Book ~ "The Hitchhikers" (2025) Chevy Stevens

From Goodreads ~ The open road beckons. A chance for them to reconnect. Then they make a fatal mistake.

It’s the summer of 1976 and Alice and Tom set out on the remote Canadian highways in their new RV, hoping to heal their broken hearts after a devastating tragedy.

They’ve planned the trip perfectly, taken care of every detail. Then they meet two young hitchhikers down on their luck and offer them a ride. But Simon and Jenny aren’t what they seem. They’ve left a trail of blood, destruction and madness behind them.

Now Alice and Tom are trapped, prisoners in a deadly game, with nowhere to turn. As the tension builds, the lines blur, and the question becomes, In whose heart does evil truly lie? What secrets are Jenny and Simon hiding? And who will live another day?

It’s the summer of 1976 and Alice and her husband, Tom, who are from Seattle, are taking a road trip through Canada in their RV, meandering their way from British Columbia to the Olympics in Montreal, hoping to heal after some heartbreaking losses. Along the way, they pick up two young hitchhikers who go by “Ocean” and “Blue.” At first, they just seem like free-spirited kids but Alice soon finds out they’re not who they say they are ... they are Jenny and Simon and are wanted for a horrific crime. 

From there, the trip takes a violent turn. Tom gets badly hurt and Alice is forced into a terrifying journey with these strangers who get more violent as time goes on. Alice has to figure out how to survive, protect Tom and hope more people don't get hurt along the way.

I thought this book was okay, though I found it long. There was so much going on and I found it dragged the story down. It got repetitious after a while with the violence. The details of a couple of the beatings could have been left out because I got right away that Simon wasn't a nice stable guy. Plus I didn't need every detail of when Alice cooked. The story was interesting enough and I was curious to see how it would end. 

The author is Canadian and didn't hide the fact that Alice, Tom, Simon and Jenny were traveling through British Columbia. It's written in third person perspective in Alice and Jenny's voices (the chapters are labeled) and sometimes goes back in time so we get Jenny and Simon's backstories. I didn't find Jenny to be a very believable character. Unbelievably after all the killing, robbing and kidnapping they'd done, she still thought she and Simon had a future. Because it's set in 1976, it was a time before cell phones and the Internet so there's no way Jenny and Simon could have stayed on the run as long as they did had it been set in present day. As a head's up, there is violence, swearing and sexual assault.

Book ~ "Never Let You Go" (2017) Chevy Stevens

From Goodreads ~ Eleven years ago, Lindsey Nash escaped into the night with her young daughter and left an abusive relationship. Her ex-husband was sent to jail and she started over with a new life. Now, Lindsey is older and wiser, with a teenage daughter who needs her more than ever. 

When her ex-husband is finally released, Lindsey believes she’s cut all ties. But she gets the sense that someone is watching her. Her new boyfriend is threatened. Her home is invaded and her daughter is shadowed. 

Lindsey is convinced it’s her ex-husband, even though he claims he’s a different person. But can he really change? Is the one who wants her dead closer to home than she thought?

When Lindsey was 19, she met and fell in love with Andrew, who was a bit older, and a successful business owner.  They quickly got married and soon had a daughter named Sophie.  Andrew started off as a nice thoughtful caring husband but over time became increasingly possessive and eventually abusive.  Sophie started to plan on leaving him.  On the night she finally does, Andrew did something, was arrested and put in prison for ten years.

Over the next ten years, Lindsey and Sophie rebuilt their lives in a small town.  Lindsey had her own business, a new boyfriend and the support of friends.  Sophie, now in her late teens, missed having a relationship with her father and, unbeknownst to Lindsey, contacted him just before he is released from prison.  Once he had served his time, Andrew wanted to get to know his daughter and make up for all the hurt he had caused.  When Lindsey discovered Sophie had been seeing Andrew, she freaked out and assumed the strange things that were happening was Andrew getting revenge.

