What do you think?
Rate this book
When No One Was Looking
A tragic chain of events threatens a 14-year-old girl's promising tennis career.
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
5 people are currently reading
131 people want to read
About the author
Rosemary Wells
453 books380 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Rosemary Wells is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. She often uses animal characters to address real human issues. Some of her most well-known characters are Max & Ruby and Timothy from Timothy Goes To School (both were later adapted into Canadian-animated preschool television series, the former’s airing on Nickelodeon (part of the Nick Jr. block) and the latter’s as part of PBS Kids on PBS).
Rosemary Wells is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. She often uses animal characters to address real human issues. Some of her most well-known characters are Max & Ruby and Timothy from Timothy Goes To School (both were later adapted into Canadian-animated preschool television series, the former’s airing on Nickelodeon (part of the Nick Jr. block) and the latter’s as part of PBS Kids on PBS).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 25, 2025
3.5 stars
November 27, 2015
This was just great! Prosaic writing, Hitchcock plotline.... what a classic! Can't believe it took me so long to find this one!
November 19, 2013
I personally think this book is a great read. The book was centered around Kathy a teenage girl gifted with talents in tennis with and a bizarre ending. You need just a little interest in tennis otherwise the book can get a little boring, but the whole twist in the end of the book will most likely get your interests instantly back up but sadly its at the end. I wish there was a little more excitement in the middle of the book. But overall I had a great time reading it. I also personally recommend Rosemary Wells to people of all ages although they are mostly for young adults.
July 22, 2023
Sometimes the back of the books make it seem you are going to get an entirely different story. This seemed as if we were going to get a thriller about tennis players going after each other to win which might have been kind of interesting but...no.
Kathy Bardy comes from a family that isn't very rich but once they discover she is very talented at playing tennis, they set her up with a coach. That coach, Marty, works at a country club during the summer so Kathy gets a job there to be a lifeguard when she isn't practicing or going to school.
Marty isn't the nicest woman but Kathy likes having her as a coach. Her parents and coach put a lot on her to be the best so she can go pro, play Wimbledon, sell her own brand of rackets and be another Billie Jean King. Her younger sister Jody is clearly jealous of her sister getting all the attention but she's a pretty intelligent person it just happens to be her talent.
Kathy always thought about playing baseball for the Red Sox but being a fourteen year old girl she's expected to be more like Chris Evert, doing something less masculine though her mother has to sew her tennis outfits instead of buying expensive tennis whites and pleated skirts. It's a little easy to see why the family wants to ride on Kathy becoming famous though...
Kathy's grandmother had a stroke and had to be moved to a cheaper nursing home and her baby brother Bobby is always sick. Kathy's best friend since childhood, Julia, comes from a rich family but they could never ask for money or expect the Redmonds to treat the Bardy family like a charity case. Julia's mother is just crazy about Kathy as if she were her other daughter but the two teen girls never think about their different social standings.
Despite everything wrong, Kathy's life isn't that terrible. She meets a young man at the club who is also a lifeguard named Oliver English and he is cute, polite and charming enough that even Kathy's parents come to think of him as another son. That's not what Oliver really wants to hear but they are only teenagers and Kathy isn't thinking about serious dating at the moment.
Something else is far more important when Kathy comes across a new tennis player, a new girl she has to beat named Ruth Gumm. Ruth is not as feminine as Julia or even Kathy but she is strong and a pro player with an athletic yet stocky frame from being an expert swimmer as well.
Ruth becomes Kathy's biggest competition until the day she is found in the club's swimming pool...dead. She missed a match against Kathy before her body was found drowned and with Ruth gone, no one else is near Kathy's level.
It seems as if it were just a terrible accident but once there seems to be evidence of foul play, there are rumors and gossip. Kathy knows she didn't have anything to do with Ruth's death but the people around her and even Kathy's temper make it look easy to be murder...
All of this makes for an interesting plot but it is just weak red herrings and a whole lot of tennis talk. I know a few bits about the sport, I played it a few times in gym class but I am not that big of a fan. This was originally written in 1980 so only some casual knowledge about that time frame and I found myself mostly skimming pages unless actual character dialogue popped up.
Most of the characters aren't very interesting or they aren't very nice or they just seem so fake that you can't find anything likeable.
There isn't any kind of climax and you don't find out the truth until the very end. Even that isn't very clear cut and sometimes ambiguous works but...not here. There's a lackluster reveal and just still so much of an open ending that I was left feeling underwhelmed.
The only reason I didn't give it just one star is because I could feel a little sympathy for Kathy in having so much on her shoulders. The human part of Kathy and her friendship with Julia being the only person NOT getting something out of her success in tennis or coming down on her with either jealousy or frustration was this books saving grace IMHO.
