I'll Be Watching You

Newford

by Samuel M. Key (Pseudonym), Charles de Lint

In the early 1990s, Charles de Lint wrote and published three dark fantasy novels under the pen name "Samuel M. Key." Now, beginning with Angel of Darkness and From a Whisper to a Scream and concluding with I'll Be Watching You, Orb presents them for the first time under de Lint's own name.

Rachael Sorenson feared she would never escape her ex-husband's abuse. Then a passing stranger came to her rescue---a stranger who had watched her from afar.

He was a photographer, and Rachael was his perfect subject. He lived only to make her happy---and eliminate those who didn't.

Now he wants more than her beauty. She owes him her life---and he means to collect.

"[De Lint] is not only a skillful storyteller but also a chronicler of women's issues in this sensitive, if politically correct, thriller."--Publishers Weekly

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Magic

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Cupcakencorset · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel, originally published under the pseudonym Samuel Key, is not really an urban fantasy, although it is set in Newford. It is instead a thriller, focused on a woman, Rachel, and two psychopathic men who are obsessed with her. The first man is her exhusband, who is a stereotypical wife abuser. He's nuts, but his craziness is pretty easy to understand. The second man goes by many names and is truly disturbed. He's a serial killer who believes that Beauty is a goddess who has taken human form and that it is his mission in life to find her and to awaken her. He believes Rachel is that woman and he wants to release Beauty from inside her for the world to acknowledge and worship. To release the pure shining light of Beauty, he will have to slice her open... and if she bleeds mere human blood, she is not Beauty personified, but a lie... and not worthy to live.

Rachel is trying to rebuild her life and her psyche after escaping her marriage and changing jobs. She's learning to live alone and make new friends. She rediscovering her inner artist and her backbone. Despite sometimes-crippling fear and self-doubt, Rachel is reclaiming herself. And she only has to survive the two psychopaths who think they love her.

The story is plausible and well-written. There were some police and dispatch radio lingo that rang false to me, but most readers don't have my background as a dispatcher, so those things may fly over their heads without ruffling their hair. For me, though, those little things pulled me right out of the tension of the moment and made me wish de Lint had gotten a dispatcher to be a Beta reader. As the book was written in the mid-1990s, it's too late for that now, but I'd be happy to volunteer for any future works... or for any reissues de Lint wants vetted.

Those moments aside, the book is a strong treatment of obsession and abuse, with a spotlight on society's role in perpetuating an impossible ideal of female beauty... and on the effects of that ideal on actual women and men in the real world. Heavy topics, but de Lint handles them well. These themes recur throughout the Newford series and it's clear that de Lint finds them to be important to the modern human condition. He's a feminist, a humanist and perhaps a realist who wants to be an idealist. Through his writings, he attempts to understand the darkness inside men and explores the magic inside acts of creation. In this non-mystical book, the real magic is in Rachel's creation of her new life, despite the men who are trying to take that power from her.

[Иван Величков · Rating 3 out of 5]

Един от ранните романи на де Линт писан под псевдонима Самюел Кей, с който авторът подписва по-мрачните си истории. Действието се развива Нюфорд, но в книгата, нетипично, няма свръхестествени елементи.
Рейчъл е красива млада жена, току що развела се с агресивния си съпруг, който все още я тормози въпреки ограничителната заповед. В опит да преподреди живота си от нулата попада под погледа на воайор психопат. Той е обсебен от нея и пречуква всеки който я разстройва по някакъв начин, започвайки от бившия ѝ и стигайки до брутални крайности, като да пребие и запали сервитьора случайно полял я с кафе. В един момент става ясно, че нито приятелите, нито полицията са способни да ѝ помогнат, тя трябва сама да се оправи с проблема.
Тук все още неошлайфаният стил на Чарлз де Лин вече загатва за магията на следващите му произведения. Похватите му на писане, които не спират да ме изумяват, отново са водещи в повествованието. Множество разказващи герои, включително второ- и третостепенни; сцени преигравани през очите на няколко души; дълбоко социални теми, почти невинно вплетени в сюжета. Дори в недоизпипаните неща се вижда чара на обещаващия начинаещ автор.
Книгата е напрегнат и мрачен трилър, което не е моята бира. Все пак ме завладя точно с тези си елементи. Увлича те и те кара да подскачаш и да се тревожиш с и за героите. Има добре описани моменти на насилие и едно страхотно преследване с коли, успява и доста успешно (предполагам) да влезе в ума на психопата. Няма порнографски сцени, което лично за мен е плюс, обикновено в жанра има задължително поне една, много често плясната колкото да е там.
Статистиката за насилието над жените в Щатите ми дойде малко не на място, знам защо е вътре - цялото произведение се върти около това - но тук де Линт все още не е развил инструментите си за ангажиране на общественото внимание, за разлика от следващите си книги. Главната героиня е пълна коза, на моменти чак на мен ми идваше да я ошамара.
Добър роман, може някой друг да го хареса повече, аз останах леко разочарован, а знаех какво да очаквам от ревютата на другите.

