Meribel Mills is a mom, approaching 40 and still struggling to hold on to B list acting credentials. She has a very disturbing stalker that police cannot seem to assist with. When she finds evidence that the stalker has been in her condo she travels back to her hometown of Atlanta to protect herself and her autistic child.

Pretty soon she is engaging with a neighbor who might end up being a romantic interest. Her daughter, who struggles with daily social cues has made a friend. But it's not long before the stalker catches up to them and she has to make a choice.

I really enjoy Joshilyn's writing and was fully immersed in this story to start. I love Meribel's stream of conscious, her love for her daughter and her struggle in There are just too many coincidences however in the conclusion for the story to play out in a realistic way for me (I don't mind unrealistic, but the beginning tone does not match the end) .#WilliamMorrow #WithMyLittleEye #JoshilynJackson

I am a total sucker for a book that makes me drop my jaw and clamp my hand over my mouth multiple times and this book is IT! Right up until the very end… I love the first person perspective from the main character and I loooooove the chapters told from her autistic daughter’s POV! Absolutely fascinating! I was warned about the ending and yet I still lost it when it happened! Well done, Ms. Jackson!

Actress Meribel Mills lives with her autistic daughter, Honor, in Atlanta. She has already had to move once to get away from her stalker who she calls "Marker Man" because of the scented notes he has left her at her home in LA.

She meets some neighbors, Cooper, his on-again, off-again girlfriend with her daughter, Sheila. Sheila, along with Honor meet up with a homeless girl who calls herself Xena.

Throw in Meribel's former and possibly future boyfriend, Cam, and other assorted characters, and you have a fast-paced, though sometime confusing, cat-and-mouse game with Meribel trying to figure out who her mysterious stalker is.

A few times it got a little confusing, but in the end all is resolved, though not quite in the way I expected.

It was a pretty good book overall; although, I will admit not one of my favorites by Joshilyn Jackson. I would still recommend it for a thriller.

SYNOPSIS:

Meribel Mills is an actress, who had some fame in the nineties, and a single-mom. She begins receiving creepy letters from a dangerous stalker, and over a year, the stalker’s behavior escalates. She moves herself, her daughter, Honor, and their dog, Gumball, from LA to Atlanta for a fresh start. Meribel took a part as a character in the second season if a popular show “The Spirit of the Thing”, which was filming in Atlanta. Will she get a fresh start in Atlanta, or will the stalker persist?

MY THOUGHTS
- This is the second book I’ve read by Joshilyn Jackson. I previously read “Mother May I”, and I thought “My Little Eye” was better than “Mother May I”
- This was a gripping, terrifying book, and I loved it. It was fast-paced, and I enjoyed it. I liked the ending as well.
- I enjoyed how Jackson structured the book. The story is told from multiple perspectives of different characters.
- Even with all the thrillers I read, I kept wondering, “okay, who’s the bad person? who’s good? who do we trust?”, while reading it.
- I really enjoyed how Jackson wrote Honor’s character, who is portrayed as Autistic, intelligent, funny, & kind.
- I thought this book raises a lot of good themes and questions, such as..
- How often do we treat celebrity’s lives as non-human juicy topics or gossip?
- Police tend to not take stalking seriously, until something violent has happened.
- We do “micro-stalking” everyday on social media.
- There’s a lot to explore in this book, and I didn’t think it was the run-of-the-mill “beautiful woman being stalked” story.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Fast-paced, well-written, gripping thriller. Deeper than your run-of-the-mill “beautiful woman being stalked” story.


Thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. It's due to be published on April 25, 2023.

3 1/2 ⭐️

This was a twisty, fast-paced read that kept me entertained. Unfortunately I never really connected with the protagonist the way I have in other books by this author. The story was compelling but felt a little far fetched at times, and the ending was a bit abrupt.
I enjoyed the perspective of the daughter with autism, and I found myself turning (virtual) pages quickly to see what would happen next. All in all a fun read but not one that will likely stick in my memory for long.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Great book! Flew threw this one and really enjoyed it. Would recommend to anyone. This book caught my eye with the cover alone!

I'm a fan of Joshilyn Jackson's books — and this is by far my favorite. While I generally don't connect with multiple perspectives, With My Little Eye is an example of how this device can be done really well. The suspense was excellent, with layered mysteries and a few surprises. While there are some plot holes and unexplained aspects, overall, this was a fresh addition the thriller genre.

