Review By Veronica
This book was amazing right down to the last page.
Favourite Quote:
“Jacob isn’t aware of the real reason we’ve left Vancouver. All he knows is that Daddy got an exciting new job as a business consultant in the city where he grew up, and Mommy supports Daddy. Neither my little boy nor my husband knows anything about the nights I hid in the thick cluster of trees outside our pool enclosure because it offered the perfect view of our babysitter’s house.
I wanted to be her. Holly—young, beautiful, her whole life an exciting blank slate. But then I stopped trusting her. And in the end, I wanted only to protect what was mine.”
Goodreads Synopsis:
Sarah Goldman, mother to six-year-old Jacob, is relieved to move across the country. She has a lot she wants to leave behind, especially Holly Monroe, the pretty twenty-two-year-old babysitter she and her husband, Daniel, hired to take care of their young son last summer. It started out as a perfect arrangement—Sarah had a childminder her son adored, and Holly found the mother figure she’d always wanted. But Sarah’s never been one to trust very easily, so she kept a close eye on Holly, maybe too close at times. What she saw raised some questions, not only about who Holly really was but what she was hiding. The more Sarah watched, the more she learned—until one day, she saw something she couldn’t unsee, something so shocking that all she could do was flee.
Sarah has put it all behind her and is starting over in a different city with her husband and son. They’ve settled into a friendly suburb where the neighbors, a tight clique of good citizens, are always on the lookout for danger. But when Sarah finds hidden cameras in her new home, she has to wonder: Has her past caught up to her, and worse yet, who’s watching her now?
Samantha has done it again! Woman on the Edge is one of my all-time favourite thrillers. So, I was excited to read Samantha’s latest book, Watch Out for Her. First, I have to talk about how amazing the cover is. It’s so eye-catching and gives off such a creepy stalker vibe, which is a perfect fit for this book.
Watch Out for Her is dark and edgy and unputdownable. This book is told from Sarah’s (present) and Holly’s (past) POVs. Both characters are strong, complex, and well-developed. They are great characters for a thriller suspense book. They are both struggling with finding their place within their families and in the world. This struggle causes them to act in a morally questionable manner at times. Everyone in this book (except for Jacob) hides secrets and is flawed. You will find yourself trying to figure out what motivates these characters and what secrets they are trying to hide.
Samantha has created a suspense novel that was just so absorbing! Every chapter ends in a cliffhanger or in a dramatic fashion, which makes you want to start the next chapter to see what will happen. The next thing you know, it’s 4:00 am, and you have read the entire book in one sitting. This may or may not have happened to me. Samantha did a great job balancing all the different elements and themes in this book. This book has morally questionable characters, lies, a mysterious stalker, dysfunctional families, and this feeling of not knowing who to trust. The ending of this book was phenomenal and completely unexpected. I’m usually good at figuring things out in a mystery/thriller book, but in this case, I did not see the twist at the end of this book coming. There is nothing better than a book that can completely surprise you and leaves you feeling blown away.
Watch Out for Her is a thriller that you will devour in one sitting. It’s that good.
Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
