If you remember, last year I raved over Chevy Stevens’ debut novel Still Missing . I was lucky enough to get an Advance Reader Copy of her new book, Never Knowing, which comes out this summer.

Chevy Stevens is back with another page-turning thriller. This one focuses on Sara’s search to find her biological mother, only to learn she was conceived in an act of terror, and her birth father is still on the loose. And now, he knows Sara exists.

Like Still Missing, Never Knowing is told to us from our heroine’s point of view, revealed in bits and pieces in sessions with her therapist.  It’s a delicious unfolding of the story to be told this way. We see the mundane, the every day frustrations of Sara’s life. But then, we  get the full on terror Sara experiences as she recounts the ever more disturbing encounters with her birth father.

Once again, Stevens explores the intricacies of an imperfect family through Sara’s interactions with her adoptive parents and sisters.  Sara’s long felt out of place in her family, never quite good enough for her father, and her desire to be a good daughter and sister at the same time as she’s finding out who she really is adds another dimension to the story.

One of the most interesting plotlines in Never Knowing, though,  is Sara’s relationship with her birth father. This is a Very Bad Man, beyond the shadow of any doubt, yet Stevens still shows us his humanness. There were times I found myself uncomfortably sympathetic to this despicable character because of the bits of humanity revealed about him.

Just as I did with Still Missing, I found myself glued to Never Knowing. In fact, I read it in one afternoon because I just couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. It freaked me out in a good way, making me notice every little bump in the night after I finished it. You can pre-order Never Knowing now, and the book will be out on 5 July 2011.