This was fast paced and very entertaining to read. Chloe was somehow likable yet a total psychopath. Just like seven more people in her college program. Liked the plot even tho highly implausible but that probably why it was so fun to read. Made getting away with murder look easy and you almost explained it away as the right thing to do. Vera Kurian develops characters well and kept me intrigued all the way to the end.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc

Chloe Sevre is your typical college freshman girl. She likes to party, hang out with friends and plot to kill Will Bachman. So maybe she is a little different because she is a psychopath who is in a secret program at John Adams college. She is one of seven students in the psychopath program being studied in exchange for a free college education. Her ultimate goal though is to kill Will who committed a crime against her when she was younger. When another student in the psychopath program is murdered she has to work with others in the program to solve the mystery so she can get back to exacting her revenge on Will. But can you really trust a psychopath?

I can’t believe this is Vera Kurian’s first novel! This book was amazing! It had an original storyline that had me wanting more and more of this book. I was sad it ended and hope to read more from her in the future, maybe even a sequel?!?!? The deep dive that was taken to understand what goes on in a psychopath’s mind was phenomenal!

7 diagnosed psychopaths. In a campus clinical study where they monitor their moods and activities in exchange for free tuition. Never Saw Me Coming has such a unique plot line, told through multiple perspectives. The students are not who they say they are and when a murder occurs, you don’t know who to trust.

Never Saw Me Coming has an unreliable narrator trope, well narrators, with charming psychopath antiheroes. This psychological thriller is fast paced and you won’t want to put it down. You are kept guessing throughout the entire book with twists. Fans of Psychological thrillers will devour this original story.

Thanks to Harlequin, Park Row, and NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my opinions.

Original unusual premise had the potential to be an interesting story. The characters were psychopaths and it was difficult to relate to them. Interesting to read some of the thought processes the character go through but not for any length of time. They were so detached from the events occurring around them there was no excitement or feeling in the narrative.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

If you give 7 psychopaths a free ride to college would could possibly go wrong? Murder, that's what! Interesting plot and you are guessing up to the very end.

Complex and even depraved female ‘protagonist’ and a secret psychological experiment? I’m here for it, henny. Never Saw Me Coming is a fun and twisty novel sure to appeal to fans of the genre. It’s not highbrow literature, though it is smartly written and the main characters, most of whom are clinically diagnosed psychopaths, are well developed. I always love when an author can make me relate to, and even sympathize with, a ‘bad guy/gal’. Though I’d say I’m more drawn to morally ambiguous (or devoid) characters than the average person, it’s still a skill. I also appreciated that in the end, Kurian made a bold move, not punishing a character who orchestrates reprehensible acts. And no, that’s not a spoiler, since that could apply to nearly any of the characters in the novel. My biggest gripe with the book, other than that I think the pacing got a bit gobbed up, trying to fit too much in, would be the use of a trope too often used as a crutch in the genre. (spoiler: Twins. Come on! Quit with the f*#@ing twin thing! )
Be sure to add this to your TBR list.

Great book with an entertaining storyline. You don’t want to like the main character but you do! You can’t help yourself!

Chloe Sevre is a freshman at John Adams University, and she is there for one reason and one reason only: to kill Will Bachman, who did something terrible to her. Incidentally, Chloe is attending Adams as part of a seven-student clinical study regarding psychopaths. One evening, one of the students participating in the study is murdered, and Chloe realizes someone is hunting the students in the program. She is determined to figure out who is hunting her Psychopath Squad, and, if she's being honest, is mostly annoyed it's cutting into her "Kill Will Bachman" plan.

In today's society, with murder podcasts and serial killer documentaries everywhere you turn, a book about a group of psychopaths is everything. After reading the synopsis I knew this was a book that would appeal to me. Chloe is a pretty insufferable narrator, but... I imagine that's kind of the point. While the twist fell just a little flat for me, I absolutely recommend this to anyone like myself who just can't get enough of this type of subject matter.

In fact, as I began writing my review, I decided to change my rating from 4 to 5 stars. Despite not loving the ending, the book was just so good.

