ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Watch Me Watch You by Lily Samson
Watch Me Watch You by Lily Samson is published by Century and is out now. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy.
With her beautiful flat in London, Alice appears to have it all. But beneath the surface, everything is unravelling: she needs money, and fast.
Her boss Mina, the wife of a powerful MP, lives a life dripping with luxury – one Alice can only dream of. And she’s about to make Alice an offer she can’t refuse.
When Alice agrees to loan Mina her flat for the night – she couldn’t possibly imagine what Mina is planning to use it for. And when she discovers the shocking truth, what starts as a simple favour spirals into a web of desire, secrets and deadly lies that could destroy them both.
Where will it end? And who will survive?
Watch Me Watch You is a taut and addictive psychological thriller. I’ve been looking forward to it since I read Lily Samson’s debut, The Switch, and I enjoyed this one just as much.
Alice lives in a spacious flat in Kensington yet has just started a position as an intern at a publishing company. From the beginning there’s a disconnect between what Alice has and who Alice is but it all becomes clear as the story progresses. She agrees to let her boss, Mina, who is married to a powerful MP, use the flat for what turns out to be a rather dubious and unexpected reason and the tale then spirals into a tangled web of deceit that thrilled me.
I loved the voyeuristic style of this book, the dark and sexy aspects of it. I also enjoyed the publishing angle. The story is told from the points of view of both Alice and Mina and I didn’t know if I could trust what either of them were saying. It was clear that there were some murky corners in their pasts and as narrators they were totally and excitingly unreliable.
I found Watch Me Watch You absolutely compulsive reading. As with The Switch, in the wrong hands some of the action could have simply been too far-fetched, but in Samson’s hands it just felt plausible and ominously exhilarating. If you like a twisty story filled with power and seduction, with characters who are morally grey, then this is one for you. I loved it.
Lily Samson studied English at Oxford University and works in publishing. She divides her time between London and Paris, where her French partner resides. In her spare time, she enjoys watching Hitchcock movies and moonlighting as a freelance artist. The Switch was her debut thriller. Watch Me Watch You is her second book.