I've read a few books by this author and enjoyed this one ... it's pretty intense given the subject matter.  It's written in first person perspective from Lindsey and Sophie's points of view and jumps back and forth in time, giving you the back story.  The voices and time periods alternate by chapters but they are labeled so you know whose voice it is and when.  As a head's up, there is swearing and violence.

Book ~ "The Other Side" (2013) Chevy Stevens

From Goodreads ~ Sandy is working the biggest case of her life - the Campsite Killer, who has been hunting women for almost forty years. She’s finally close to nailing him, if she can just keep her head in the game. 

But when an old friend calls with a lead about Sandy’s mother’s murder, Sandy is pulled into the past - a past she thought she’d closed the door on. Her life is about to get real complicated, real fast.

Sandy is a cop looking for the Campsite Killer.  He has been on the run for many years but popped up recently when he contacted his adult daughter, Sara.  She is also dealing with something from her past ... her mother had been murdered by her father and then he disappeared.  And if that wasn't enough, her boyfriend of many years is pressuring her to have a baby.

This is a side story of Never Knowing focusing on Sandy, which I read last month.  It's written in first person perspective from Sandy's point of view.  There are characters from Never Knowing including Billy (Sandy's partner) and Nadine (Sara's psychiatrist).

Book ~ "Those Girls" (2015) Chevy Stevens

From Goodreads ~ Life has never been easy for the three Campbell sisters. Jess, Courtney and Dani live on a remote ranch in Western Canada where they work hard and try to stay out of the way of their father’s fists. 

One night, a fight gets out of hand and the sisters are forced to go on the run, only to get caught in an even worse nightmare when their truck breaks down in a small town. Events spiral out of control and a chance encounter with the wrong people leaves them in a horrific and desperate situation. They are left with no choice but to change their names and create new lives.

 Eighteen years later, they are still trying to forget what happened that summer when one of the sisters goes missing and they are pulled back into their past. 

This time there’s nowhere left to run. 

It's 1997 and Dani, Courtney and Jess are teenage sisters living in rural British Columbia.  Their mother is dead and their father works three weeks away and is home for one.  When he is home, he is drunk and abusive.  Something happens one night that brings things to a head.  The girls, fearing they will be put in a foster home, they take off and head to Vancouver.  Along the way, their truck breaks down in a small town.  They hook up with the wrong people for help and things get a lot worse.

It's now 2015 and as Dallas, Crystal and Jamie, the sisters are living in Vancouver along with Jamie's teenage daughter, Skylar.  Dallas and Jamie have settled into steady jobs and Crystal flits from one job to another and from one man to another.  None of them have forgotten their life-changing experiences.  In fact, one of the sisters heads back to seek revenge which starts everything in motion again.

This is the fifth book I've read by this author and it was really intense.  It's written in first person perspective from Jess/Jamie's and Skylar's point of view ... it alternates by sections and chapters but they are labeled so you know whose voice it is.  As a head's up, there is swearing, graphic violence and sexual abuse ... I found it a bit too violent for my liking.  It was fairly predictable in some spots.

When they were young, the sisters were naïve and made some dumb mistakes that got them into a lot of trouble.  Eighteen years later, they are still making dumb and dangerous mistakes when they should know better since they knew what/who they were dealing with.  Though Skylar loves her mother and her aunts, she knows they are keeping things from her and she doesn't like it.  She too makes dumb mistakes ... I can't believe that she was as naïve as she was, especially considering she grew up around a boxing gym with some rough characters.

Book ~ "Never Knowing" (2011) Chevy Stevens

From Goodreads ~ At thirty-three Sara Gallagher is finally happy. Her antique furniture restoration business is taking off and she’s engaged to a wonderful man. But there’s one big question that still haunts her - who are her birth parents? Sara is finally ready to find out. 

