Watch Your Back by Emma Christie review

About The Book

Book: Watch Your
Author: Emma Christie
Standalone or Series: Standalone
Publisher: Mountain Leopard Press
Publication Date (UK): 23rd October 2025

🔍Standout Read. Awarded to books I highly recommend.

My Review

“We waste half our lives wondering how other people judge us and the other half judging ourselves”

Watch Your Back is a crime novel set across two undeclared timelines, though we can make a good guess that the first takes place around 2005–2006, thanks to a few cultural clues, while the other lands fifteen years later.

It’s my first Christie, though it’s actually her fourth book and like the others it’s set in Portobello, Scotland. I loved the touches of local flavour from the mentions of macaroni pie and the occasional Scottish vernacular. However, we need to talk about “skelf”… what’s up with that? It sounds more like an ’80s Jim Henson creation than a splinter!

With its working class, housing estate setting the novel doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of life. The attitudes can be bleak at times and there’s a lot of homophobia mentioned. However I did find the book invites us to look beyond people’s behaviour and ask why they are the way they are. At one point, the teenagers in the earlier timeline are rebelling and being antisocial, and an adult snaps, “You not got a home to go to?” They find this infuriating because of course they do. But they would prefer to be out late in the cold rather than in, so what does that say about their homes? About their lives? The book teaches us to be kinder to others and ourselves, like the quote I opened this review with.

There are a few mysteries to be solved across the two timelines: who stole the unopened letters? What did the letters say? What happened to Tink’s mum? Christie reveals information with just the right pacing, keeping you guessing until the end when everything clicks satisfyingly into place.

Honestly, I didn’t expect Watch Your Back to make me think as much as it did. A deeply human crime story that will stay with you.

Thank you so much to Emma Christie and Mountain Leopard Press for sending me a copy of the book to review.