Olympic gold medallist Maggie Mac Neil makes a splash with the first thriller on Canada Reads
Canada Reads will air March 17-20 on CBC TV, CBC Radio and CBC Books
Olympic gold medallist Maggie Mac Neil is championing the thriller Watch Out for Her by Samantha M. Bailey on Canada Reads 2025!
Mac Neil is a Canadian swimmer who competed in two Olympic Games and won three medals at Tokyo 2020: Gold, Silver and Bronze.
The great Canadian book debate will take place on March 17-20. This year, we are looking for one book to change the narrative.
The debates will be hosted by Ali Hassan and will be broadcast on CBC Radio One, CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Listen, YouTube and CBC Books. Canada Reads airs at 10 a.m. ET (11 a.m. AT, 1:30 p.m. NT) on CBC Radio One and 1 p.m. ET (2 p.m. AT, 2:30 p.m. NT) on CBC TV. You can tune in live or catch a replay on the platform of your choice.
An Olympian ready for her next challenge
Maggie Mac Neil is a Canadian swimmer who competed in two Olympic Games and won three medals at Tokyo 2020: Gold, Silver and Bronze. She is an eight-time world champion, three-time NCAA champion and holds three world records. She is also the first person to simultaneously hold titles in 100m butterfly in the NCAA, Olympics, world short course metres and world long course metres.
She was raised in London, Ont., and attended the University of Michigan for her undergrad and Louisiana State University for her Master of Science in Sport Management. In 2024, after the Paris Olympics, she retired from swimming to focus on applying to law school.
Return to reading
An avid reader in childhood, Mac Neil had to put reading for pleasure on hold as she trained for the Olympics and finished school.
"It wasn't until I retired from swimming and even when I finished up my degree in May of 2024 that I picked up a book for leisure for the first time," she told CBC Books.
Since then, she's read 18 books and counting, and has spent many late nights engrossed in good novel or memoir now that she doesn't have to wake up so early for training.
"It's nice that I have the time, too, and I think it's the perfect time to get reading back in my life."
The first thriller on Canada Reads
As she started reading again, Mac Neil was drawn to books that keep her captivated — and that's why she's bringing the first thriller to Canada Reads.
"I just love feeling suspense and trying to figure out what's going to happen at the end," she said on CBC Radio's Commotion.
I just love feeling suspense and trying to figure out what's going to happen at the end.- Maggie Mac Neil
"You don't have have to read a book to learn something. You can read something because you simply enjoy it."
She's hoping that a page-turning novel like Watch Out for Her will help get other Canadians excited about reading, just like it has for her.
"As someone who picked up reading more vigorously later in life, hopefully this book will encourage others if they haven't started that journey for themselves."
A babysitting gig gone horribly wrong
Watch Out for Her is about a young mother named Sarah who thinks her problems are solved when she hires a young babysitter, Holly, for her six-year-old son. Her son adores Holly and Holly adores Sarah, who is like the mother she never had. But when Sarah sees something that she can't unsee, she uproots her family to start over.
Her past follows her to this new life, raising paranoid questions of who is watching her now? And what do they want?
Bailey is a journalist and editor in Toronto. Her first thriller, Woman on the Edge, was released in 2019 and was an international bestseller. Her other novels include A Friend in the Dark and Hello, Juliet. Her journalistic work can be found in publications including NOW Magazine, The Village Post, The Thrill Begins and The Crime Hub.
Surveillance and suspense
When reading Watch Out for Her, Mac Neil connected with the characters' concerns around privacy and surveillance as someone in the public eye.
"Privacy is a big thing," she said. "In the digital age, it becomes even harder to keep that. Especially with my accomplishments and what I've done, I didn't necessarily want to put myself in the spotlight. It kind of just happened because I was succeeding and and trying to be the best athlete that I could be."
While the characters in Watch Out for Her aren't public figures like Mac Neil, Bailey was interested in using her novel to dive into the idea of watching and being watched, particularly when it comes to childcare.
"I wanted to explore the idea that we can't watch who watches our children when we're not there," she said in an interview with CBC Books.
In Watch Out for Her, she also wanted to touch on the concept of innocence — and the inevitability that even good people will make mistakes.
"I think only children are innocent. How can you be totally innocent if you're human? Because if you're human, that means you're flawed."
I also wanted to explore the idea that we can't watch who watches our children when we're not there.- Samantha M. Bailey
"If you're human, that means you've been hurt and you've been traumatized and you've gone through difficult situations and you've hurt other people and you've made mistakes."
