I received an arc copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest opinion of it. This book started off kind of slow and seemed to pick up at times, especially towards the end. The story is told in parts by the two main characters, Holly and Sarah. Sarah is married to Daniel and they have a son, Jacob. Holly is their nanny who wants so bad to become part of their family as her wealthy family cares nothing about her and her birth mom died in childbirth.
The story is told in parts by Holly in the past and Sarah in the past and now. It's easy to follow the storyline but some things are a little strange.
Sarah is a photographer and can see Holly's bedroom window from her house and takes pictures of Holly and the men she is with.
Daniel has a man cave that no one is ever allowed to go into but of course Holly goes in there snooping and finds out things about Daniel. It was a decent read but a little slow. It did have a few twists at the end

BOOK REVIEW
🌟🌟🌟🌟.5

<i><b>“Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight.” —HENRY TAYLOR</b></i>

Other families look perfect when you’re looking in from the outside. Sometimes they are and sometimes it’s a precisely-painted illustration.

Holly is desparate for a family that will accept her for who she is. When she takes a job caring for six year old Jakie, she falls in love with him and his family. They are so different from her own family. But nothing is ever as it seems.

This captivating thriller was filled with suspense. I knew at least one of the characters had to be a complete nut job, but the author kept it concealed until the end. This ending was a complete shocker!

Sincere thanks to Simon Schuster for this complimentary ARC that was provided through NetGalley. This review is my honest opinion.

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

After seeing Samantha M. Bailey’s book Woman on the Edge everywhere last year (and not having yet read), I wasn’t going to wait to read her newest, and jumped at the chance for a digital advanced reader copy.

Watch Out For Her is full of tension from the very opening chapter, ending on “the house has eyes. Someone is watching me.” The story is told from two perspectives: Sarah in the present and that of her babysitter, Holly in the past. That feeling of paranoia and anxiety builds quickly from chapter 3, with the discovery of hidden cameras and a missing stuffed animal that only Holy could’ve known about. Each of the main characters, Sarah, Holly and Daniel (Sarah’s husband) have secrets, and as a reader you really want to know what they are. I loved the Canadian settings of Vancouver and Toronto, and the callout to hotel chain Sutton Place! It makes it easier to picture the setting when you’ve been there! There were a few good twists, especially with Holly and Daniel, that I thought were unveiled well. I did struggle with Sarah and Holly at many different points though: Sarah for her paranoia bordered on the annoying sometimes and Holly felt a little disillusioned, especially with how quickly she integrated herself with Sarah and her family.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Watch Out For Her, seeing how the cat-and-mouse game was going to end. Everyone in the book was watching someone else in different ways, yearning for affection and connection. A big thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC!

The premise for this book was intriguing to me…a young woman worms her way into a family. Holly definitely did that and more in Watch Out for Her. I did struggle with the dual time lines and points of view. I found myself rereading at times to better understand what was happening. Both Holly and Sarah failed to evoke any response from me emotionally - I just was unable to connect with them. Given Holly’s backstory, she should have been the character I was rooting for but she just seemed so flat to me. Jacob and Roscoe came alive for me and I wanted to take both of them home. I can’t help but think how I would have reacted if Holly were that sympathetic character the reader wanted to save…and then, the twist!
Many thanks to Samantha M. Bailey, Simon Schuster, and NetGalley for affording me the opportunity to read an arc of Watch Out for Her, to be published on April 26th.

I truly have no idea how I finished this book so fast. I wasn’t even trying to—I just started reading and when I look up a few minutes later, many hours had gone by. Thats also how I feel about TikTok (the most effective way to time travel) but that’s a story for another time.

This story flowed so smoothly, flipping back and forth between the present, Sarah’s life after moving across the country to start over, and the past, Holly’s life and how she got to know Sarah. Then ultimately the two storylines catch up to each other—I’m sensing a theme here in the books I’ve read lately.

Bailey’s writing was VERY fast paced and really got you into the minds of both Sarah and Holly. I feel like I truly understood their motivations and sympathized with them.

I also had no idea who to trust. I kept coming up with so many solutions in my head but none of them were what actually happened in the end. And each character had so many secrets to hide that kept me guessing.

All in all, I liked it! I’ll recommend it, sure! But is it the best, most exciting thriller ever?! No, no it’s not. Did I tell everyone I come in to contact with about the story? (The TRUE mark of a great book.) Also no. It was good and definitely enjoyable! But I wouldn’t say it got my heart racing where I was forcing myself to read faster to find out what happened next. Instead I just continued to read, super quickly, because of the smooth writing style and captivating moments.

✨ The Title/Cover Draw:
This is a new author to me so I wanted to give it a shot based on the really cool synopsis. Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read this ahead of publication.

