Trigger Warnings: Racial profiling, Racial Slurs, Racism, Gun Violence, Mentions of drug use, Kidnapping, Murder.

They just put on a different suit. Things didn’t change that much. They were still controlling all the money, and in a way, they were still controlling the people they didn’t own anymore, because they controlled who got money, where money was invested."

As soon as I heard this book and how it was pitched as something close to the movie Rear Window I knew it was a must-read for me. I've read two short stories by Cole and really enjoyed them, so I was looking forward to seeing her write something outside of the romance genre (romance is not my main genre, no hate to it just not something I search for on its own).

This book far exceeded my expectations with how it related to the Rear Window movie, it went in its own direction and I absolutely loved it. I could not get enough of this book and when I tell you I was scared multiple times while reading this book because of all that was happening and how I couldn't figure it out because of how fast everything was happening by the end.

When No One Is Watching is told in duel perspectives of Syndey and Theo. I personally enjoyed Sydney's parts more than I did Theos but I did get why his portions were needed as well as the book went on.

Sydney was such a good character, she was having to handle her mom's sickness and the bills, and her own personal life struggles on her own for the most part. She did have a bestfriend that she was able to talk to about some things but she still had so much on her shoulders to figure out in a short amount of time. To add on to everything else Sydney was dealing with, she decides to give a real tour of the neighboorhood after seeing how the tours were being done and not liking how they were skipping over large portions of history and white-washing it.

Sydney ended up working on this project with her new neighbor Theo who has a girlfriend/ex-girlfriend (I don' even know what to call her honestly) from hell. Despite Theo's relationship problems he did seem like he wanted to help Sydney and learn about the neighborhood and become a part of it. Sydney and Theo had a rocky friendship of sorts for multiple different reasons and I was honestly never sure if he could be trusted or not even by the end of the book.

“Something shady is going on here, and it’s connected to them.”

All of the history that Syndey and Theo were learning during there research was absolutely fascinating to me with how everything seems to go in cycles when it comes to neighborhoods and who lives in them. The way communities are formed and still somehow manage to stay together to a certain extent depsite a lot of people moving out was also fascinating, I personally just love history in general so anytime a book has it in it makes me love it even more.
The community we saw in this book is one that we don't see a lot in books sadly. You could tell they all really cared about each other, but were also cautious because of the world we now live in and how new people were coming to the neighborhood and changing that dynamic. Even with that changing dynamic, you have the older community leaders still trying to incorporate everyone and be inviting and keep a sense of love and community happening to keep everyone safe.

When No One Is Watching has so many different things happening in it and all of them were extremely realistic and relevant to what has been happening in 2020 and how we've all started questioning things more and what is happening and why it's happening. I'm not going to go into anymore detail because I don't want to accidently spoil anything, but know that this book is realistic and it does deal with a lot of hard topics, but it does them in a way that does leave you with answers to the struggles that Sydney and her neighbors face throughout the book.

Overall I cannot recommend this book enough. It was amazing, terrifying and realistic all at the same time.
I really hope Alyssa Cole writes more books in the mystery/thriller genre!