I don't know if I'm in thriller burnout, or if I'm just getting more jaded, but I haven't found many suspense novels lately that really "wow" or surprise me. So many whiny paranoid women, so much gaslighting, and so much suspension of disbelief needed. This novel had all three and I'm just over it.

This novel is about two women: Holly has just finished her first year of med school and is slated to work for her family's mega-pharmaceutical company after she becomes a doctor. Her dad and stepmom expect some shady actions from Holly in order to pull in investors. They arrange for her to babysit for the wealthy family of Daniel, Sarah, and their active 6-year-old son Jacob. In this family, Holly sees everything she wishes her life would include. Something happens (we find out later what it is) and Sarah, Daniel and Jacob move from Vancouver to Toronto. Sarah finds cameras in their house, and is afraid that Holly, who has gone off the grid, might have followed them there. The book is told from Holly's perspective in the past in Vancouver, and Sarah's perspective in the present in Toronto.

I saw where this was going from a mile away. I didn't like any of the characters, I felt like they were all self-serving and paranoid, and no one TALKED TO EACH OTHER, they just preferred to imagine things and presume the worst (or what they thought was the worst). Sarah was alternately frantic and distrustful about stupid things and obliviously naïve and trusting about other things that a normal person would be suspicious about and question.

There are many positive reviews for this book, so don't let my negativity sway you if it sounds interesting, you might just like it better than I did.

Spine-tingling. Chilling. Top-level thriller!

The talented bestselling Canadian author Samantha M. Bailey wowed us with her debut, WOMAN ON THE EDGE; however, her sophomore psychological thriller takes it to another level.

Brilliantly crafted, WATCH OUT FOR HER is a highly suspenseful, sinister, and twisty game of secrets, obsession, and voyeurism that will have you second-guessing every character from the first page to the last. An ending you will not see coming.

Told from two POVs, Sarah and Holly (BEFORE and NOW), two women enter into a complex and twisted relationship that will change their lives.

Who's Zoomin' Who?

Meet Sarah Goldman, mother of Jacob (6 yr old) and husband, Daniel. Sarah had befriended her young twenty-something babysitter, Holly. Everything was idyllic until it wasn't. Holly looks up to Sarah and will do anything to protect this family. A family she has always wanted, unlike her own.

As a reader, we do not know until much later in the novel, what actually went down. We know the Goldman's are moving from Vancouver to Toronto to escape with Daniel's new consulting job. A new start. Something happened and they are leaving their babysitter, Holly behind.

Upon arrival at their new home, Sarah is watchful, untrusting, and almost paranoid. She locates hidden cameras in the house. Then there is the next-door neighbor. In their old house, Sarah had cameras. She was also a photographer and you could find her photographing late at night through windows.

So have the tables turned? They had left Holly behind, but could she have followed them. Who is watching now?

WOW! Off the charts EPIC! WATCH OUT FOR HER is highly creative and impressive. Samantha M. Bailey CRUSHED IT! I read this in one sitting over Valentine's weekend.

Propulsive, claustrophobic, and mind-bending.

At the heart of this addictive well-written thriller is love. How far do we go for love and acceptance? Filled with emotion, intrigue, intensity, and the secrets we keep from our loved ones and ourselves. SO MANY SECRETS. Every character in the novel has secrets.

What I enjoyed about WATCH OUT FOR HER was how the author keeps you guessing as to the why, how, who, and where? From the mysterious characters to the twisty plot. It has it all! Holly's family was totally weird, yet you want to learn more. I really liked her character. What was Daniel hiding? Your loyalties change throughout the novel. You suspect everyone, and the last twist was utterly explosive! There are so many moving parts and the author does an excellent job of keeping you in suspense.

I love the front cover and the creepy tree branches in the background of each chapter. I am enjoying these new thrillers about watching and moving to new neighborhoods to often find they are even a worse nightmare when the home is supposed to be a safe haven. If you enjoyed A Perfect Stranger by Shalini Boland, and Carter Wilson's The New Neighbor, WATCH OUT FOR HER is for you!

Check out my #AuthorElevatorSeries Interview where we go behind the scenes of the book and this powerhouse author.

I was honored and grateful to be included in the acknowledgments with all these fine bloggers in the book community. Many thanks. 🙏

A very special thank you to @SimonSchusterCA and @NetGalley for a gifted early ARC. A pleasure to read and review.

@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 5/5 Stars
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Pub Date: April 26, 2022

Now -

Sarah and Daniel Goldman and their son, Jacob, age 6, have decided to move across the country. The biggest reason for their move is to get away from Holly Monroe, 22, whom they had hired to babysit for Jacob.

Then -

Holly’s father, John Monroe, is head of Health ProX, a leading national pharmaceutical company. He is married to Lisette, mother to Alexis and stepmother to Holly. Lisette is cold to Holly and treats her with disdain. John and Lisette suggest that Holly babysit Jacob for a summer job. Holly has just finished her first year of medical school and agrees to interview with the family. They all like one another and Holly is thrilled to be part of their loving family. But when something happens, Sarah and Daniel decide to move away from the town and Holly.

The story switches back and forth from when Holly was working for them to after they made their move. It’s quite intense and sometimes I found Sarah to be a Wendy Whiner. I think Holly is a strong character and truly genuine. I would have liked for the book to speed up because it did drag at times. All in all, I think readers will enjoy this thriller.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was so excited for this book considering how much I loved The Woman on the Edge. Sadly, it just didn't quite hit the mark. The lead protagonist was too inconsistent for my liking and I couldn't feel all that much empathy for her. Holly, on the other hand, was someone I felt immense empathy for.

The plot also got a little outlandish toward the middle, which is actually where the slow pace started to pick up. If it wasn't for reviewing it, I would have probably put this as a DNF.

It's not going to put me off Samantha M. Bailey's future books. Just this one missed the mark.

When we first meet Sarah Goldman, she has just moved to Toronto with husband Daniel and six-year-old son Jacob. Their new home is less to her liking than their former home in Vancouver, but we learn that their move not only was based on a new job of Daniel’s but a desperate effort to stay far away from Holly, their former babysitter. Sarah is a fierce defender of her family and believes Holly is the source of almost destroying it.

When the story flashes back to the summertime, we meet Holly Monroe. Holly is in med school and her father, owner of a pharmaceutical firm, has targeted Daniel as a potential investor. When the opportunity arises, Holly jumps at the chance to be Jacob’s summer babysitter to escape her family. Her father is focused only on his business and Holly, who has a bad relationship with her cold stepmother, is sorely in need of a mother figure. She sees that in Sarah. As the summer progresses, Holly is wonderful with Jacob and develops a closeness with Sarah. Until Holly starts to get a bit too attached to the family. And Sarah becomes increasingly suspicious of Holly.

In the present, thinking she has left her troubles behind in Vancouver, Sarah starts to receive anonymous texts and other signs that the family is being watched. This riveting story shifts back and forth from the past to the present with each chapter keeping me on edge. Bailey has written a satisfying tale of obsession which gets dark and a bit creepy. While Sarah is an over-the-top, nervous parent bordering on paranoid, Watch Out for Her taps into every mother’s fear that her child may be in danger. While it does require some suspension of disbelief as the plot thickens, I couldn’t put it down and recommend it.

Rated 4.25 stars.

Everyone has parts of themselves they’re ashamed of, that they hide. Desperate people do desperate things. Not always on purpose. But sometimes.

Its about who you are and who you are with others. This is one of those books where I don’t like or relate to any of the characters. They are all too neurotic for me, but I was compelled by the storyline to keep reading.

Told from the babysitter’s POV in the past and the Mom’s in the present, you are trying to piece together what has happened and who is trustworthy. While I didnt figure it all out until the end, I did guess a piece of it pretty early. I think those that go in cold and don’t catch on to any of the twists before the reveals, will definitely like this book.

I had devoured the author’s first book Woman on the Edge a couple years ago so was excited to check out her latest. This had a very intriguing premise, and one that sounds like an oft-told tale of the young babysitter that comes into the lives of a young family but it’s not quite all what it seems. This story had a lot of characters doing, if not suspicious, then just really questionable stuff.

Perhaps it was for that reason that I felt it challenging to really connect or feel for either of the narrators. The novel flips back and forth from present day Sarah to the past with Holly as the story pieces together what happened. But they both had major boundary issues and I found their odd too-quickly overly-familiar dialogue and interactions a bit unrealistic.