When No One Was Looking is a perfect starter book to lend to your middle school age child to get them interested in the mystery genre and a kickstart toward Lois Duncan or Joan Lowery Nixon and other authors in that genre.
Unless you have someone in your home ages 11 to 18 you will be probably be bored with this one but luckily (and hopefully) in about a decade or so, who knows, this could be one of my daughter's favorite books?
Kathy Bardy comes from a family that isn't very rich but once they discover she is very talented at playing tennis, they set her up with a coach. That coach, Marty, works at a country club during the summer so Kathy gets a job there to be a lifeguard when she isn't practicing or going to school.
Marty isn't the nicest woman but Kathy likes having her as a coach. Her parents and coach put a lot on her to be the best so she can go pro, play Wimbledon, sell her own brand of rackets and be another Billie Jean King. Her younger sister Jody is clearly jealous of her sister getting all the attention but she's a pretty intelligent person it just happens to be her talent.
Kathy always thought about playing baseball for the Red Sox but being a fourteen year old girl she's expected to be more like Chris Evert, doing something less masculine though her mother has to sew her tennis outfits instead of buying expensive tennis whites and pleated skirts. It's a little easy to see why the family wants to ride on Kathy becoming famous though...
Kathy's grandmother had a stroke and had to be moved to a cheaper nursing home and her baby brother Bobby is always sick. Kathy's best friend since childhood, Julia, comes from a rich family but they could never ask for money or expect the Redmonds to treat the Bardy family like a charity case. Julia's mother is just crazy about Kathy as if she were her other daughter but the two teen girls never think about their different social standings.
Despite everything wrong, Kathy's life isn't that terrible. She meets a young man at the club who is also a lifeguard named Oliver English and he is cute, polite and charming enough that even Kathy's parents come to think of him as another son. That's not what Oliver really wants to hear but they are only teenagers and Kathy isn't thinking about serious dating at the moment.
Something else is far more important when Kathy comes across a new tennis player, a new girl she has to beat named Ruth Gumm. Ruth is not as feminine as Julia or even Kathy but she is strong and a pro player with an athletic yet stocky frame from being an expert swimmer as well.
Ruth becomes Kathy's biggest competition until the day she is found in the club's swimming pool...dead. She missed a match against Kathy before her body was found drowned and with Ruth gone, no one else is near Kathy's level.
It seems as if it were just a terrible accident but once there seems to be evidence of foul play, there are rumors and gossip. Kathy knows she didn't have anything to do with Ruth's death but the people around her and even Kathy's temper make it look easy to be murder...
All of this makes for an interesting plot but it is just weak red herrings and a whole lot of tennis talk. I know a few bits about the sport, I played it a few times in gym class but I am not that big of a fan. This was originally written in 1980 so only some casual knowledge about that time frame and I found myself mostly skimming pages unless actual character dialogue popped up.
Most of the characters aren't very interesting or they aren't very nice or they just seem so fake that you can't find anything likeable.
There isn't any kind of climax and you don't find out the truth until the very end. Even that isn't very clear cut and sometimes ambiguous works but...not here. There's a lackluster reveal and just still so much of an open ending that I was left feeling underwhelmed.
The only reason I didn't give it just one star is because I could feel a little sympathy for Kathy in having so much on her shoulders. The human part of Kathy and her friendship with Julia being the only person NOT getting something out of her success in tennis or coming down on her with either jealousy or frustration was this books saving grace IMHO.
When No One Was Looking is a perfect starter book to lend to your middle school age child to get them interested in the mystery genre and a kickstart toward Lois Duncan or Joan Lowery Nixon and other authors in that genre.
Unless you have someone in your home ages 11 to 18 you will be probably be bored with this one but luckily (and hopefully) in about a decade or so, who knows, this could be one of my daughter's favorite books?
April 18, 2020
Ehh 3/5 - has a boring vibe to it - I found it in my house and I read it I think in 9th grade and did a report on it but didn’t remember the story at all. I had a feeling it was either Marty, Julia, or Jody. For a rich girl, Julia’s character is very nice and normal and surprisingly doesn’t get mad at Kathy. Kathy gets upset very easily and seems like a hothead at times but I can understand it as she’s probably under pressure. Wells did a lot of research or has great knowledge of the sport. The ending is unresolved but it goes to show loyalty despite it not going into too much detail (at all) is a theme. The book sometimes goes into other characters’ viewpoints but not really. I may need another book by her but i’m not sure. For a teen book it uses some big words - the first sentence of the book is kind of weird too - the way the book is described on the back is way different than the vibe and how the stony is written. You’d think it’d be like Joan Lowry Nixon but its not.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 17, 2013
This was a young adult novel centered around Kathy, a teenage girl, that is very gifted at tennis. Another girl, Ruth, jeapordizes Kathy's success in tennis. Unfortunately, Ruth drowns while swimming in the club's pool and the mystery begins... I found the novel, although short, to be very slow moving, barely holding my interest, although some of the reviews said the ending was "unexpected", so I kept reading. It definitely had an unexpected ending, but it never really picked up.
