Just One Look by Lindsay Cameron is the story of Cassie Woodson,. a young lawyer forced to work as a temp at a law firm after a fall from grace at her last job. It was so bad that video of her being escorted out went viral. She now spends her days reviewing emails for a Medicare fraud case. In one of the files she has to review she sees a personal email from one of the partners, Forest Watts, to his wife Annabelle.
Cassie becomes obsessed with reading his emails and soon her obsession goes real life. She arranges to "bump into" Forest at one of his regular hang outs. This sets off a chain of events that may be dangerous to all involved.
I don't want to give too much of the plot away. This book started off slow for me, but after about 45 pages I was sucked into Cassie's world and obsessions. I liked how little bits of Cassie's past and her viral video incident are revealed throughout the book. All questions are answered by the end. The second half of the book was so fast paced and I hated to finish it. Think of Cassie like a female Joe from YOU. Please do yourself a favor and read this book! Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Cassie is an attorney who suffered a public downfall at her previous job. She takes a job working as a temp at a large law firm. Her job is to read through emails for a fraud case. It’s a rather boring job, but she soon reads emails exchanged between Forrest and his wife Annabelle. Cassie becomes more and more interested in Forrest, going from reading private emails to wanting to see Forrest in person.

Cassie is an intriguing character, though she’s not very likable. As her story slowly unfolds, it also gets crazier. Just One Look isn’t the most believable story, but it is entertaining.

Just One Look is a complex thriller. A story with obsession and stalking, making it a good read for fans of You by Caroline Kepnes.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. This books grabs your attention from the first page, and doesn’t let go until the final page. Cassie Woodson is a hot mess. She lost her legal career after a serious incident at work, and finds herself temping at a different law firm. Through her new duties, Cassie lands on an email from one of the associates, Forest. Before you know it, Cassie is beyond obsessed, going to great lengths to integrate herself into Forest’s life. This novel is as intense as Fatal Attraction, but without the bunny. If you’re a fan of Caroline Kepnes’ You, then you’ll enjoy this book!

author interview with Lindsay Cameron

Today’s author interview guest is Lindsay Cameron, author of Just One Look.

Cassie is not herself after being let go from her attorney job. She's desperate and takes a temp position with another firm, working in a cramped room with other temps as they search through company e-mails for information relating to a case. Everything is uneventful until Cassie comes across personal emails from one of the "higher-ups" and slowly begins to insert herself into his perfect life. But is his life so perfect? And what has Cassie gotten herself into?

Overall, I loved the first half of this book. And then it just got...weird. Too weird, and too unbelievable. I finished it but was so disappointed with the turns that lead to the ending. It had such great potential from the beginning, but the twists and turns became too much.

This was an interesting, if not entirely believable thriller.

Cassie gets herself in over her head when she comes across personal emails between one of the attorneys and his wife. It seems harmless at first but doesn't stay that way for long. I love anything with a legal twist so this was an enjoyable read from start to finish.

This one was hard to put down! I loved it. So many twists and turns, it had me on the edge of my seat. This is a must-read for thriller lovers.

Just one Look by Lindsay Cameron was a well written book.
It was twisty and deceptive and kept me guessing until the very end.
The characters were well written and fleshed out.
I would definitely read another book by this author.

Just One Look leaves just enough breadcrumbs in each chapter to keep you off balance, and the suspense builds as you ride along with Cassie in her crazy quest. And just when you think you know where this is going, you’re thrown off course with a series of events that brings the story to another level. Although a little slow at points when Cassie is going off the rails, the payoff is worth the wait.

Meet Cassie Woodson- the female Joe Goldberg.

Cassie fell from grace at the law firm where she was previously employed. One thing led to another, and there was blood and a camera pointed her way. now forced to work as a legal temp to pay the bills. She’s stuck doing the boring discovery work for a law firm, reading through countless emails to determine if they are relevant to the case. Soon though, she comes across some personal emails between Forest, one of the firm's lawyers, and his wife Annabelle. She quickly becomes obsessed with knowing more and more about the couple and spends hours searching for every tidbit of information so she can emulate this ideal romantic relationship. Yet, when she finds out that the couple might no longer be together, Cassie sets out to discover what happened and why. To say Cassie is unhinged is an understatement. Her obsessive behavior and lack of self-control lead to dangerous and risky decisions that put Cassie in harms way. Her ability to justify her stalker mentality is unsettling and disturbing. The story starts out a little slow, but the tension increases creating suspense and outcomes that are shocking and compelling. Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for my copy.

