This is honestly such a thrilling book. If you love true crime or generally books about psychopaths, you’ll love this. Chloe Sevre looks like the average hot girl, but in fact she is a psychopath participating in a university study on psychopaths. When there’s a murder on campus, eyes quickly turn to the seven psychopaths in the vicinity. Chloe has her personal little revenge scheme going on, but quickly goes from hunter to prey.

It has some elements that could have easily put me off - the whole college setting, a small band of weirdos/psychos in a special study, rich students getting into trouble - but it actually works! If you’re looking for a YA you’ll enjoy this, but you’ll also enjoy it if you’re not.

Honestly this book would have been amazing without the murder, just focussing on Chloe and her revenge, but I really enjoyed the mixed storyline. I also really liked the psychopath POV, which you don’t see that often.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

What do you get when a group of psychopaths come together to hunt a serial killer on a college campus? One very inventive thriller. Kurian has written a creative mystery that is perfect for readers who enjoy shows like "Veronica Mars" and "Riverdale". However, they were times when I felt the story really dragged on and the ending was anti-climatic and disappointing but it is a fast paced mystery that will be enjoyable for readers entering the mystery genre.

NEVER SAW ME COMING has a very captivating premise. We follow 7 psychopaths that are part of a clinical study in a DC-based university. When 1 of the students in the study is murdered, the other students try to figure out who the killer is. I really enjoyed learning about psycopathy and understanding the different personality characteristics and how each character thinks. There was too much going on at points, and it was hard to keep track of who's perspective I was reading. Also, some backstories were insignificant and took away from the main story; they could have been their own books. Lastly, I prefer when the murderer is part of the book instead of introduced towards the end of the book.

A compulsive psychological thriller that screams insanity. Chloe Sevre is one of the seven psychopaths admitted into a DC-based college part of an unusual clinical study for psychopathy. The program is dedicated to those who lack empathy and certain emotional tendencies such as fear. Chloe has her own agenda. She plans to kill Will Bachman as a vengeance for his past wrongdoing towards her. Things become complicated when one of the students in the program is murdered in the psychology building. Chloe teams up with other psychopaths to identify the killer and its motive. Can other psychopaths be trusted?

The characterization was very well-written. All of the characters were multilayered, complex and with distinct colors and voices. Mainly, Chloe was one engaging character. Following our antiheroine who's socially adaptable and rooted in vengeance was addictive yet terrifying. Vera Kurian humanised these characters diagnosed as psychopathic very well. I was able to remove the stereotype of all psychopaths being murderers but reinforced the idea that they can also be high functioning people in society. Of course there are still differences between those diagnosed as psychopathic and not but all don't end up as killers. The characterizations in itself were a driving force but the plot was also very gripping. The mystery surrounding the murders kept me on my toes. Chloe's plot for vengeance was an intriguing element. A unique and compelling debut thriller with twisty plots many mystery fans will love.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing-Park Row for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was just okay but not great. I was drawn in by the premise of the book - a group of young people with mental illness who track down a murderer on campus, thinking it may be one of their own. In that regard, the plot was compelling enough to finish the book. However, I was disappointed with the writing style and lack of character development, and I had a hard time finding anything very compelling or believable about the main character. A good anti-hero has some qualities that cause you to identify or sympathize with them on some level, but I just did not see that here.

At John Adams University, a fictional college located in Washington, D.C., the psychology department offers free tuition to the participants of a special study dedicated to understanding psychopathy. The participants wear special smart watches, fill out mood logs and agree to complete experiments related to their diagnosis. Each is unaware of the other members of their special group, and the student body is unaware there are diagnosed psychopaths roaming the campus.

Chloe, Charles, and Andre are all participants in the study. Each has their own reasons for participating. Charles wants a career in politics and knows he needs to master the art of appearing normal. Andre wants a free ride to college. Chloe wants revenge for a trauma inflicted by another student at the university. All of them are keeping secrets. Each distrusts the other two. But when members of the study end up murdered, they must form an uneasy alliance to figure out who the murderer is and why they are killing before they end up the next victims.

This is one of those morally ambiguous novels that tries to get you to root for a bad guy (or girl) because they are trying to right a wrong or catch an even worse guy character. The problem is, it's not very well done. None of the psychopaths are sympathetic or even likeable. Chloe is full of herself and bent on killing the boy who raped her when she was 12. While that is a terrible trauma, her total lack of any moral compunctions makes it hard to feel much of anything other than the urge to slap her cross-eyed. Charles has the potential for complexity but is not complex enough to make the reader believe he has anyone’s best interests at heart. The only believable character is Andre and while he is not supposed to be a psychopath, he lies about being a psychopath to get a free ride to college. Which is something a psychopath would do. The author introduces characters that have the potential for be nuanced, with varying shades of morality, and to make the reader root for them when they know they have not a shred of compunctions or scruples, but she doesn’t quite bring it across.