Overall I thought it was an interesting idea but a lot of seemingly shady stuff across the board from everyone and, in my opinion, not all of it gets addressed satisfactorily. Usually with mystery thrillers, I can’t help myself and always have a theory of what’s going on and then I’m either mad at myself that I was right, or pleased that I was wrong. In this case, I was mad that I had figured out one major part of it about 1/3 of the way through. That being said, if you aren’t like me and don’t overanalyze everything every step of the way, this book will take you on a tense journey!

3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sarah Goldman and her husband hire 22-year-old Holly to babysit their young son. The arrangement is perfect– Sarah gets some alone time to work on her photography, and Holly gets the mother figure she’s always wanted– until super spy Sarah sees something she can’t unsee. Sarah flees with her family, moving across the country and away from Holly, and attempts to put the past behind her. Unfortunately for Sarah, everything begins to unravel when she finds hidden cameras in her new home. Has the past caught up with her?

This book is told from both Sarah and Holly’s POV. It’s interesting to see how their viewpoints collide as the story unfolds. Both characters have a lot of issues that make them kind of unlikeable (Sarah's helicopter mom/voyeur status, and Holly's choices, although I do feel sorry for her). It is slow at times but it held my attention well enough. I wish the twist was a little more surprising as I had my suspicions and they turned out to be right.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

This book kept me reading and turning the pages. Although I did figure it out before the end, there were still some unknowns until the reveal. There was a tension that carried through the book that could have been better developed, but overall a good entertainment read.

Watch Out For Her • Samantha M. Bailey ⭐️ - 3.5 Stars
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I wanted to mix up what I was reading and saw this one on my NetGalley shales and figured I would give it a shot.

I loved that it takes place in Toronto - nice and close to home! I really enjoyed the back and forth storylines between past and present and how they both climaxed together.
This book had me suspicious of everyone along the way - any new character was making me paranoid right along with Sarah!

I partially figured out the twist but i was still slightly surprised.

Overall I thought it was a good read and was a good break from the romance reading!

Thank you to @NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for a honest review

Watch Out For Her is a psychological thriller that I very much enjoyed.

Sarah and her family - a husband and young son - hire a nanny, Holly. Things seem perfect but soon devolve. Sarah watches suspicious behavior until she happens upon an unspeakable horror.

The family relocates to get away from Holly but have they really left her behind? When Sarah discovers cameras in her new home she becomes afraid of exactly who has gone to this trouble and what is their intention. Suspicions that Holly has followed them terrify Sarah as she fights to save her family.

Edge of your seat kind of novel. My favorite

I received an ARC of Watch Out for Her in exchange for an honest review. This was described as a psychological thriller. However, this is not an edge of your seat thriller. There were many elements I found hard to believe. It wasn't the parts of the "thriller" that I found hard to believe but other elements of the story. The book did hold my interest but it wasn't one that I couldn't wait to get back to and see what happened next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada, Simon & Schuster for the read of Samantha M. Bailey’s, Watch Out for Her.

Sarah and Daniel move their young family across the country to leave behind a complicated situation that centered around their nanny, Holly. Hoping the new start will be what they need, Sarah is stunned when she discovers hidden cameras in their new home. Fearful and once again, unable to trust anyone, Sarah desperately tries to protect her family from an anonymous danger.

Watch Out for Her grabs your attention and Bailey delivers a dark and twisty storyline.

Opinions expressed are my own.

This book was a lot of work! I really enjoyed Woman on the Edge and I thank Net Galley and Simon & Schuster for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. However, I found Sarah to be so full of anxiety at every turn that the suspenseful moments were less effective; she was constantly worrying so the reader’s not sure what to believe and when to really worry. She gnashes her teeth over every exchange with her son and husband and it obscures the plot. There’s extra detail about other characters like the neighbour Tara, in order to give the reader a full picture but it ends up repetitive. I skimmed quite a bit after 25%, looking for real forward movement of the story. And Sarah “finding herself through photography” is so old and frankly outdated. The minute-by-minute descriptions of her parenting Jacob grated on my nerves — none of that brought me any closer to seeing Sarah (or the other characters) as real, believable or remotely likeable, and this is when you lose readers. Some will push on, in order to discover the “who”, but the thrill becomes watered down and I no longer wanted to “watch out for her”.

This is an amazing psychological thriller. Sarah and Daniel hire Holly to babysit their six year old son, Jacob. This is a story full secrets, suspicion, trust issues and needy people who take the wrong way to get what they need. I liked that it was told in the before and after so I could find out what actually happened to make Sarah move her family across the country. Be careful who you trust. I received an advance copy of this book and this is my honest review.