Thank you so much to Vera Kurian, Park Row Books, and NetGalley (shout out to the Read Now feature!) for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication.

Never Saw Me Coming will hit bookshelves near you September 7!

Wow! That was really different! Finished it way too late last night. Had to finish. Just gets to the point where you can’t put it down. Crazy strange characters. Great premise. Is it weird to say I enjoyed a book about psychopaths? Glad it’s fiction!

I read an excerpt of this book from the Buss Books edition and was hooked. A group of college-aged psychopaths participating in a psychology study, how interesting! As far as the whodunit part, I found it predictable, but all the action getting there enlightening. I often wondered about the thought processes and day-to-day functioning of psychopaths, answered in this book. In fact in almost an amusing manner, we see how cavalierly one of them has planned to murder a fellow schoolmate. I now understand how these people (psychopaths) blend into society and everyday life. And I have to say, I found myself rooting for the psychopath more than once! A truly unique book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book to read and review.

Honestly, the only thing I didn’t like about this book was that it ended. I wanted more!

This was just an exciting thriller! Our tale of psychopaths in trouble was incredibly suspenseful and so riveting. I loved our main psycho – she was just so wrong and so right all at once – and I just found myself wishing she’d find her happy place, even if that meant murdering a certain guy.

The book is an incredibly fast read. You won’t want to come up for air. I would happily read the author again, and wouldn’t mind a sequel to this one!

*ARC via Net Galley

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian is a book that had me hooked right from the moment I read the synopsis. It had a unique setting for a thriller book where 7 'psychopaths' are give full scholarship so that they can be the lab rats of a study on them. Everything is going well until one of them gets brutally murdered and this study now becomes a playground of tom and jerry chase.

I found the book extremely thrilling and fun to read. The writing is easy and the well developed characters add a lot of the the story. I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good thriller book.

Thank you Netgalley for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review

OK, so readers of Jonathan Kellerman (and for that matter, James Patterson) will absolutely love this. It follows the same format of a crime procedural but with the interiority of a sociopathic killer, informed by the highly nuanced and skillful takes on criminal thinking by a psychologist (Kellerman has a PhD in psychology, so does Kurian). I appreciated as well the diversity aspects including of narrators who were not white and the sly, subtle send up of bro culture and privilege. BUT I could not love this like I had hoped to because the female protagonist is just too distasteful to be around. It is a complete matter of taste. I am not a reader of Kellerman, for instance, because I just feel too much distress and distaste at being that up close to a sociopath. I just do not like this. But lots of people do, and I do not doubt that this book will do well. But I could not make myself finish it. The sociopaths within were UGH to me.

I've been really into psychological thrillers lately, and I was intrigued by the premise of Never Saw Me Coming. A well-executed unreliable narrator is my jam, and I was thrilled to be approved for this title.

Seven psychopaths on a college campus. What could possibly go wrong?

Chloe enters college participating in a program that studies diagnosed psychopaths. She's willing to complete the assignments and meet with the professor, but she has another motive: killing the person who hurt her. As she gets closer to Will, students in the program start dying. There's a killer in their midst, and Chloe must work with the other psychopaths to figure out who is targeting them and why.

I really enjoyed this book.

While I wouldn't call this a straight slasher, it had definite slasher vibes and reminded me a lot of the best of late 90s horror: college campus, rules of survival laid out, high-stakes odds and a legendary serial killer. I loved the subtle nods to the genre and was invested in the plot.

Although this is told in alternating POVs, I loved Chloe's voice. Witty, sardonic, and wrapped in a layer of foam that keeps her from feeling fear, it was interesting to see how she reacted to the people around her. The way she shifted from one socially accepted behavior to another in order to manipulate the people around her was both fascinating and terrifying. You never could fully trust her--but then again, you couldn't trust any of the narrators. Everyone had a motive, and even with the underlying psychological study of psychopathy, we already have these external associations with the word. It was impossible to come into this unbiased, and the distrust added to the suspense in a great way.

