New York native, as she becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the gentrification going in Gifford Place, the Brooklyn neighborhood where she grew up. After taking a walking tour of a place that she knows like the back of her hand, Sydney, unhappy with the whitewashing of it’s history, decides to put together her own tour. She wants to focus on the black and brown people who originally settled in the area and highlight all of the achievements of the community. Theo, one of her new neighbors who arrives with the first wave of Gifford Place gentrification, volunteers to help her do more background research. Over the course of a few weeks, strange things start to occur. Sydney is struggling to put her life back together after her divorce while caring for her terminally ill mother. The heat, stress, and sleepless nights have her on edge. Is she seeing things or is something diabolical happening in Brooklyn?
I really, really enjoyed this book! I waited until I was about half finished to read any reviews and I limited them to non-spoiler ones. I believe some of the negative opinions of the book had to do more with the marketing of it than the book itself. It’s being sold as a thriller. I don’t think it’s a thriller-at least not by traditional standards. This leans more toward horror. Let me say this, I’m not a fan of horror. I don’t want to watch it. I don’t want to read it. I definitely would have had reservations about reading it if it was marketed to me as horror. I don’t know the ins and outs of publishing and which kinds of books get more sales but if I had to guess, I’d say that the thriller audience is larger and perhaps publishers were looking to get a piece of that market.
I think if you approach the book as horror or a dystopian thriller(is that a thing?)you’ll have fewer issues with how the plot unfolds. The reader needs to be able to suspend belief in a way that you don’t when reading standard thrillers.
At times this book was difficult for me to read. I’m not often triggered by books but the microaggresions and flat out racism were often hard to process. Cole’s exploration of racism and the ways gentrification impact black and brown neighborhoods feels a timely despite it’s fantastical elements. These things are a part of history and still happening across the country.
The trauma of Sydney’s abusive marriage is also woven troughout the story. Sydney is a beautiful and smart woman. It is clear that her ex husband has robbed her of self confidence. The gaslighting she endured in that relationship is one of the reasons she has doubts about the things happening around her She no longer trusts her own instincts. That part of the character resonated deeply with me.
This was a (strong) 4 star read for me! I can’t wait to read more Alyssa Cole.
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Read more about racism and redlining here
Read more about how gentrification effects black communities here and here
