Esther is Now Following You by Tanya Sweeney review

About The Book

Book: Esther is Now Following You
Author: Tanya Sweeney
Standalone or Series: Standalone
Publisher: Bantam
Publication Date (UK): 29th January 2026

My Review

After hearing Sweeney discuss her debut at a Transworld dinner during the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, then seeing the bold colours of the proof and reading the blurb, I knew this was one I was looking forward to. I expected a fun read, and it is fun, but it’s also another beast entirely.

Esther is Now Following You is dark. This isn’t just a light take on celebrities, parasocial relationships and unhinged stalkers. When we first meet Esther, she’s in a comfortable, albeit slightly stagnant, phase of life with her husband. Until a traumatic event hits them both hard. We also learn about her difficult childhood. So you can understand, and maybe even forgive, when she so dramatically pulls the pin on her own life.

As a big Coupland fan, I was excited how the opening gives Esther’s friends Mastermind specialist subjects, like in Microserfs. I loved Sweeney’s writing style, there’s a dark humour running throughout. How Esther is written is fab: she’s funny, likeable, sarcastic and real. But she goes from casually using social media to check in on friends to being fully swept up in an obsession with a celebrity, Ted, after bumping into him one day and then stumbling across an online forum dedicated to him.

It’s filled with people like Esther (lonely, struggling and looking for a distraction) who label themselves the Tedettes and spiral into consuming everything they can about him, launching virtual attacks on any woman in his life and sharing increasingly unhinged fan fiction. Just what lengths will Esther go to in order to meet Ted again and change her life?