[LibraryCin · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Rachel has just gotten out of an abusive relationship, but her husband doesn’t want to let go. She has a job and only a couple of good friends to help her out. Little does she know, she also has an “admirer” (a peeping tom, really) who will come to her “rescue” when she needs it. But, from his perspective, the perfectly beautiful Rachel will need to be “tested” herself.

Ok, I tried to keep that somewhat vague, as the blurb on the book doesn’t say a whole lot, so I didn’t want to give anything away. This is one of the books de Lint wrote as Samuel Key, a pseudonym he took to distinguish his darker works from his fantasy. It was told in the third person, but the reader got to know more about what was going on, as we did follow a few different characters, than the characters knew, themselves. Certainly by the end of the book, it was a page-turner, keeping me on the edge of my seat, wanting to keep reading to know what would happen! I really really liked this one!

[CJ Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably my least favorite De Lint book. I've read and enjoyed the two other Samuel M. Key books, so it's not the subject matter. I think maybe in the mid '90s this book would have been considered 'woke' but it has not aged well. Segments of it feel like they were pulled from a text on the patriarchy and dressed up with elements of fiction; they just come off as preachy. The antagonist is super competent--he's a master of disguise and several martial arts, he's rich enough that he never has to worry about where he's going to come up with the cash for a new pair of specially made steel toed trainers, he has a master artist's eye, and he's a genius.
But in the end, it's creepy and exciting and in the end that's why we bought the book.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written under his "horror" persona, Samuel Key, this is a serial killer novel with some things to say about the male gaze. The serial killer in this instance is a peeping tom fashion photographer who has a thing about finding the perfect beauty "Goddess". He latches onto the heroine and through his stalking he kills anyone who mars her beauty or even upsets her.

For those reading the de Lint's "Newford" books, beware. While this takes place in the fictional city of Newford, it is only in a very superficial way. The Tombs are mentioned and the waterfront - but nothing of Newford that we've read elsewhere is germane to the tale.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll Be Watching You is a terrifying, yet gripping tale of a man convinced his life's mission is to find and reawaken the goddess Beauty. He'll do anything, be anyone to find her, including stalking, kidnapping and murder. Most of Charles de Lint's work contains some elements of the magical, but this is one of the few where the horror is entirely human (which makes what happens even worse in my opinion). This book was very well written and had my full attention to the end.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main story is really creepy and good. But the moralizing is tiring and the outdated way gay people are portrayed is dismaying. But was probably progressive when it was written. i.e. "sexual proclivity" and "preference".
It's set in Newford but there's no supernatural element to the story. Which is fine, I simply wanted to mention it.
If you're an domestic abuse survivor this one may be triggering.

[Hillary · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF. I started this one but a few chapters in realized I simply did not want to read it. The main character is targeted by two different abusive men, and being in the second one's head was too much for me. I'll read other stuff by the author, but not this.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A perfect storm...a broken, vulnerable woman and a man whose instincts are...awry. This is a tale, exceedingly well-told, of what happens when admiration becomes worship, and attention becomes obsession. The last of the dark Key novels, this may have been my favorite.

[Tessa in Mid-Michigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skipped the middle, boring. Not really up to de Lint's usual. Depressing, too.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creepy but oh so good!

[JG (Introverted Reader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rachel Sorenson has just escaped an abusive marriage, but she's still not free of her ex-husband. Frank comes along every few nights, talks his way past the security guard at her apartment building, and goes upstairs to beat on her door and demand that she take him back. Police say they just don't have the manpower to guard her around the clock, so she's dealing with this largely on her own.

Little does she know that someone is watching her.

