I read Watch Out For Her, by Samantha M. Bailey, as part of a Tandem Collective readalong. This is a twisty domestic suspense, and reading it was more fun with the rest of the international readalong group!

Watch Out For Her  begins with a thriller staple: Two timelines, two POV narrators, loads of allusions to the dark secrets no one can ever know, creating a series of dramatic scenes with cliffhangers. This isn’t usually a format that usually works well for me — I’m an emotional reader, so I have to be led to care about a character before their worries and dangers are meaningful. I started out feeling a bit sad that some random lady was dealing with hidden cameras, a sneaky husband, and a Dark Secret about the babysitter, but I didn’t have that emotional connection yet. (This is a really common thriller style, and I think it’s just me who finds it choppy.)

Fortunately, I was reading this with a group, so all my bookstagram readalong friends pulled me into it. It was so fun to part of the readalong, basically whenever I checked my phone, I saw other friends reading the same story and getting excited about the next twist. There were book club-ish questions every few chapters to spark conversation and the reading group was great about not giving each other spoilers.  Because I saw everyone else enjoying story, I was excited to read it, even if the opening wasn’t quite my style, and so I’m happy I did. The vague hints in the beginning paid off in the last couple chapters with loads of gore-free twists and domestic suspense shocks.

In one timeline, Sarah Goldman is an anxious mom starting over in Toronto, made more anxious by weird things she notices in her new rental house in Vancouver. She refers constantly to some mysterious mess with her son’s former babysitter, and hints that her husband was interested in the babysitter. Or was her jealousy and paranoia all in her head? Her husband seems exasperated by her worries, but also, he doesn’t actually do anything that would alleviate them.

Back in the past, in Toronto, Sarah and babysitter Holly Monroe remember their good times together and the creepy secrets that pushed them apart. Holly is a college student from a wealthy pharma family, with a wicked stepmother and loads of family secrets. This gives her a wonderful motivation to join the Goldman’s lives and pretend to be part of their family.

Once we get to see Holly in action, her twisted goals make this such a compelling story. This was a new and intriguing motivation, and Holly has the single-minded determination that I loved in Social Creature and Treasure. I’ve written before about how love and romance motivations can fall kind of flat.  I mean, just dump him? But Holly wanted to be part of a perfect, safe family, and I couldn’t wait to see how far she’d go and what she’d do in order to get it.

Without reveals, I can say Watch Out For Her was full of twists, and although there were so many shocking secrets, there was no gore at all. Exactly what I like in a suspense novel!

Finally, I loved the dual meaning in the title, the way it can be read as either watch out for a threat or look after her depending on the context. It was perfect, because as the story unfolds, many scenes could go either way, too.

I received a copy of this novel from Tandem Collective International. Opinions on my blog are my own, as always.