Sara’s birth mother rejects her - again. Then she discovers her biological father is an infamous killer who’s been hunting women every summer for almost forty years. Sara tries to come to terms with her horrifying parentage - and her fears that she’s inherited more than his looks.  But soon Sara realizes the only thing worse than finding out your father is a killer is him inding out about you. 

 Some questions are better left unanswered. "Never knowing" is a complex and compelling portrayal of one woman’s quest to understand where she comes from. That is, if she can survive … 

Sara is 33 and about to get married to Evan.  She is the oldest of three girls and has always known she was adopted.  Growing up, her mother was great but her father didn't treat her as well as her treated his "real" daughters.  She always fantasized about finding her birth parents and everything would be okay.  She hires a detective to find her birth parents and he does.  Her birth mother wants nothing to do with her.  When she finds out that her birth father is a serial killer, she obviously wants nothing to do with him ... but he has other ideas and finds her and wants to be a dad.

Working with the police, she tries to draw her father in so he can be captured.  But in doing this, she puts her life and that of her family in danger.

This is the fourth book I've read by this author and I liked it.  It's written in first person perspective from Sara's point of view ... each chapter is a session she is having with her psychiatrist (interesting concept).  As a head's up, there is swearing and violence.

I liked Sara.  She has a lot going on with her business, planning a wedding and dealing with being adopted ... and then has to decide whether to help the police catch her serial killer father.  She knows that if she doesn't, he will kill again.  I don't usually like kids in books and wasn't a fan of Sara's six-year-old daughter, Ally.  When she didn't get her way, she would throw a huge fit and even got abusive with the dog at one point.  Sara's adoptive dad was a A-hole who was rude to everyone but his wife and Evan ... but no one ever stood up to him.  Maybe I missed it but I still don't know why he treated Sara so badly when she was growing up.  Evan was caring and supportive but his job took him out of town a lot so he wasn't physically there so support Sara so she came to depend on one of the police officers, Billy.

Book ~ "Always Watching" (2013) Chevy Stevens

From Goodreads ~ 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.

When Nadine was younger, her mother took her and her brother to live in a commune run by Aaron Quinn for eight months.  It wasn't a happy time for Nadine.  She is now claustrophobic and assumes something at the commune had caused it.  Now in her fifties and widowed, she works in a psychiatric hospital helping others.

When a patient named Heather is admitted after a suicide attempt, Nadine discovers that they have a lot in common.  Heather and her husband had been living in a commune run by Quinn.  When they left, Quinn had said that they would be punished and bad things would happen to them.  In her unstable mind, Heather starts to believe this to be true.

Talking with Heather starts to stir up long forgotten memories for Nadine and she becomes determined to find out what happened to her at the commune and hopefully shut it down so others won't be damaged as she was.

In the meantime, Nadine's daughter, Lisa, who is in her twenties, ran away seven years ago and has been become an addict.  Nadine has over the years tried to find her and bring her home to get cleaned up.

I thought this book was okay.  Reading about the commune and the charismatic leader's ability to have such control over people was interesting.  In this case, it came down to hope for a better life and weed.  I thought the writing was okay ... I found it dragged a bit in some places.  It's written in first person perspective from Nadine's point of view. As a head's up, there is swearing and descriptions of sexual abuse of children.

It was nice to read about a character my age for a change (most heroines are in their twenties and thirties).  Nadine was trying to deal with a bunch of crap from her childhood and how it affects her today.  Though I know Lisa had addiction problems, I didn't find her likable at all and had no sympathy for her.  If I'd been Nadine, I would have written her off a long time ago.  You can't help people if they won't help themselves ... and Lisa was so nasty.

Books ~ "That Night" (2014) Chevy Stevens

From Goodreads ~ As a teenager, Toni Murphy had a life full of typical adolescent complications: a boyfriend she adored, a younger sister she couldn't relate to, a strained relationship with her parents and classmates who seemed hell-bent on making her life miserable. Things weren't easy, but Toni could never have predicted how horrific they would become until her younger sister was brutally murdered one summer night.