There is a lot happening here, several strands weaving together to keep readers on their toes, but the majority of the plot happens in internal monologues. There are conversations, interactions with other characters, but we stay firmly in our narrator's heads for most of the book. So, if you're someone who needs the constant movement of dialogue to action sequence, this might take a minute to adjust to, but I thought the internal structure worked well in heightening the factors that made Chloe and her peers different than the other college students.

Overall, Never Saw Me Coming is a twisty, suspenseful psychological thriller with endearing unreliable narrators and a classic slasher vibe many readers will love. Out in September, add this to your TBR now.

Thank you to Park Row and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

Welcome to the program!

A college clinical study led by a renowned psychologist. Seven students are diagnosed Psychopaths. Nothing to worry about! Just a bunch of psychos putting their heads together. Two heads are better than one, right? or three, or four or more.

Free college scholarships handed out to seven students as a reward to study their habits. Their diagnosis and participation are confidential. In return, they are required to wear coded smart watches and keep mood logs to track their emotions and whereabouts.

Tick, tock... someone has murder on the menu, a dose of revenge and a four phase plan.

I enjoyed this puzzle of a plot. Darkly funny at times, planning a murder over homework, lab reports and French papers. Lots of trails and paths to follow. I was confused time to time with the many POVs converging and some side stories not completely fleshed out, but overall, a good debut! I'm still on the fence about the ending - Never Saw It Coming.....

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy.

A psychology department at a college gives free rides to a group of kids diagnosed as being psychopaths if they agree to be studied. I thought this would be a great book. Unfortunately it just didn’t deliver. I thought this read more like a YA book. The characters at first were intriguing but the more I read…ugggh.

This was a pass for me.

Kurian delivers a great suspense piece told from the voices of the most untrustful minds, a group of college students involved in a study on psychopaths. When two of their own are murdered, they must decide who they can trust and who’s eyes (and plans) could turn to them next.

The premise for this really intrigued me and I wanted to enjoy it more, but I just couldn’t. I almost gave up in the middle and should just have called it quits instead of slogging through. The initial promise of Chloe seeking revenge captivated me, but that fades into the background as the mystery killer takes precedence.
There were also too many over-the-top scenarios that I found impossible to suspend disbelief for, a disappointing lack in character development, and some plot elements that just sort of happened and were never explained. Take the killer for example: I’ll spare any spoilers, but I will just say that it came out of nowhere and never felt believable, because the readers are barely given any details about this person compared to other characters. The author is attempting a shock filled final reveal but I found it lackluster. Oh, and let’s not forget my favorite trope: the killer revealing their plan to their victims in the third act! I personally think a real serial killer wouldn’t waste time on exposition but that’s just me.
The writing style also felt disjointed. At times it was captivating and fast paced, and others it felt geared towards a younger audience. The overdone use of the term “psychopath” also became extremely annoying. It may be the clinical term that psychologists use, but I strongly feel that other synonyms would have greatly sufficed.

overall i enjoyed this book and it was great escapism during exam season! i liked the elements of combining social media with stalking and the pop culture references felt accurate and not forced or outdated like in some other books i've read. there were some instants were i actually laughed out loud. the writing is accessible and easy to grasp and the characters swing between likable and unlikable but they're all interesting.

this is a touchy subject since thrillers and psychopathology have been linked for, well far too long but i liked the direction teh author took. people with antisocial personality disorder are often villanized and stigmatized so i liked the subversion in this book. it also tackles some other important subjects such as racism, class disparities, the university system in the US as well as mental health, sexism or sexual assaults.

This books is an epic thriller! I read it in one and a half day, and had dreamed about the characters at night! I won't give the synopsis as you can check that out but I will tell you that this is an amazing story about a group of students who are diagnosed as psychopaths. It ALMOST makes me want to have witty and strange psychopathic friends myself.

The main character Chloe has Killing Eve vibes, which is impossible not t enjoy. I loved her. I loved the other psychopaths as well but I don't want to give names as it can be a spoiler. All I can tell you is this book is written in a really smart way, keeps you guessing and wondering until the last page.

I can so easily see this one being a TV show with awfully attractive actors/actresses.

Many thanks for my approved copy!