April 11, 2018
Eh. I picked this up at a Little Free Library in my neighborhood thinking it would be a fun Christopher Pike kind of read, but it was much slower and more boring than that. The twist at the end is a fantastic one, but not enough to redeem the slog of the rest of it.
April 25, 2013
It was a good story, but I didn't like how she finished the ending too much.
September 15, 2019
This book took me over a month to finish because it was so bad. Nothing happens. There's no climax. There's no resolution. There's not even a build up. Kathy is the whiniest and most easily offended high school kid on the planet and the author has no idea how teens talk to each other. Even in 1980. I had to finish the book so I could have some sort of peace knowing who killed Ruth, but I could have just saved myself a month by reading the last page. So my advice, dear reader, read the last page and skip the rest.
August 8, 2024
Point Challenge #2
I enjoyed this story from Rosemary Wells. I like her writing style and the way she developed the characters. Not much action happened throughout the book, but it didn't matter as it was a pleasant read finding out about these people.
The 'plot' was a little disappointing. I had invested so much in the characters that I did want more. One of the main characters even just disappeared from the book near the end which was a bit strange.
All in all, it was a pleasant read and I would read more from Rosemary Wells.
I enjoyed this story from Rosemary Wells. I like her writing style and the way she developed the characters. Not much action happened throughout the book, but it didn't matter as it was a pleasant read finding out about these people.
The 'plot' was a little disappointing. I had invested so much in the characters that I did want more. One of the main characters even just disappeared from the book near the end which was a bit strange.
All in all, it was a pleasant read and I would read more from Rosemary Wells.
November 25, 2017
I guess this book would have been okay if I wanted to be a pro-tennis player, but after 82 pages nothing had happened except for Kathy winning and losing her tennis matches, her parents yelling at her, and her failing algebra. I thought it was supposed to be a murder mystery. Also some swearing and a lot of talk about "girl" issues. I can do without those things.
January 12, 2025
picking this book up with the thoughts that it will be a murder mystery plot. but it turns out to be more about how the main character Kathy doubts her ability to be the 14 and under champion in the tennis match. It was still a good and fun book especially since it focuses on the tennis match.
July 25, 2025
2.5 rounded to 3. Very slow, really felt like it dragged even though it's less than 200 pages. There's some interesting themes on class here, along with a look at parents who push their kids in sports.
December 15, 2025
Poor girl with a talent for tennis is the main suspect in the murder of her rival. But it turns out that her best friend did it. I wanted to know soo much more about this friend besides her being rich...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 29, 2020
Tennis thriller, interesting
July 28, 2021
A young girl tennis player is getting very good, until someone kills her competitor. Who did it?
December 24, 2013
i remember getting this book from a troll catalog or something in the 5th grade maybe. it's funny to look through my old books and check them out again when i'm home. but hey, this book is by rosemary wells! the author of those bunny children's books! it was a nice light read that did its "goosebumps" cover justice. i did get lost a bit in the tennis terminology but it was totally chilling to think of murder among high schoolers.
June 2, 2009
I found this book as I was weeding my YA collection... and then I remembered some book about a girl who plays tennis competitively and a murder involving a swimming pool. I seem to recall the main character's name being Kate or Katie but the book description shows that her name is Kathy. Anyway, I believe it is the same book I remember reading.
July 11, 2009
Read this in elementary school, so my memories are a little hazy. But I remember it had the most shocking, disturbing, and visceral punch-in-the-gut ending I'd ever come across, at that time.
Rosemary Wells is primarily a children's book author, with a few dozen books to her name, so this nasty little murder-mystery is even more intriguing.
Rosemary Wells is primarily a children's book author, with a few dozen books to her name, so this nasty little murder-mystery is even more intriguing.
August 18, 2013
If you like tennis, details about tennis, know famous tennis players, and enjoy people talking about anything else revolving around tennis, then you will love this book. I don't have any interest in the sport so it was very boring to me. It attempted to have a mystery in it, but it was watered down by the focus on winning every tennis match.
April 2, 2017
This book was poorly written. If you wanted a murder mystery this is not the book for you. There is no action, except that a fourteen year old is dating a collage student. You don't even find out who it is until the last chapter and then Kathy still doesn't really care. I will save you the time so you can read another book. It was her best friend, she only wanted to blind Ruth but ended up,killing her. The cops think it's a accident.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews