This novel was incredible from the get go, the opening chapter plunges you straight into the depths of a brilliant thriller, that I could not put down.

Grace McMullen has a troubled past and this has clearly played a part in how she views relationships. Grace knows the faults in her personality, her no nonsense approach to life is both honest and alluring. Looking back, her love for her ex-boyfriend is clear but she had to end it with him before she destroyed him from the darkness she keeps inside. Now she’s returned to her childhood family home and to the memories that affected her life when she was 10-years-old, to check up on Sutton and his new family. What she doesn’t expect is to meet her ex-boyfriend’s new wife, Campbell, and an unexpected friendship clearly develops between the two women to the point where she doesn’t even recognise the way Campbell speaks about her ex, portraying him as controlling and violent towards her. Grace cannot sit by and watch this happen.

Grace is a deep and endearing character, truly self-defecating with her deep-routed emotional issues in relationships with the opposite sex, friends, even her own siblings and her parents, constantly demeaning herself and describing that she’s not very nice to be around. You can feel the expanse of pain that sits under the surface but everything she does and every decision she makes, I could imagine doing the exact same thing.

But it’s the relationship that begins to grow between her and Campbell that is very much at the heart of this book, both women clearly lost in their own journey, in need of a friendship which they’ve struggled to be able to build in their ‘normal’ lives.

The tension builds perfectly and I was very much behind Grace through the entirety of her journey in this exhilarating psychological thriller.

This is definitely one book you need to pick up this year.

Grace McMullen left Sutton Whitlock nearly a decade ago, and still worries that her departure from his life may have had an adverse effect. She decides to check on him, using social media and finds, that, far from pining for her, he’s moved to her hometown, married a local woman and even named his child after Grace. In response, Grace decides to move back home where she becomes friends with Sutton’s wife, Campbell and becomes alarmed when she sees that Sutton has become cold and controlling. Should she warn Campbell. This book is a story of who is stalking who, and while somewhat predictable, is still an enjoyable read

This is the second book I’ve read from this author, and I was pleasantly surprised with this one. I didn’t particularly like the other, but this one was good! I only predicted one thing that happened, and the other twists surprised me! I definitely recommend thriller/mystery fans to read this.

I haven’t read The Memory Watcher but, after reading The Watcher Girl, I certainly will. This is a compulsive book and Grace, the main character, is flawed enough to be very compelling. Although I found the climax and ending slightly disappointing, I was intrigued enough to want to read quickly to the end. I definitely want to read more by Minka Kent.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

WOW! Just WOW! This is the most amazing psychological thriller I've read in quite some time. From the very beginning, I wasn't sure who to trust. The main character, Grace was interesting, and I liked her; however, there were things that she did that really made me doubt whether what she was up to was on the level, or was she just plain cra cra?

Grace's family members, and her dad's new girlfriend don't quite fit the way she thinks of them--they seem kind and welcoming, and yet Grace has held herself apart from them for years, because she felt like a stranger to them. Her ex-boyfriend also a mystery, and his new wife, Campbell acts strangely. All the characters come across as rather quirky--and suspicious. And yet--they all fit in this story making it a difficult one to put down. It's been a while since I read a book this quickly because I didn't want to put it down.

I am sure this will be one of the highest rated books for 2021.

This was slight. I liked it, and I read it in just one sitting, but I ultimately felt a little unsatisfied. The climax was weak, and considering there isn't much actual plot, that took away from my overall enjoyment and made this feel kind of unfinished or like a draft in which the juicy stuff still needed to be added.

Grace has had a rough life. She never felt that she was good enough for her old boyfriend, Sutton. So she ended the relationship. Years later, Grace is still trying to find happiness in her life and still feeling guilty about the way her relationship with Sutton ended. She decides to reach out to him and try to explain. She finds out that Sutton is now married and has a baby girl…named Grace??!! Why would Sutton name his baby after Grace? Grace has to find out more!

I have read all of Minka Kent’s books and I am definitely a fan. The Watcher Girl was another very good thriller book from Minka. It was a quick and easy read and there was a nice twist at the end that I wasn’t expecting. Very enjoyable, I would recommend it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Grace McMullen broke up with her boyfriend, Sutton Whitlock, for his own good. She said good bye to Sutton to save him from herself and the baggage she carried. Now it's eight years later and after an online search she discovers Sutton is married to a woman who looks just like her, has settled in her hometown and has named his daughter Grace. Grace decides she needs to return to her hometown and make sure he's okay. While home in Monarch Falls she accidently meets Sutton's wife, Campbell. The two women strike up a friendship and Grace learns that Sutton is a changed man and his life isn't what it seems.