I don’t know why, but stories with characters who are obsessive, stalking and possessive fascinate me. I’m not crazy, its just that these themes make a good psychological thriller. If you have read the synopsis you know what this book is about. But what you don’t know, is the creative writing that makes us readers sympathise and even agree with the protagonist’s pov. Sound familiar? Yes fans of YOU and Joe Goldberg, we got a female Joe. Might even be my favourite read of August 2021.

Thank you Ballantine Random House via Netgalley for the e-arc.

THIS BOOK. This book got me from the very beginning and did not let go until the end.

I LIVE for a book where the main character is incredibly flawed. But especially a thriller/mystery. And “Just One Look” is exactly that.

I was slightly uncomfortable with how much I related to Cassie in the very beginning. Not her stalking or obsession, but how skilled she is at finding information about people just by using basic internet knowledge. It’s a really powerful and strong point to make in a novel, because it really makes you think about how much we are giving away about our lives just by using the internet.

Highly recommend this book. I finished it in half a day because I couldn’t put it down!

This book was so unique with twists at every point. A true page turner that I couldn’t put down. You got a really in-depth look at the characters and their sociopathic tendencies but there was still great mystery. Highly recommend.

Cyber-stalk much??? The lead character of Just One Look is the Queen of Cyber-stalking! Her name is Cassie Woodson. She was a lawyer in a white-shoe NY law firm, but when we meet her, she is about to start a new job as a temp. Her assignment is with another prestigious law firm, but her role there will be as a drone, reviewing a data dump of documents related to a client being sued for Medicare fraud. It's the job of the drones to scan hundreds of thousands of documents to weed out those that are determined to be non-relevant. Sounds like fun, right?!?

As a reader, you don't know what caused Cassie's fall from grace, other than it was a public humiliation, but you are quickly aware that she had been in a relationship with a guy named Landon that didn't end well. You also know pretty quickly that Cassie is a train-wreck. She seems to have no friends, and she drinks about a fifth of gin a day! Once Cassie settles into her boring work routine, she finds herself captivated by a lawyer whose personal correspondence seems to have been caught up in the data dump. His name is Forest Watts, and from his emails, Carrie learns that he is in a seemingly perfect marriage to a woman named Annabelle. Very quickly, Carrie becomes obsessed with Forest and Annabelle, and in her spare time, she begins to learn everything there is to know about them. The internet is such a helpful tool!! She begins to keep a black binder where she documents every single thing there is to know about the Watts's and even goes so far as to start hanging around their neighborhood in the hopes of getting a look at them in real life. Obsession isn't nearly a strong enough word to describe the rabbit hole Cassie falls into. However, one day, Cassie discovers that the Watts's marriage might not be as picture perfect as she thought, in fact, they might actually have gotten divorced. With that, Cassie really loses it and starts to physically stalk Forest in hopes of meeting him and starting her own relationship with this perfect man.

Just One Look starts getting seriously twisty once Cassie meets Forest in real life, and things get even more crazy when one of Carrie's coworkers turns up dead. This coworker, Dalton, was really Carrie's only work-friend, so his death really throws her. This is a fast-paced thriller, and a brilliant debut novel for Lindsay Cameron. You won't like Carrie, but I promise you, you will be as obsessed with this novel as she is with Forest.

This is a 5 star read. My thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books/Random House for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. This was one fun, smart novel.

This sort of gave me Last Mrs. Parrish vibes in the best way. I think that Cassie is the type of person whose obsession blinds her from the truth truly for better and worse. I think her obsession and goal with forest in particular makes it so she sort of misses the red flags but sees obtaining him as a means to an end, or at least a way to somewhat fix what she messed up that day when her life unraveled. Cassie is seemingly brilliant, but also seems to carry a lot of the unresolved baggage from her childhood, as well as the shame from things not working out perfectly. I think that she is a character that you root for, but also at times have a hard time doing so because she frequently crosses the line. This is the lawyer/drama of my dreams. I think that this story is gripping and to the very end you are wondering how its going to play out, or what Cassie is going to do next. She seems to get in her on way a lot, and while I am glad I am not her, I also did really enjoy reading about her. Overall a really great, and gripping read!