Harry Landon is a photographer obsessed with Beauty. Not subjective beauty in its many forms, but perfect, unblemished, divine Beauty. He thinks he's found his goddess in Rachel. He watches her through his telescope at all hours of the day and night. He takes pictures of her. He knows that the goddess resides within Rachel, and when he cuts her, Beauty will burst forth in a blaze of light.

This is one of Charles de Lint's pseudonym books--the books he wrote openly as Samuel Key as a signal that this book is darker than his normal fare. I didn't care for From a Whisper to a Scream, so I've never been too interested in picking this one up. I finally gave in and read it in my attempt to read the Newford books in order.

I was pleasantly surprised for the most part. This was a straight-up thriller that was rocketing along and ratcheting up the tension. It seems a little unlikely that one woman would have two stalkers at the same time, but once you let go of that, this was a genuine page-turner. Frank is a textbook study of the abusive husband. Harry is terrifying in his convoluted, violent logic. Events just keep snowballing until the tension is almost unbearable.

And then.

Oh, and then.

It fell apart for me.

I almost threw my book across the room, I was so frustrated. I don't want to say anything about why, but it almost ruined the book for me. It had everything to do with some choices that were made, but it also had a little bit of what I like to call the Speed effect.

Have you ever seen that Keanu Reeves movie, Speed? You know how it should have ended at least 30 minutes before it actually did? That's what I'm talking about. If de Lint had just cut it a little shorter, this would have been a perfectly respectable thriller. But he didn't. And between the frustrating choices I mentioned above, and the cheat of an ending, I had to knock this back a full star.

Harry's meditations on Beauty got a little repetitive as well. I reasoned it away, thinking that the guy is obviously psychotic, so it makes sense that his thoughts would follow those well-worn paths, but it did get a little boring to read.

I like that de Lint chose to mention that Frank has a medical condition that causes him to act the way he does, but he never gave it a name. There's enough of a stigma attached to psychiatric disorders without authors inadvertently making it worse by seeming to imply that everyone with a particular mental illness is also a wife-beater.

I enjoyed watching Rachel get more confident and comfortable in her own skin. I always feel like de Lint does a great job portraying his female characters and Rachel is generally not an exception. Generally. She might not be my favorite, but she feels real and I understand where she's coming from.

I liked the way that de Lint worked so many women's issues into a book that really is a good thriller. Not only is there the abuse and the stalking, but there's the way that society views Rachel, as a victim who probably brought this on herself. Several characters talk about feminine beauty and the impossible ideal we are asked to live up to everyday, and the devastating consequences on our bodies and self-confidence. There are discussions about how women just have to be more careful in their day-to-day lives. A stroll home in the dark for a man can be a heart-pounding exercise in survival for a woman. There are even some career issues worked in, with some women being treated differently by their male bosses based on their looks. None of this took away from the action of the story, but it enriched it in a way that is reminiscent of de Lint's overall body of work. There's the story, and there's what you take away from the story. They both add to each other.

I don't regret reading this, I just wish that I could have read a version with an alternate ending. If you think you can overlook that, go ahead and give it a try. It really is a good book.

[Melanti · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of three originally published under the "Samuel Key" pen name because they were darker than de Lint's usual novels.

While the book is decent, it just doesn't live up to my expectations.
Another "Key" book, Angels of Darkness was very disturbing - it gave me bad dreams for a couple of weeks. From a Whisper to a Scream had less of an impact but was still creepy. Mulengro was also disturbing and is one of my favorite de Lint novels.

However, I'll be Watching You just seemed to fall flat. Even Trader (not even a horror novel at all) made more of a creepy emotional impact for me than this book.

Maybe it's that I just can't really identify with the protagonist. Rachel just seems like such a victim. I know she's capable of standing up for herself -- after all, her ex-husband is an ex and she's taken lessons in self-defense. But the little voice in me says "But I'd handle this better. I'd leave town entirely. I'd make different friends. I'd call the cops every time the ex shows up pounding on my door at 3 am. I never would have compromised myself to attract a guy like him in the first place." I know that I can't truly know what I'd do until I'm in that situation myself; no one thinks they will ever be in an abusive relationship until it happens. But Rachel seems to lack any qualities that could make me think "Oh, that could be me."

Or, maybe it's that I just couldn't get into the frame of mind of the antagonists. They both seem very unreal to me. You have one guy whose violence is explained by being off his medication (he barely remembers his actions when he's in a non-medicated rage) and another who is entirely insane, though no one around him seems to realize it. Neither is a likable character (obviously) but also neither are a believable character - I can't see them in the men I see walking down the street or in the seat behind me on the bus. Although this is one of the Newford novels, this particular book isn't a fantasy, and I guess I just want motivations I can comprehend without having to suspend my disbelief.