This book was...strange. Everything happened very conveniently and quite predictably. I didn't find any of the "twists" very shocking. Also, there was a lot of background plot points that didn't add anything to the story other than furthering the word count. I think this was a the case of an interesting plot poorly executed.

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

#thewatchergirl #netgalley

Here is the newest thriller from Minka Kent, which is surely going to keep you guessing right till the end of the book. An out and out edge of the seat story, The Watcher Girl is a sequel to The Memory Watcher by the same author. Get straight into the story of a woman’s suspicions about her ex-boyfriend that become a dangerous obsession.

Review and Verdict
A good, solid thriller that moves fast with interesting twists at the right place. I wouldn’t really call it amazing but definitely entertaining. Despite being a sequel, this book can be read independently as well. Decent characters, not too cluttered yet keep you thinking and going.

Worthy of a read!

This is a story of Grace who is so full of herself. She’s a narcissist and thinks that everyone wants to be like her and wants to be her. Years ago she left her boyfriend because it was best for him. But she’s been watching his social media pages and knows he hasn’t moved on from her even though he’s married with a child. She decides to return back home and watch him and see if she can help him get over her! She stalks him but what hill he do and what can she do to stop what she’s doing? I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book.

Grace McMullen has come home to her father's house for the first time in years. He is surprised but delighted to see her. But for Grace, he is the means to an end, a reason for her to be in her hometown. Her ex-boyfriend Sutton, the man whose heart she broke, has moved to this very town. Married to a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Grace. They also have a daughter who is oddly named, Grace. This sets off all kinds of warning bells in Grace's mind. Has Sutton never gotten over her? Grace doesn't believe in coincidences, and she has come home to resolve her past with Sutton.
What she doesn't plan is to meet his wife Campbell. She also doesn't recognize the man Campbell describes. He is nothing like the Sutton she knew and loved, and when she fears he is abusing Campbell, her objective changes. Grace makes her living by fixing things, and she will fix this situation too, even if Sutton gets hurt in the process.
Well, this was quite a good and fast-paced read. Grace carries a ton of emotional baggage from her childhood. She learns things that she believed about her family aren't true, Sutton is not the same person, and suddenly, her whole world and viewpoints shift. The question remains, who is the stalker and who is their prey? Answers will be revealed and by the end. Grace might even see a different future.
I didn't realize this was a follow-up to The Memory Watcher. Grace was just a child in that book and I want to read it and learn more about her dysfunctional family!

First thing to know going in (which I didn’t) - this book is a sequel to Minka Kent’s previous book, The Memory Watcher. It probably works fine as a standalone, but as it was starting to get into the backstory I felt a bit lost. So I went to Amazon and what do you know - the Memory Watcher is currently free on Kindle Unlimited. Score one for me (and possibly for you).

I liked The Memory Watcher too, but I actually liked this one more. Grace, our protagonist, is the daughter from the Memory Watcher, all grown up. She returns to her hometown and can’t stop thinking about her ex-boyfriend Sutton. She begins to watch him, and soon learns he has a wife who looks and acts just like Grace. And it seems she may be in danger.

I think Minka Kent’s writing has grown since the prequel, because this novel felt a bit more assured, and the characters more developed. I found Grace and her job (removing horrible things from the internet) very interesting. It’s also fun to revisit the backstory of the guest book now that Grace is an adult. Like the previous book, it’s not too hard to see where the book is going, but it’s fun getting there. No reinventing the thriller wheel in this one, but I enjoyed it. 3.75 stars.