Unreliable narrators are my jammmmmm. Seriously, I have never found an unreliable narrator I didn't like. They are often so smart, but a slave to whatever makes them unreliable, be it alcohol, drugs, mental illness, etc. I love a good fiction novel with a character off the rails. In this case, Cassie Woodson is a disgraced lawyer who had a bit of a mental breakdown that went viral. Using any lie she can she's found her way into a new, temporary job, but she wants to make her position permanent, permanent with one of the lawyers she's obsessed with that is. His emails draw her in at first, but soon she's looked him up everywhere she can, going so far as to imitate his wife in her style choices. Her favorites are now Cassie's favorites, it's just a matter of time before Forrest Watts falls for her too.

Just One Looks is a lot like You, albeit a bit less dramatic in some ways. Unlike You, we don't have nearly as much of Cassie's background so her slip into obsession is jarring. What she sees as the truth is all we see, it's only in the unraveling that we learn the truth. Cassie can keep a job, she even makes a new friend, but with alcohol fueling her late nights she soon is tumbling, losing track of her lies and her on goings. Like most unreliable narrators, common sense goes out the window and Cassie makes some questionable choices. How she didn't get caught or revealed sooner is beyond me, but boy was it entertaining to read. Then, Lindsay Cameron throw a complete twist in there and the finale of this novel is explosive.

Just One Look is a fast-paced drama read with just a bit of thrill. There's a lot going on in this book, some of it leave some holes in the plot that, for me, just really irked at me. I want all the facts, even if its from an incredibly unreliable perspective. I loved Cameron's twist, but I almost needed more of it to really turn this book into a total winner for me. She hits it out of the park with the creepiness and obsession though, if you love a good stalker read, Just One Look is it for you.

Cassie Woodson was a lawyer, now she’s down on her luck and she becomes an email stalker. She knows she shouldn’t be reading the private emails between a partner in the firm and his wife, but she does. And she keeps doing it, to the point of obsession. She becomes a creepy stalker as she tries to get closer to the partner. Creepy think that there are people who might do this.

I went into this blind, with no idea what the book was about but saw the genre was thriller and that was enough for me. Although I'm not sure I'd consider this a thriller, really. It was more a a slow-burn suspense novel than it was a thriller. I have to say though that there wasn't a single moment where I was bored and I was interested throughout. Cassie was an absolutely fascinating character because she was clearly mentally unstable but I loved watching her crazy unravel. I would have given this 5 stars, but this was just a bit lacking in drama and conflict. The only real conflict was at the end, and I really would have expected more drama between Forest, Annabelle, and Cassie. I think some encounters and close calls with Annabelle would have added a lot to this and created some more mystery. The ending did shock me though because I didn't see it coming at all. Overall though I did enjoy this and thought it was entertaining, but think it had the potential to be even better with just a bit more dialogue and conflict.

Get ready for the ride of your life when you pick up this thrilling book by Lindsay Cameron. Cassie lost her job as an attorney and is forced to take a no-name temp job in order to make ends meet - Temp 021 - just another cog in the wheel. The new girl from the temp agency. Cassie has been disgraced. What is more is that she clearly has mental issues. Having suffered great loss in her life, her judgment is way off.

As if life hasn't take enough turns for Cassie, she is the queen of bad judgment. Her latest foible is stumbling across sensitive exchanges between a lawyer named Forest Watts and his wife Annabelle. Cassie starts reading the interchanges and this leads her to fantasizing what it would be like if she were in Annabelle's shoes. What it would be like if Forest was writing these messages to her. What it would be like if she took Annabelle's place.

What a rocky, chilling ride from beginning to end. Recently I read The Photographer by Mary Dixie Carter, which reminded me of You by Caroline Kepnes. Well, that is exactly what this book, Just One Look, does. Internet stalking gone bad. Very bad. Unashamedly, Cassie sets a plan in action and it is this very plan that was doomed from the very first look.

Many thanks to Ballantine Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Cassie, a disgraced lawyer, begins an obsessive hunt for her perfect mate. Hired as a temp to review documents, she discovers the “one” and she sets out to learn all about his perfect life and wife. She recreates her self in the image of his wife, not knowing the true secrets.