💜 What I liked:
The story was told in an interesting way. Th represent, which follows Sarah and her family when they move to Toronto is told in a linear chronological way. Interspersed is the past, told from both Sarah and Holly’s viewpoints. You get to see different perspectives of the same thing: Why Holly did what she did, why Sarah is afraid of her, and what broke them apart.

😱 What I didn’t like:
I guessed the ending about a quarter of the way through. However, if you are not as suspicious as I am, you might be shocked even if you guess some parts!

🚦 My face at the end: 🤓

💭 Reasons to Read:
1. Dual perspectives
2. Stalkers and infiltration
3. Dubious motives
4. Family



🕧 Mini-Summary:
Sarah and her family have moved away from Holly and a toxic situation. But has she been followed by her fear?

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Received from Netgalley.

💯 For more details on the books we read, be sure to follow me on TikTok (@zaineylaney) or check out our Podcast - Elated Geek!

This book was so much fun and such a fast read. I couldn't put it down and was really entertained! It kept me questioning the entire time and suspecting everyone. I loved the unreliable narrator and the dual timelines - two tropes that can sometimes feel overdone but were extremely well executed in this book. . It is told from before and after a central event. We don’t learn what the event is until the end so it keeps you guessing the entire story. I can't wait to see what this author comes out with next!

This was an engaging thriller that kept me turning the page. We have Sarah & Daniel, parents to Jacob that acquire a nanny, Holly, to watch their son. Sarah is a bit of a helicopter mom, cameras in her house, discovers bits of information and they decide to move the family away from the nanny.
The story takes off from here and has some interesting twists, keeps the reader guessing as to what is truly happening. I’ve read a lot of thrillers and guessed the ending but it didn’t ruin the read for me. Good story arc. If you love thrillers, give this one a go!
Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

The first few chapters set the stage and introduce the characters.

Hints of dark things to come are intertwined with Sarah's anxiety and fears that she and her family are being watched. You begin to suspect mental health issues, maybe an infidelity... perhaps even a murder? Hmmmmmm!?!?!

<img src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/bff411a6753faf101ebcc5e1012decde/tumblr_ob25ct8Jv61ra4d6ro1_540.gif"/>

The characters come with set (if not a tad cliche) jobs and personality traits. Wildly paranoid Sarah is a photographer - on hiatus while she raises her troubled son, Jacob. Her husband, Daniel, is a corporate bigwig and has a few secrets of his own. Holly, Jacob's sitter, wants to please Daddy-Dearest, who loves only money and prestige and is willing to peddle his daughter in order to secure financing for his drug company's latest "miracle drug."

<img src="https://i.gifer.com/PIJU.gif"/>

(I loathe greedy, nasty people like this in real life and enjoy them even less when I encounter this stereotype in fiction.) Holly's father forces her to take the child sitting job in order to get "an in" with Daniel and his rich cronies, so that he can convince them to invest in his latest venture.

<img src="https://media4.giphy.com/media/11CNLlmNAQXIli/giphy.gif"/>

I have to say that although I did see hints of the twist, I didn't guess it all. The ending was tied up neatly, but I was a bit disappointed with it because there seemed to be a bit of back-tracking from all that menace and evil-doing, and I didn't feel that true justice had been done. Holly's parents did not get anywhere near what was coming to them. The menace to Sarah's family and the reason behind it seemed a bit contrived to me at times, but I went with it for the sake of the plot.

The writing was very good and I loved that this story is set initially in B.C. and then the Greater Toronto area, in Canada! In fact, (very slight spoiler alert:) the final landing place - Bloor West Village - for Sarah is just a ten minute drive from me. Loved it! But I have to say, that Bloor West is a very expensive area to live, so it stretched my credulity a bit when everything fell apart and this is where she ended up renting. How can you be utterly "broke" but still somehow manage to convince a landlord to rent you a place with little or no credit to your name? Lucky for Sarah that she had some friends to pave the way for her, but good luck to anyone else who is down on their luck getting a rental in THAT trendy area! Just saying!

But, all this aside, I want to support this Canadian author. She will only get better with each new publication. I am rating this well-written story a 3.7 out of 5, rounded up to a 4 because GR does not allow fractions. My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Watch Out For Her is Samantha M. Bailey's second novel.
Sarah and her husband Daniel decide to take on Holly as a summer babysitter for their young son Jacob. Holly is the daughter of one of Daniel's colleagues. And it's good in the beginning - until it's not. Sarah and her family end up packing up and moving from Vancouver to Toronto to put distance between themselves and Holly.

So, what happened? Bailey tells her story from a now and then narrative, alternating between Sarah's and Holly's point of view. I didn't like Holly at all, despite what's going on with her. I initially liked Sarah in the beginning, but changed my mind fairly early on in the book. There are a number of supporting players in both locales, providing lots of options for suspicious behavior.