Lady thrillers (unless there’s a more suitable moniker for these ever so popular female authored female centric genre)…there are the good, the crappy and the perfectly decent ones somewhere in between. Minka Kent writes the latter variety. Consistently so. This is the third book I’ve read by her to the same effect and personally I do appreciate consistency. Meaning it’s essentially a good enough book well written and diverting, but it just doesn’t have that wow can’t put you down factor.
Watcher Girl features a 30 year old protagonist named Grace who as the title suggests is a somewhat remote person. Not just because she works remotely, scrubbing undesirable information from the internet, but also in her personal life, in the ways she comports herself, etc. You can’t really blame Grace, when she was just ten her mom went to prison for life for killing her dad’s mistress and then there was an exploitive tell all book about it and the entire thing just really put Grace off relationships, familial and otherwise. She’s been estranged from her two siblings and her father for years and haven’t visited her dad in ages, she can’t even commit to a living situation, drifting around from city to city. Until one day, somewhat suddenly her conscience kicks into overdrive and she decides to go back to apologize to her first and only love, Sutton, for leaving him.
The idea is that she believes he’s having a tough time from what she gathers online, but in reality he seems to be fine, employed, married, a new dad. Sure, he married a woman who looks like Grace’s doppelganger, sure, he’s named his daughter Grace, but otherwise…fine.
So Grace returns with best intentions and all and proceeds to do the thing she does best…watch. Though as it soon turns out passive and/or clandestine watching in a town that small is all but impossible and soon she’s getting all kinds of involved in things best left alone.
And there you have it, a basic love triangle of a story with a few other elements thrown in. It may not be the most thrilling thriller out there and the twist is somewhat predictable, but the writing and character development are the loadbearing elements here. Plus it’s told through a single narrator and timeline, which is nice, for a change. Plus it’s only 236 pages, practically lightweight for a genre that normally go well above 300, often for no reason but sheer volume. So the overall effect is that of an entertaining quick mindless sort of read. And that’s exactly what was expected. Thanks Netgalley.

I've never read anything by Minka Kent before and i wanted to read this book. It took a bit for me to get into the book but i'm glad i stuck with it. The twists and turns had me on the edge of my sit and kept me turning the pages. The book is easy to read/follow along and will keep you up to finish it. i'll have to check out her other books. I recommend this book for you thriller/suspense people.

The Watcher Girl is a fast-paced, entertaining thriller about a woman who becomes obsessed with her old boyfriend, convincing herself that he never got over her and she must save him.

Grace McMullen never stays in one place long. She has lived a number of different places, which is possible because she can work anywhere. She is an internet sanitizer which, she explains, means that "people pay me to remove things they don't want online." Grace comes from a troubled family. Daphne, her beautiful mother, has been incarcerated for many years. After learning that her husband was unfaithful, she arranged to have his mistress murdered in an effort to prevent her meticulously structured, seemingly perfect family life from being destroyed. Grace is the oldest of three children, and the only one who was adopted by her parents. She has long searched for her birth mother, without success. After her mother was convicted, Grace was rebellious and acted out, so she was sent to Florida to live with her maternal grandmother while her younger sister, Rose, and brother, Sebastian, remained in New Jersey with their father and his mother, who moved in to assist him with the children. Grace's childhood was thrown into upheaval not only by her father's philandering and her mother's subsequent criminality, but another series of events involving a neighbor who posed as Grace's biological mother and planned to abduct her. Grace always knew she was adopted, but learned the details surrounding her adoption in a public and humiliating manner. Grace has never been close to her siblings and, in fact, hasn't seen any of her family members in years. She has always felt like an outsider, convinced she "was born with a darkness inside."

Grace remains estranged from her mother. Her last visit with Daphne was ten years ago, and only to confront her mother about a true crime novel about her mother's case. The book contained details that Grace is convinced could only have been provided by Daphne -- including that Daphne had trouble bonding with her oldest child -- and portrayed her father as a sex-addicted narcissist, while Daphne was painted as a saint-like slave to her beautiful, privileged life. "She sold us out," Grace relates in the novel's first-person narrative, but her father would "never throw us under the bus. Not like that."

That perceived innate darkness compelled Grace to break off her relationship with Sutton, her college boyfriend, eight years ago, even though they were happy together. Sutton talked about the home and children he longed for, but Grace knew her future could not unfold in the way Sutton dreamed about. She keeps people at arms-length and has no interest in motherhood. So she left Sutton heartbroken and devastated.

But she never forgot about him. She has followed the developments in his life from afar. Grace's online sleuthing has revealed that Sutton is living in her hometown, just a few short blocks from the family home now occupied by her womanizing father and his latest younger girlfriend, Bliss Diamond. Sutton is married to a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Grace and they have an adorable little girl -- named Grace. All of which convince Grace that Sutton has never recovered from the breakup and is so obsessed with her that he has gone to extreme lengths to construct a facsimile of the life he envisioned living with her. And she believes that she is the only person who can save him, so she goes home. But her visit will be brief. "I'm here on a mission, and as soon as it's over, I'm leaving again."

Kent tells an absorbing and entertaining tale about a woman whose life is founded upon assumptions, and the ways in which she makes decisions and takes actions based on them. Grace is a credible and sympathetic character. She survived childhood traumas that resulted in her being banished by her father to live with her grandmother, apart from him and her siblings. Nevertheless, she graduated from college, enjoyed a loving relationship with Sutton until she abruptly ended it because of her belief that she could not live her life the way Sutton wanted, and has a successful, if not altogether satisfying career. But Kent effectively and compassionately illustrates how Grace's life and the boundaries she has erected around herself begin crumbling like a proverbial house of cards after she goes home and begins uncovering the truth.

