Damon, Erica – I Saw Her

I Saw Her

~Erica Damon

I Saw Her by Erica Damon is a pin being pulled from a grenade you didn’t know was hanging out in the front pocket of the head cheerleaders duffel. It detonates, and quick. Forty-two pages, one senior year, and a friendship that curdles into something far uglier than jealousy. Damon spins off a side character from her Bleeding Hearts Valley series I Saw You Sweetheart, and she does it where you don’t have to know a thing about the first book to enjoy this one – though it doesn’t hurt.

Kristy and Hazel have been best friends long before their first last day of high school. Both fresh off summers spent with family, Kristy anxious to catch up. But Hazel walks in with a different attitude, and Kristy can’t figure out what is going on. Then Hazel drops the bomb: she’s trying out for cheerleader. Suddenly it’s classes, college applications, pom-pom dreams, and a shiny new trio of friends to orbit while Kristy is left holding onto a friendship on the cusp of foreclosure. One weekend Hazel chooses to ‘hang’ with her new crowd without including Kristy, only come Monday the trio have simply vanished. Suspicions they’ve run off and will resurface are spread, but the longer it goes the more rumors get spread. But Kristy stumbles upon something that could reroute everything and has to make a decision…

Damon builds Kristy as the entire driving-force in the story with the swipe of an artist’s brush. There is no slow warm-up. You get a fully-formed high school senior in just a handful of pages – and boy, is she a handful. The giddiness of senior year hits home. The sting when Hazel shuns her swells. That specific betrayal watching your best friend bump shoulders with the very enemy you used to mock? Raw. Petty. Painfully teenage. And it’s 100% spot-on. This is Kristy’s story and Damon doesn’t waste a moment on supporting characters other than when necessary. The fork is buried deep with moral perplexity. For me, the biggest weakness was the length of the story – because I wanted MORE. But that wasn’t a flaw, that was purpose.

ISH runs on a clean, dual timeline of Before and Now, with bells ringing at the end of a school day, kids rushing out the doors pacing. Quick, no time to waste. No epic worldbuilding or atmospheric fog machine here. Readers get exactly enough scenery to smell the boys locker room and hear the hall doors shutting as the tardy bell rings, then gets out of the way letting emotion do the heavy lifting. Transitions snap and immersion doesn’t come from how the world looks, but how badly it hurts. It’s lean, mean, and a thrill machine.

Releasing on September 4, 2026 on Amazon and KU, I Saw Her is one of seven shorts in the Sinners Retreat: Seven Ways to Sin event. Join Damon’s mailing list for notice of the event to join in on the fun and giveaways!

I would like to thank author Erica Damon for the opportunity to preview I Saw Her. As always, all opinions and reviews are of my own volition, Karen Brooks aka The Tx Lit Chic. I have not been promised any compensation, current or future, by the author or publisher for a fair and honest review of I Saw Her.

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