Taut and suspenseful, How You See Me examines the terrifying power of the mind to deceive, not only others but – most destructively of all – ourselves.
Read an extract
‘I’ve probably lied to you. That’s habit. I lie to everyone about my family…’
Daniel Laird has returned to Norfolk after a nine-year absence to care for his ailing artist father. He describes his uneasy homecoming in a series of letters to his sister, his boss, and to Alice, his one true love.
But it is not until he discovers a hidden cache of his father’s paintings that the truth begins to surface about why he left all those years ago. The more Daniel writes, the more we learn about his past – and the more we begin to fear for those he holds dear.
A gripping thriller by S E Craythorne.
Yann Martel
14 April 2015A tender, poignant story, deftly executed and written in graceful, word-perfect prose. Whoever said the novel was dead hasn't read S.E. Craythorne's How You See Me. She revives an old conceit – the epistolary novel – while making a modern point: how very hard it is to know ourselves, and so how very hard it is to be understood by others. This is Romeo and Juliet meets Camus' L'Etranger. When I finished the book, it left me gutted, really gutted.
The Bookbag
A compelling and ultimately sad collection of letters reveal much about their fictional writer. Leaving us skilfully dangled, we know that a shock is coming but not that shock!
At times we may feel that we've found the darkness and can guess what’s coming.. [but] we're surprised throughout, spurred on by the page-turner breadcrumbs the author expertly scatters for us in an almost S J Watson-ish way. It's not a copy though. This may have a narrator writing theme to share with Before I Go To Sleep and is just as good, but still hangs onto an air of originality.
View source