As I read Watch Out For Her, I started to note some plot points with a 'really?' There were just too many coincidences, unrealistic behaviors and too many threads that were simply unbelievable for me. The whodunit is fairly obvious and easy to suss out. Much of the plot is cliched and the overall effect was too much. Less can sometimes work better than so many disparate and farfetched threads.

It looks like I'm in the minority on this one.

This book is a good example of the potential for readers getting frustrated when a book is told from two different timelines and only one of the timelines is engaging.

We alternate between Holly telling her story of getting to know the Goldman family. She comes from a home where her mother died in childbirth and she simply wants people to love her unconditionally in a safe home. Holly makes questionable choices and I turned the pages quickly wanting to learn more about what made her tick.

Sarah, the mother of Jacob is just straight up annoying and over the top. She's a helicopter parent. She drowns her own anxiety and lack of trust in everything that I found her unbelievable as a character. If we had been given just a slight hint of anxiety I would've enjoyed the passages told from her point of view so much more. Instead it was like Scarlet O'Hara coming home from dropping her son off at school and swooning over the couch with nothing to do but rearrange her refrigerator.

Holly's passages were the only saving grace in this novel. Finally the twist is an over used trope that we as readers are sick of. We deserve more. We expect more.

Overall: absolutely one of the best and most anticipated thrillers of the year earned my five stalker-ish, dysfunctional family, lies, high tension, I got no nails to bite I already ate them all stars!

Holly is hired as a babysitter for six year old Jacob Goldman. Having disappointed her narcissistic father and step mother in so many ways, she is kicked out of her house and tries to become a part of the Goldman family. But, all is not as it seems with each and every one in this book.

Written in two different timelines from two different POVs, I did not like any of these characters and aspects of the plot strained credulity. Yet, I stuck with the book in my quest to find out just what the heck was going on! Everyone was just a bit too pathological for me, but I did find the story somewhat compelling.

Thanks to #netgalley and #Simon&Schuster for the DRC

Watch out for the twist in Watch Out for Her! This book was an excellent, blood pumping thriller and I highly recommend it!

I really enjoyed this book. It's told in 2 timelines, the present, after "the event" and the past, the few months leading up to "the event". Although it's 2 timelines the entire novel takes place within a 12 month period.
I was so frustrated with Sarah, she's so paranoid and annoying, there were times when I wanted to just give her a shake and tell her to take a breath! My heart went out to Holly, all she wanted was to be accepted - by her family, by Holly's family, by anoyone really - and her life is torn apart because of it.

Sarah mother to 6 yr old Jacob, are moving across country. Her and her husband are leaving their 22yr old babysitter they had for their son for the summer. Sarah moves with their husband and son to another city in the new home Sarah finds Cameras . Sarah is wondering if her past is catching up with her and wondering who is watching her. Who could be watching her? Definitely a suspense book.
It was an okay book, a little bit of a slow burn then started getting better, was more exciting toward the end.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster, Netgalley, and the author in exchange for a review.
Publication Date: April 26th, 2022.

Sarah and her husband Daniel decide to make a fresh start and move from Vancouver to Toronto after some major issues with their former nanny turned close friend, Holly. It is told from both Sarah’s POV in current day and what led to the move and Holly’s before the move. There’s no big twist to look out for and it’s definitely not really a thriller, it’s more of a domestic suspense if anything.
Thanks to Simon Schuster and NetGalley for this eArc in exchange for my review.

A psychological thriller that you will not be able to put down. Nail biting, tension building, I have to know what’s going to happen book!
I love the characters and the interlocking point of views.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A mother must always be watchful, but can a mother go too far? When Sarah Goldman finds something that alarms her with her son and his childminder, the family leaves the area and resettles in another area, far away. Yet when she finds hidden cameras in her new house, she wonders if they actually started over.

Combine a lonely housewife with low self-esteem and a troubled young adult with a longing for a family and what do you get? In this story, it is not a good combination.

When Sarah hires Holly as a babysitter, it seems like a dream come true. Holly is good with her son and he takes to her right away. Holly’s parents are acquaintances of Sarah and her husband, but unfortunately they don’t know each other very well.

When Holly is disowned by her parents, Sarah wants to call them, but does not feel comfortable enough to do so. She lets Holly stay in their guest room with the understanding it will only be for the summer.

However, Holly has other plans. As she unearths their family secrets and creates mistrust with Sarah, it soon becomes a volatile situation.

While the suspicion is cast on Holly, there are other people that could be involved and Sarah and her husband are desperate to find out who is behind the cryptic messages and hidden cameras.

Readers are in for a twisty ending. Some will anticipate it, some maybe not. This story definitely makes you think long and hard about who you let into your home.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read an advance copy. I am happy to offer my honest review.