MARCH 2018 - AudioFile
Jody Gehrman’s mystery is just plain scary. Not only is she a clever writer, she’s a terrific narrator as she performs the sections devoted to Kate Youngblood. Kate is a creative writing professor at a small Ohio college who isn’t writing much these days. In addition, her ex is marrying a younger woman, and her best friend is pregnant. Gehrman makes it clear that Kate is starting to feel invisible. But to her student, Sam, portrayed by Holter Graham, she is a goddess. Graham is marvelously creepy as the brilliant young writer who has been obsessed with Kate for years. Graham makes Sam’s disturbing visions feverishly real, while Gehrman turns Kate’s strong, if forbidden, attraction to the much younger man into a seductive and dangerous dance. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
11/06/2017
Author and creative writing professor Kate Youngblood, the heroine of this engrossing thriller from Gehrman (The Truth About Jack), faces obscurity in her late 30s. Her ex-husband is marrying a younger woman, her best friend is pregnant, her writing career is stalled, and men’s eyes no longer seek her out. But to Sam Grist, a student 16 years her junior at Ohio’s Blackwood College, Kate is the focus of an elaborate fantasy that has sustained him for years. As Kate mentors Sam—a talented writer with strikingly disturbing ideas—she’s strongly attracted to him, but his attempts to realize his dreams threaten her career, her relationships, and ultimately her safety. Gehrman builds tension as Sam’s idealized vision of Kate collides with a reality he can’t control. The depiction of his obsession is pitch-perfect, and Kate’s reaction, alternating between desire and fear, strikes a hauntingly realistic note. This is a powerful critique of a superficial society in which only those with youth and beauty command notice—and of what one woman will risk to be truly seen. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"Riveting, chilling, and page-turning. Be prepared to stay up all night." — New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline
"Jody Gehrman's WATCH ME is a mesmerizing, intimate, and utterly terrifying journey inside the mind of a psychopath and his prey. Sam's obsession with Kate will make you uncomfortable, but you won't be able to look away. Sharp, twisted, and seductive, Gehrman has written the ultimate cat-and-mouse thriller." - Jennifer Hillier, author of Jar of Hearts
"Mesmerizing and provocative, Watch Me is a riveting tale of a writer, her student, and an obsession that has gone too far. Page by page, Gehrman turns up the tension on a story that is intricately plotted and impossible to put down."
- Paula Treick DeBoard, author of Here We Lie and The Drowning Girls
"Hauntingly realistic...a powerful critique of a superficial society in which only those with youth and beauty command notice." - Publishers Weekly on Watch Me
MARCH 2018 - AudioFile
Jody Gehrman’s mystery is just plain scary. Not only is she a clever writer, she’s a terrific narrator as she performs the sections devoted to Kate Youngblood. Kate is a creative writing professor at a small Ohio college who isn’t writing much these days. In addition, her ex is marrying a younger woman, and her best friend is pregnant. Gehrman makes it clear that Kate is starting to feel invisible. But to her student, Sam, portrayed by Holter Graham, she is a goddess. Graham is marvelously creepy as the brilliant young writer who has been obsessed with Kate for years. Graham makes Sam’s disturbing visions feverishly real, while Gehrman turns Kate’s strong, if forbidden, attraction to the much younger man into a seductive and dangerous dance. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