This book was quite different. The beginning seemed to be more about the adults, but as it went on, the teens took more of the center stage. Then the ending tied everything together in a nice, neat package.

Mirabel is our protagonist, an aging actress best-known for a character role on a show called “Belinda’s World”. People still recognize her as “Didi”, and while living in Los Angeles, she developed a stalker. “Marker Man” was named as such because for years, he has been sending Mirabel letters written in those old markers that smell of different foods.

These letters might be love letters in the Marker Man’s mind, but getting letters from a stranger that show drawings of her dying or cut into pieces is, needless to say, chilling. Mirabel packed up Honor, her adopted pre-teen daughter who is on the autism spectrum, and they ran to Atlanta to get away and hide. When she left, she left behind her boyfriend, Cam, but when letters start arriving in Atlanta, she wished she had the military veteran around for help.

She does meet a man in her building named Cooper, and while they have no romantic feelings for each other, they become fast friends and she now has someone close to depend on. She needs it, because the letters arriving in Atlanta aren’t being mailed from LA anymore. The postmarks are getting closer - Marker Man is obviously driving across the country to find her, and she’s desperate to keep herself and her daughter safe.

Speaking of her daughter, I thought the author did a great job of writing from the point of view of a person on the spectrum. From the lack of emotion, to not being able to recognize humor, to not knowing social cues, to the stimming, this was written very well and in a way that people who aren’t very familiar with autism can understand it.

I’d definitely call this a slow-burn mystery/thriller, which slightly turned me off at the beginning of the book. It picked up steam as it went along though, and soon I was invested in the story and who Marker Man may be. We meet a couple of other teenagers, and they added quite a bit to the story. The ending was tense and done very well. I’m giving this a solid four stars - it was far from formulaic and quite a good story!

(Thank you to William Morrow Publishing, Joshilyn Jackson, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review. This book is slated to be released on April 25, 2023.)

I was thrilled to get this ARC by one of my favorite authors.

The book is fast-paced, exhilarating (in parts) and has great character depth for the most intriguing cast member, Honor. At the same time the book is glacially slow (in parts) and has a superficial main character who seems to be rooted in adolescence with her juvenile fascination with herself and men - past and present. The ending is crazily abrupt as if someone set a page limit and the book suddenly had to be over.

I enjoyed more parts than not and Honor takes the cake (since she would be honored by these phrases) to bring this in at four stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the opportunity to read this ARC.

A tense thriller, about a woman, an actress and her daughter, who move across the country to escape her stalker, only to have him follow her there. Many suspects, and not predictable which I liked. This is also a story of a woman learning to love again and her almost teenage, daughter who is autistic, making friends and becoming her own heroine. Likeable characters. Enjoyed this book a lot. 4.5

•Plot: 5/5 (a B/C list actress deals with a stalker)

•Characters: 5/5

•Writing: 5/5

•Ending: 3/5 (so abrupt!)

I should preface this review with the fact that I am a Joshilyn Jackson fan girl. I absolutely adore her- years ago, she got me into Southern fiction and I haven’t looked back. I wish I had 1) filmed my reaction reading this book and 2) had some way to post it said imaginary video. My palms got sweaty, I dropped my Kindle, at one point I even lifted my arms to the heavens in a fit of disbelief. This book is MASTERFUL. My goodness. I don’t want to give anything away, but the way I flip flopped on these characters with each chapter! Jackson’s writing is beautiful, the story is fast paced and layered, I honestly could not put it down. My only (minor) complaint was the abrupt ending. This is a can’t miss.

Special thanks to HarperCollins, William Morrow, and Joshilyn Jackson for my advance copy.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61745949

I received an ARC copy from #netgalley. I have mixed feelings about this one. I liked parts of it. I felt like other parts were confusing and all over the place. It’s my first time reading a book by this author. I didn’t like any of the characters aside from Honor. I just couldn’t get invested in the book. I just reviewed With My Little Eye by Joshilyn Jackson. #WithMyLittleEye #NetGalley

I have to admit, this is one of the books I find hard to rate fairly. There are so many things I enjoyed about it during my reading, including the dangerous fan/stalker plotline, the mystery that kept me guessing about the identity of the culprit, and the author's well-executed twists that took me by surprise. I was also impressed by the brilliantly developed character of Honor, a 13-year-old adopted daughter of Meribel who is on the spectrum. Her interesting relationship with Sheila and the homeless girl she calls Princess Xena was a highlight for me.