Toni and her boyfriend, Ryan, were convicted of the murder and sent to prison.

Now thirty-four, Toni is out on parole and back in her hometown, struggling to adjust to a new life on the outside. Prison changed her, hardened her, and she’s doing everything in her power to avoid violating her parole and going back. This means having absolutely no contact with Ryan, avoiding fellow parolees looking to pick fights, and steering clear of trouble in all its forms. 

But nothing is making that easy - not Ryan, who is convinced he can figure out the truth; not her mother, who doubts Toni's innocence; and certainly not the group of women who made Toni's life hell in high school and may have darker secrets than anyone realizes. No matter how hard she tries, ignoring her old life to start a new one is impossible. Before Toni can truly move on, she must risk everything to find out what really happened that night.

But the truth might be the most terrifying thing of all.

In 1996, Toni and Ryan were dating and in their last year of high school.  They planned on working over the summer and then moving in together after they'd saved enough money.  Her home life wasn't great.  She and her mother didn't get along ... her mother kept trying enforce the rules that Toni kept breaking.  Her younger sister, Nicole, seemed perfect ... she got good grades and got along with their parents.  Toni had been friends with Shauna, one of the popular girls, just before high school but they had a falling out and Shauna was making Toni's life miserable.  Shauna had turned everyone against Toni and all she had was Ryan.  It became worse when Shauna and her gang befriended Nicole.  One night, Nicole was brutally murdered and all the evidence pointed to Toni and Ryan and they were sent to prison.

When they are 34, Toni and Ryan are paroled.  They are not allowed to have contact with each other which is fine with Toni because she just wants to start a new life (she'd cut off contact with him years ago so she could emotionally survive).  She moves back to her hometown and gets a job and a dog.  Then Ryan starts contacting her because he wants to clear their names ... Toni just wants to keep her nose clean.  But when she starts getting accused of things she hasn't done, she gets mad and wants to make someone pay.

This is the second book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it.  I liked the writing style and thought it flowed well.  In the beginning, the chapters go back and forth, starting in 1996 to then jump to when Toni is in prison counting the days until her parole, then back to 1996, then forward again, etc. until it catches up to today.  This strategy worked for me because it built the suspense rather than starting in 1996 and telling the story chronologically ... we meet the teenager Toni and grown-up Toni side-by-side so we can see why she is the way she is today in the beginning of the book rather than having to wait until it's today.  It's written in first person perspective from Toni's point of view.  As a head's up, there is swearing (lots of F-bombs) but it's used appropriately.

I liked Toni and Ryan.  They basically just had each other and, though they were teenagers, I was buying their love for each other and figured they would have made it had they not gone to prison.  I liked today's Toni ... she was hardened, wanted to be left alone and didn't want any BS in her life.  Ryan, on the other hand, didn't want to live the life with restrictions as a parolee since he hadn't committed the crime.  Shauna was a major bitch in high school and today ... it surprised me that she was able to cause the amount of havoc she did and get away with it.

Book ~ "Still Missing" (2010) Chevy Stevens

From Amazon ~ On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-old realtor, had three goals—sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.

Interwoven with the story of the year Annie spent as the captive of a psychopath in a remote mountain cabin, which unfolds through sessions with her psychiatrist, is a second narrative recounting events following her escape—her struggle to piece her shattered life back together and the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor.

Still Missing is that rare debut find--a shocking, visceral, brutal and beautifully crafted debut novel.

There are two stories that interwine back and forth throughout the book. One tells Annie's story of how she was kidnapped and the year she spent with "The Freak". He was definitely a nutbar!

The second story is how she tried to get her life back afterward. There are narratives when she is visiting with her shrink. In addition, it's her day-to-day life, interacting with her dog, family, friends and former fiance.

I enjoyed this book, though it's not a happy story. I liked the writing style and found that it moved along at a good pace. The ending surprised me and I bought it.

Excellent job by a first time author ... I'll keep an eye out for her in the future.