Zoe is a very ordinary woman – do you think a central character in a thriller needs to be relatable to make the story work? verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ Until the sinister events that swiftly unfold. Next day, Zoe sees the same ad, but with a picture of a different woman – a woman whose body is discovered shortly afterwards in north London. She has been strangled. If you’re a regular train commuter then after reading I See You, you can probably add another emotion to the existing ones (boredom, frustration, etc). This thriller has been described as ‘un-putdownable’. Can you define what makes a book impossible to put down?

I See You: The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller

Yes, Zoe works hard and it’s easy to assume that she is ‘put upon’, with her children and Simon all taking advantage of her, but that isn’t entirely the case. Rightly or wrongly, Zoe has made a very conscious decision to live her life this way. Her own young adult years didn’t play out the way she expected, and she wants more for Justin and Katie. She could ask them to pay rent, but she knows they’d then never be able to save for a place of their own. As for Simon, he has offered many times to pay rent, but Zoe won’t let him, and she explains why in the book. When she split with her husband Matt, she had to start from scratch and she never wants to find herself in that position again; even though she loves Simon and hopes their relationship is for keeps, she is astute enough to want to retain financial control of her house. So yes, perhaps Zoe does put her family first a little too much, but that is her choice, just as it is the choice of many single parents today. Your protagonist, Zoe, is tired, underpaid, works way too hard and looks after two demanding grown-up children. Why does she let her partner Simon get away with not even paying any rent? But has it ever occurred to you – even once – that perhaps it is we ourselves who are being minutely observed? And not with the innocent, idle curiosity that motivates our own secret scrutiny, but with psychotic, intense focus.

About the Project