However, there were also some parts of the book that had a telenovela style, with male characters competing for Meribel's attention, which made me roll my eyes. I also found myself getting irritated spending so much time inside the heads of psychologically damaged men, and the abrupt ending earned even more eye rolls. I was left wanting an epilogue or at least one more chapter to wrap up the characters' lives.

I went back and forth between giving it three or four stars, even though I was expecting to write a five-star review based on the book's description and the author's previous works. The high-quality parts of the book outweighed the parts that irritated me, and I ultimately rounded up my rating to 4 stars.

The plot was intriguing and captivating, beginning with Meribel Mills, a B-list actress, who is raising her nearly 13-year-old daughter Honor while dealing with her stalker, the "Marker Man." Meribel is offered a role as a lawyer/ghost defender, which she initially resists because it requires her to move to Atlanta, where she is from and left her ex-husband decades ago. However, when the Marker Man starts to escalate his behavior, she decides to take the job and move to Atlanta. She quickly befriends her neighbor Cooper and becomes involved in a complicated relationship with him, as well as her ex-husband and ex-boyfriend/bodyguard Cam.

Overall, this was a great psychological read that kept me on my toes, but I wish it had a more satisfying ending.

Special thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing me with a digital review copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

*Many thanks to William Morrow Publishing, Custom House, Netgalley, and Joshilyn Jackson for my gifted eARC for an honest review*

What would you do of you had a stalker? Actress Meribel Mills starts getting creepy letters and nasty scary drawings from her stalker that she has nicknamed Marker Man. Meribel moves her and her autistic daughter Honer half way across the US to get away from Marker Man. Meribel finally thinks she has gotten rid of him but then she gets a package at her new house from him.

This was a fast-paced roller-coaster of a thriller. It was told by multiple POV'S so you never know who to trust. The ending had a huge good buildup and then just ended, I wish there would have been an epilogue. This is my first book by Joshilyn and definitely will not be my last.

****This book has some very disturbing scenes in it, not for the faint of heart****

I thoroughly enjoyed this story! It had been a long time since a thriller has kept me guessing, got my heart pounding, made my eyes open wide, and kept me from putting it down! Having read the 2 previous titles by Jackson (Never Have I Ever & Mother May I), I can say she gets better with each story..Each one I like better than the other.
In this story, Maribel Mills is an almost 40 year old actress, that hit it big on a whim, after leaving her small town behind. She is now the recipient of undesirable fan mail The letters are creepy with marker bleeding through the paper, showing her in pieces. Due to them, she takes a job on the other side of the country, breaking all ties. nIt also brings her back to her hometown and regret of what could have been. At first, you begin to think "another stalking style mystery." OH NO! There is much more going on...many twists and side/background stories going on here. She adopted a daughter, who is autistic, begins to befriend the neighbor, who has his own issues with his on again/off again romance, as well as she left a lover & reliable best friends behind. The story will weave different character perspectives and being inside the brain of the stalker was creepy. But "Marker Man" is on the move, following Maribel. Readers will be kept intrigued and enjoy the reveal. Though the ending may seem abrupt, it can also be seen as leaving the reader with the finale and rather continue to wrap up the aftermath. 4 1/2 stars

I was provided an advanced copy from Netgalley to provide an honest review.

This is the second book I've read by Joshilyn Jackson. The first being Mother, May I. This thriller had some unexpected twists for sure! I can usually see them coming, but I was honestly surprised by this one. I really don't want to give anything away. This is not your typical "famous woman vs stalker" storyline. Also, as a mother of a child on the spectrum, I appreciated the portrayal of the main protagonist's daughter. She was smart, witty, and relatable.

I enjoyed the multiple perspectives in this story, as well. I highly recommend this thriller.

I have so much love for Joshilyn Jackson, but this was my least favorite of her books. It is definitely suspenseful, and readers will be on edge as they try to find out who the main character's stalker is, and how much danger she and her daughter are truly in. This is a fast paced mystery and I do think people will enjoy it. My own review is tampered merely because Jackson's other books are (in my opinion) much more complex and compelling. I will always carry her books in our store, and can't wait to get customer feedback from this one!

Just when I think Joshilyn Jackson cannot possible top her last book, she comes out with a thriller like With My Little Eye. An excellent choice for solo readers or the discerning book group crowd!

This was a bot too creepy for me. I usually love her books so this was a one-off. Hopefully I enjoy future books by the author.

A tense nail-biter that kept me on the edge of my seat until the very last page! Fans of Jackson's last two suspense novels will not be disappointed.