Reviewed by Manik Chaturmutha for Readers' Favorite

I Can See It In Your Eyes by J.R. Abella opens with a nameless predator who lures and murders a woman named Anna in New Orleans, and closes the loop later with a traveling salesman meeting the same fate at the same hotel. The title itself is the phrase almost every sinister figure in the book repeats the moment they recognize darkness in someone else, tying the whole cycle together. Anna's death sends her spirit into a cursed book, turning her into an avenging succubus who begins hunting men across the following stories. Meanwhile, an orphan named Claude becomes a sorcerer's apprentice in a hidden apothecary, learning to turn men into living dummies by trading their eyes for cursed glass ones. Claude eventually creates his most dangerous servant, Jimmy, a dummy who overthrows his master and escapes into other people's stories, carrying the cursed eye with him. Along the way, a failed ventriloquist trades his own eye for fame, a rookie detective stumbles into the aftermath of a bizarre murder, and a womanizing traveling salesman unknowingly follows the same path as the book's earliest victims. The collection closes with the narrator directly addressing the reader in an epilogue, merging the boundary between story and reality.

I Can See It In Your Eyes by J.R. Abella works best as a linked anthology. The New Orleans apothecary setting is built with a light touch: chalk symbols on doorframes, creatures in jars, a "Dictionary of the Unnatural" passed between characters, enough detail to feel lived-in without slowing the plot down to explain the rules of its magic. That restraint extends to how each story is told from a different angle and voice, whether that's a detective's procedural report or a salesman's self-satisfied narration, which keeps the shared mythology feeling fresh instead of repetitive across eight separate plots. Claude's transformation from starving orphan to cruel sorcerer is the strongest arc, and his downfall at the hands of Jimmy, the dummy he refuses to fully trust, lands as earned rather than convenient, since his hidden defiance is planted well before the reveal. That kind of foreshadowing shows up elsewhere too, with small throwaway details in early stories quietly paying off two or three chapters later, rewarding readers who catch them on a first pass. The writing is straightforward and accessible throughout, and the fourth-wall-breaking epilogue, where the narrator seems to speak directly to the reader, is an unsettling closing touch, echoing the blurred-reality tricks of Cortázar, whom the author cites as an influence. This book suits readers who enjoy pulpy, interconnected horror anthologies and cursed-object mythology.