“Desperate people do desperate things. Not always on purpose. But sometimes.” Ahhh this book was SO good and kept me on the edge the entire time. It was fast, written exceptionally well and really came together perfectly.

Sarah, mom to Jacob and her husband, Daniel have moved across the country. Moved due to an extremely stressful and hellish situation. After dealing with Jacobs babysitter, Holly and the things she did to the family, it’s a relief to be away from the stress. However, certain things that keep happening make them question if Holly is back and stalking them. Finding cameras in their rental house right off the bat, scares the bejesus out of Sarah and then she starts to receive text messages, “I see you”…

This story was five stars, it just flowed so well and the details were perfectly described. I could imagine and see the scenes as though I was watching the story play out in a movie. Thoroughly enjoyed, Sam you did a fantastic job! Highly recommend and y’all can grab it on Tuesday! Thank you to the author, Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the review copy!

This well written novel presents an intriguing tale centered on the personalities of two women. Both are somewhat emotionally unbalanced yet for very different reasons. They both seek a sense of security, love, and validation. Holly is desperate to become part of a loving family at any cost, and Sarah is cast in the role of surrogate mother to the troubled young woman. Holly and Sarah get along well. That is, until a series of events lead to a falling out. As the story unravels, the extent of their respective psychological issues becomes apparent and the questions surrounding who is/was watching whom are answered.
The author's choice of voice was interesting, with the point of view alternating between Sarah’s (1st person) POV after the move and Holly’s POV (in 3rd person) before the move. Felt odd to me at first, but it works. Overall, the pace was pretty even thoughout, picking up pace near the end leading to a speedy resolution. I enjoyed the book and will be on the look out for future work by this author.

Watch Out for Her is an exciting and unpredictable thriller. Bailey is a talented author and with this novel she develops interesting characters and a plot her reader can identify with. Sarah Goldman is a stay at home mom to six year old Jacob in Vancouver. Sarah hires her neighbor's daughter, 22 year old Holly Monroe as a a summer helper and the two women bond immediately. Holly's home life is troubled and she soon moves into the Goldman's house. Holly discovers Sarah's husband is leading a double life and pursues her own investigation. Sarah misunderstands Holly's intentions and the family relocates to be rid of Holly. However, Sarah doesn't feel safe in her new home. Did Holly follow them? Who can Sarah trust? Watch Out for Her is entertaining and enlightening. Watch out for this book-it is hard to put down.

Sarah Goldman is mother to six year old Jacob, and wife to Daniel. As a family they have uprooted and moved cities, Daniel is starting a new job, all to get away from Holly Monroe their former childminder.

Told using a Past and Present narrative, Now sees the family arriving at their new home in Toronto, Before starts with Holly taking a casual job helping the Goldmans.

I loved this book! The structure works superbly with Past and Present intertwining, many of the chapters end with sharp little reveals and cliffhangers, ramping up the tension and intertwining with the other timeframe to build up the bigger picture.

There are only three main characters and these characters are so well developed, with the questions of: Who to trust? Who is to blame? Is Holly a sociopathic manipulator and home-wrecker? all hanging perfectly in the air. Sarah Goldman as the increasingly anxious Mom is an expertly portrayed character.

The writing is subtle, the pacing perfect. The tension creeps up beautifully as the evidence gradullay builds up that something's really not right with their new life in Toronto.

I couldn't put it down, the tension and sense of impending dread are very addictive. The big twists and reveal are perfect, and 'I didn't see it coming'.

Very highly recommended, and sure to be one of this year's most talked about psychological domestic thrillers.


Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Watch Out for Her was on my list of highly anticipated reads for this year because I kept seeing so many rave reviews! Did it live up to my expectations? Yes! Do I highly recommend this fast-paced psychological thriller? Yes! I really enjoyed the storyline and found myself connecting with Sarah, since she's a mother and her son is around the same age as mine. I did stay up way too late to finish this book because I really couldn't wait to see how this story unfolded.
I loved the dual timelines and how the author went back and forth between different characters POVs. I feel like it really adds to the suspense! The creep factor in this book was definitely on point. This is a must read...so addictive and a real page-turner!

Now to add Samantha M. Bailey's first book, Woman on the Edge to my TBR ASAP!