Because I'm watching

 Shirley J.                          Adult Fiction                          Fractured Guilt Ridden Lives, Stalker                         Because I'm Watching: A Novel by Christina Dodd   352 pages

Maddie Hewitson is the lone survivor of a college dorm massacre.  While her dorm mates were being brutally tortured, assaulted and murdered, Maddie managed to get to her phone while the killer was distracted, but, though she had her phone and dialed 911 she was so frozen with fear she couldn't speak when the dispatcher got on the line.   The dispatcher did hear the last victim scream as the murderer was completing her demise and sent officers there.   Because she managed to hide, Maddie escaped with her life when the police arrived to rescue her.   She ended up spending time in a mental hospital trying to cope with the scene she beheld.   When she got out she did her best to live a normal life.   She later married the man of her dreams who loved her completely and unconditionally.    Then he was murdered.   Mad Maddie as she was labeled in the press was accused of killing him.  She was exonerated, but because of  her stint in a mental institution, the public perception was that she did it.  She began writing horror stories with grisly murders occuring in them, but the writing was so good they were begging to be published.   When her brother read them, he agreed they should be published but that the publisher would want her to go out on booksigning tours and do interviews which might not be good for her as she was pretty much a recluse since leaving the mental facility.   Her brother agreed to help her get them published under his name and he would do the touring, signings and interviews on radio and t.v.  It worked.  The books sold, her brother was the face in the media and he gave her an allowance from the sales.  Her brother was a stockbroker with his own business so it worked out as far as Maddie was concerned.   She just wanted to write, it was therapeutic.   She decided to move away and live in seclusion now that she had an income.  Her brother tried to talk her out of it, stating he would take care of her but she insisted she would stay in touch she just needed to get away to a new environment to continue her writing.  She did, but in moving her things to the new small town, she has a wreck and runs her vehicle into the front of the home of Veteran Jacob Denisov, a man dealing with his own demons from being captured, tortured and losing every soldier (all brutally killed) in his command while on a special assignment in Korea.   The entire front of Denisov's home is demolished.  An odd way to meet your neighbor.   Maddie is one train-wreck after another, but, Denisov sees she is fragile and despite his anger at the stupid things she continues to do and her screaming from nightmares every night, he feels sorry for her.   She is held in contempt by the locals.  It doesn't help she continues to see a stalker, a phantom in a hat and long coat and her house appears to be haunted and the night terrors.  She calls the police department daily.   The town starts calling her "Mad Maddie."  A good story that holds you from beginning to end.   So much going on and you will not rest till you reach the end.   I am going to recommend this one to adults as the crimes are pretty descriptive and the terror is tangible.