This is also one of the most preachy books I've read by de Lint. There's long passages on feminism, violence toward women, how women get trapped in abusive relationships, even the meaning or validity of Art. But I've heard it all and I've heard it done better. Nearly every de Lint book stars (or at least co-stars) an abuse survivor. I don't want soliloquies on abuse; I'd rather be shown what he wants to tell me through characters and events, not told through speeches. And as far as the arguments about art - whether "just a pretty picture" can be art - that seems a poor rehash of one of the major side plots of Brust's The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. And while it's not entirely fair to judge one author by another's work, The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars was one of the contributions to Terri Windling's "Fairy Tales" series, which de Lint also contributed to. I think it's very plausible that de Lint had either read that book or at least discussed aspects of it with Windling.

I am a big de Lint fan, but I just can't work up any enthusiasm at all for this particular book. If you want to see his darker side, try Mulengro or Angels of Darkness. If you want Newford, pick up one of his short story collections. This book I'd only recommend to completionists.

[Nikki Bezdel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book kept me turning the pages. Somewhat darker than other de Lint works that I've read, but still definitely his style. There is drama and tension in the narrative right at the start, and this builds relentlessly right until the last page. I was impressed at the author's ability to "get inside the head" of the female protagonist in this story - on the whole her emotional responses and actions are very believable in the circumstances in which she is placed. Having said that, there are one or two occasions (one in particular during the climax of the story) where I, as a female reader, lost empathy with Rachel and it is for this reason I couldn't award the book 5 stars - for me, Rachel's character could not and would not have acted as she does - I felt her authenticity was undermined to provide a more thrilling conclusion to the story.

The antagonist is also carefully wrought, with the inner workings of his fractured mind laid bare to the reader, we are full of trepidation as to what the next turn of the page will bring.

The writing was as crisp and vibrant as ever, the story fast-paced and populated with a diverse array of interesting characters, both central and supporting.

If you enjoy a good thriller, then you could do a lot worse than pick up a copy of this book.

[Shauna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was surprised that the author decided to write under another name just because the book is considered outside his usual genre. Yes, it deals with some pretty horrific subject matter but it's done in such a way that doesn't really seem terribly disturbing. Overall, the book was so preachy that it drew me out of the story and thus took away a lot of the emotional reaction I think the author was going for. I think he could have spent some more time connecting the reader to the protagonist instead of constantly jumping between characters in an effort to be dramatic and suspenseful.
I didn't think this book was terrible. It kept me reading and I did want to find out what would happen next, but in the end it fell flat.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good, although I find it weird that Charles DeLint felt the need to create a pseudonym just to write a book outside his usual genre. It was even set in the same place and mentioned some of the same characters. I'm not sure I'd even consider it horror, maybe psychological drama or possibly suspense

[Aaron Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent book with (singularly odd for de Lint) no supernatural elements to it at all.

It was actually better for their lack, which surprised me, considering that the spiritual and mythic elements of de Lint's stories are typically my favorite pieces of them.

This one is good. Very good, and well worth the read.

[Marlhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

You need to read this book "I'll Be Watching You" by Samuel Key because it tells about a couple who'm love each other then suddenly turn into a dark dream because the guy was abusing her wife,
until there's a man who came unexpectedly. So i'll just want to say that if you are in a relationship you need to know what your limits being a girl.

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all Charles De Lint's works, I think I prefer the books published under Samuel M. Key. They're darker, more raw. The fear is palpable, which I find delicious. Definitely good for a day when you have nothing to do, because you won’t want to put it down or sleep alone.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This reminded me a lot of an episode of Criminal Minds (which is one of my favorite television shows). I enjoyed it a lot, and the only reason I gave it four stars is because I felt like it got rushed toward the end.

[Sid · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of his darker stories, more of a horror than a fantasy.
But well worth the read.

[Geoff Seymour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creepy, scarey, frustrating and altogether human... another great read

[Felicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when I was in high school. I really enjoyed it. I couldn't put it down. It took me about a day and a half to finish. I am looking forward to reading this book again.

[Kaila · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my usual style, I picked it up because of the author. Actually more like 2.5 stars because I couldn't put it down but murders and cop shows and the like just aren't my bag.