There are numerous formatting errors. Almost every letter F has a space after it. There are missing quotation marks. There are places where you don’t know who is speaking because there is a dearth of dialogue tags or line breaks to indicate a new speaker. who is speaking. Text messages do not have any names to indicate who is texting whom. There are line breaks in the middle of sentences, and random places where the author’s name and page number appear in the middle of a page.

It irked me that the author made Chloe's rapist and Charles children of Republicans. I’m not sure if she believes that wealthy Republicans would naturally have children who were psychopaths and rapists, or if she was illustrating how psychopathy cuts across demographic lines and can occur in children from any kind of family.. Regardless, I found it offensive that she chose to politicize the parents of these two people, one who became a child rapist and one a psychopath, and not any of the other characters and their families. Charles's father, the alcoholic jerk whose wealth comes from fracking, seems particularly demonized. This kind of tactic is heavy handed and perpetuates negative stereotypes. The politics of a parent are not responsible for how a child turns out or what they do.

That being said, I did enjoy the book. It was interesting, and readable. The twist of a serial killer on campus kept the reader off balance just enough to wonder if one of the main characters might be hiding more than a lack of scruples. I really liked Andre, too. He was vulnerable, and willing to give people a chance even when he knew they were diagnosed psychopaths. He didn’t blame society for his problems, or for the choices he made. He knew he might be making mistakes, and he took responsibility for those mistakes. He had great love and respect for his parents, and the sacrifices they made for him. It is this sense of sacrifice that leads him to fake his way into the psychopathy study. The ending is a surprise, too. While the characters may not be particularly endearing, they are smart and the reader gets invested in figuring out who the killer is and why they are committing the murders. It's not the best mystery/thriller out there, but the premise and plot are intriguing enough to make for an enjoyable reading experience.

The premise of this book captured my attention right away and held a lot of promise for a psychological thriller. There were parts in the book (a few sentences over all) that made me stop and go "wait, when did that happen", some parts of the dialogue were a little confusing as it was hard to tell who the speaker was (this could be ARC formatting and might not be an issue in the physical copy). There was a slow burn for sure but the plot felt slow moving in the middle. There certainly are parts that delivered and twist that I never could have predicted! The concept is all there and could make for a great read for some readers, unfortunately this one wasn't for me.

First of all, what the heck was this book?! I came in not knowing much, but after about 15% I was all in. This book is not YA, but as many reviews have noted it definitely reads as it is. I thought it was definitely YA until I read some reviews.

We are introduced to a wonderful cast of characters who have one thing in common: they’re Psychopaths. Oh, and they’re in an anonymous and top secret study at the same university.

I loved the relationships between the characters, the revenge storyline was pretty fabulous, and the chase to find a killer on campus was page turning. It’s definitely got some gruesome scenes but I definitely was sucked into every page.

You Don’t wanna miss this one!

NEVER SAW ME COMING has a fast pace, some interesting characters, and a solid mystery at it's heart. But it really is the characters that made this book the dark and fun thriller that I found myself enjoying. The character perspectives shift around a bit, be it generally third person (for the characters of Charles and Andre), or a first person (for our main character, Chloe). Chloe is the character that we get to know the best because of getting inside her head, and while I think that she felt a little too robotic at times (I mean, maybe; it's hard to know with psychopaths), I overall thought that she had a clear perspective that did fit into the behavior you see in psychopaths. I was actually more interested, however, in the story arc for Andre. He is a Black freshman who was happy to get a full scholarship to school, but isn't actually a psychopath. After experiencing a traumatic incident and a hard time coping, the medical establishment just wrote him off as having Conduct Disorder, and he rolled with it for awhile for fun until he found himself in too deep. I not only liked seeing a non psychopath trying to maneuver through spending time with psychopaths, but also really liked the on point commentary about how Black people are victims of racism and inherent biases of those within the medical field. The mystery itself was okay, though I kind of figured it out pretty quickly, but the true heart of this story is the characters, and all of them are pretty fun to follow.

NEVER SAW ME COMING is fun and I'm definitely interested in seeing what Vera Kurian comes out with next!

Honestly it was a great book but we need to do some editing please!

This book was intriguing and it was really good thank you for the arc!

Psychopath Chloe Sevre has an ax to grind. Will Bachman had better watch his back. Hot for handsome, privileged, likeminded Charlie who has learned to keep his psychotic urges at bay, Chloe occasionally detours from her plot to kill Will and attempts to seduce Charlie.

Following the gruesome murders of two fellow students enrolled in the university’s clandestine psychopath research study, Chloe assumes she’s on the killer’s hit list. Stalking Will, while brainstorming ways to make sure the campus killer takes the fall for his death, leaves a girl little time for socializing. So Chloe joins forces with Charlie and imposter Andre to discover the killer’s identity before he can strike again.