Central to the story is the relationship Grace unexpectedly develops with Campbell, the sweet doppelganger and devoted mother who gradually confides in Grace that life with Sutton is not at all the way Grace imagined it would be, causing Grace to turn her attention from saving Sutton to saving Campbell. In reality, however, Kent deftly reveals that Grace needs to focus on saving herself -- quite literally -- as she learns that her assumptions and beliefs about her family, relationships with them, and especially about Sutton's choices were all erroneous. And because of that, she has made choices and plans in reliance upon those assumptions that have caused her to misjudge people and situations . . . and could cost her her life as the action accelerates and the book races to an exciting and emotionally satisfying conclusion.

The Watcher Girl is a clever, taut thriller with a gigantic twist that many readers will not see coming. It's a captivating story about how one woman gets so many things wrong, but is given the chance to make everything right so that she can move on and find happiness.

This newest thriller from Minka Kent is going to keep you guessing until the very end! 

From the beginning, you can understand why Grace is the way she is, why she looks for imperfections in the most beautiful things. She is smart and very untrusting, which given her career you can see why. During the story and her journey to try to right the past she feels she has wronged, you see her evolve and realize the truths she thought she had were just half-truths and skewed reality.

There is shock value aplenty in this story too, I was bowled over by some of the revelations in this story. Grace will face some challenges and also get some clarity about her past.

Sometimes trying to fix your past isn't the best thing to do.  Read this story and you will find out why!

Well done Ms. Kent, I can't wait to see what comes next!

[..]

De primeiro momento eu não entendi toda a obsessão de Grace, lógico que durante a leitura você vai começando a ficar com um pé atrás com Sutton, mas a verdade é que nesse livro ninguém é confiável. Além de a gente acompanhar Grace e com Sutton e sua família, a gente também acompanha ela com sua família e todas as revelações que ela faz.

Esse livro tinha uma premissa que me chamou muita atenção, mas a verdade é que a história demorou muito para me prender, entre as revelações da família dela e da família de Sutton o livro não fluía muito e só depois dos 50% que ele ficou realmente bom.

O plot mesmo sendo algo que eu imaginei logo de início, ainda assim foi algo que a autora conseguiu levar por um bom tempo, mas o verdadeiro plot do livro não foi só sobre Sutton e sim sobre a própria família de Grace.

Esse é aquele livro de suspense que a gente lê e enxerga um filme muito bom nele, mesmo com a leitura não sendo o que eu esperava ainda é um livro que se um dia virar filme eu com certeza voou querer assistir.

Leia mais em: http://malucaspor-romances.blogspot.com/2021/04/resenha-watcher-girl-minka-kent.html#ixzz6tN4TAlqW

I really enjoy reading Minka Kent! Her stories are interesting and keep you guessing throughout the entire thing. I will be honest, I had no idea what was happening until right when the author tells you what is happening and was like WHAT?! There were definitely clues, but it felt as if it could go in several different ways.

The book kept my attention and I liked how everything played out, other than the fact it seemed a bit rushed at the end. I definitely give this 4 outta 5 stars and will be on the next lookout from this AWESOME author!

PS: Thank you to Minka Kent for allowing me an advanced copy of the book to read and review honestly!

First of all thanks to the author #minkakentauthor & #netgalley for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is the sequel to The Memory Watcher (which btw I haven’t read yet) but both books can be read as a stand-alone.
We follow the story of Grace who returns to her hometown after having discovered that her ex-boyfriend has married a lookalike and named his child after Grace!
Determined to give him the closure he obviously needs, by apologising for the abrupt way she ended their story all those years ago, she tries to contact him but finds herself befriending his abused wife, instead!

This started really good! It was giving me strong Behind Her Eyes vibes. But I felt the story was being dragged out a little too much without any ‘Aha’ moments to liven the plot! I had it all figured out rather early on but was ready to enjoy the wild ride.
Turns out the ride was on a slow steam train with many stops along the way and when I finally arrived at the destination I noticed I’d missed my stop! The anticlimactic ending left me wanting more and the villain just wasn’t deranged enough!
That being said I thought the character development perfect and the writing was excellent.

Wow did not see this book playing out like that. Love how Mike Kent took these characters and made them realistic.