I found connecting with the main character a bit challenging. Considering she’s a psychopath, maybe that’s a good thing. I also wasn’t expecting a novel better suited for the YA crowd. I would have appreciated more background on the protagonist, but I thought the attention to character development overall was exemplary. The narrative shift wasn’t disruptive and helped energize the novel. To summarize, I enjoyed NEVER SAW ME COMING, particularly the plot twists, which accelerated the story and added depth. My thanks to Vera Kurlan, Park Row, and NetGalley for the ARC.

By Vera Kurian

** Publication Date 7 September 2021 **

5 stars / This review will be posted at BookwormishMe.com on 24 August 2021.

Would you know a psychopath if you saw one? Especially if the psychopath was a kind, polite, good looking college student? Meet Chloe. She’s all of the above and going to John Adams University in DC. Chloe was given a full scholarship to college in exchange for participating in a research study of clinically diagnosed psychopaths.

The catch? No one can know about the study. And none of the participants should know each other. But Chloe is smart, manipulative and determined to find out who those fellow psychopaths are. Chloe also has a major secret. She didn’t go to John Adams strictly for the study or a degree (she’s pre-med, by the way.) Chloe has a mission with a former schoolmate named Will. Will attends John Adams as well. Will doesn’t know Chloe is coming, but boy will he be surprised when he finds out.

The professor sponsoring the study is a pre-eminent expert on psychopathy, but someone has it in for him. When crime starts happening on the campus, specifically to members of the study, the questions arise. Could one of the professors psychopaths have gone off the rails? Or is there someone trying to sabotage the program?

Do not plan on getting any sleep once you start this book. It is a page turning burner from start to finish. Chloe’s charm is bewitching. Her ability to see through and manipulate those around her is astounding. Her determination compelling. You’ve never met someone like Chloe and her scheming. Page after page you will wonder what is going to happen next. Between Chloe’s personal antics and the suspense of the crimes, it’s gonna keep you up at night.

I thought this title had an intriguing concept which was why I decided to request the book on Netgalley. However there were too many typos in the ARC for me not to get annoyed, causing me to not finish this book. I would hope that someone would take the time to do some careful editing of the book before it is officially published!

I like this one which was a new take on a thriller with most of the characters being psychopaths . It had enough twists and turns to keep you guessing.

Never Saw Me Coming was a rare thriller with a unique premise. Chloe appears to be a normal Freshman honor student- but she’s actually one of seven students at her college who is part of a clinical study for psychopaths.

I really enjoyed this thriller and was completely absorbed in this story. It’s cleaver and fast paced. While most of the characters were psychopaths, I found myself rooting for them despite their dark and disturbing thoughts.

This is an addicting read that will keep you completely entertained! Four stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. Never Saw Me Coming publishes on September 7, 2021.

Dark and twisted. Clear distinct voices. Hard to follow at times because so many voices but a good read

It’s rare to find a psychological thriller that is fun and tongue in cheek. This was a joy to read and the characters were surprisingly endearing. The anti heroine Chloe, starts college with a plan to get revenge on a guy who has done something bad to her. She is no ordinary college girl though. She just happens to be a psychopath and is one of a group of seven psychopaths at the college who are part of a confidential research programme. She gives herself a short deadline to get her revenge, but she encounters quite a few bumps in the road including the fact that other students start to be murdered and she could be next. The book is darkly humorous and explores how psychopaths can interact in society and whether they can actually learn how to process emotions. It’s dynamic and keeps you guessing until the end to find out the killer. Wonderfully refreshing and I didn’t want it to end!

After a quick review, I believe our library visitors will likely gravitate toward and enjoy this book. The plot seems unique and sounds like it will create an interesting story. Thank you for the ARC!

Meet Chloe Sevre.
Cloe is a freshman at John Adams University.
Cloe is going to kill Will Bachman.
Cloe is a psychopath.

This is a story about lies, deceit, manipulation and revenge. It is a story about the "ME"
If there is one thing you don't t want to do, it is to get on the wrong side of a psychopath!

I was very excited to read this 1 and mostly enjoyed it but I found it didn't flow as much as I would have liked. Some scenes could have done with a bit more meat.
In the end, it was still a fun read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

This was very thought provoking. Some of the reviews made me a little apprehensive but I think I liked the book even more due to the reviews. I love psychology and I am so facincated by anti social personality disorders. Psychopaths are referenced often but few people understand the true definition and personality traits. I liked the story, liked the twists and the general direction of the book. I was in deep suspense as I wanted to determine the identity of the serial killer. I found the characters to be unlikable but I often do in the books I choose to read.