BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, three women, three stories

320pp., paperback, Jonathan Ball Publishers, Cape Town, 2026

ISBN: 9781776194902

Joy Watson traces the inner lives of three women in heterosexual relationships characterised by emotional manipulation and psychological control. These are real stories, lightly fictionalised to protect those who lived them, and are interwoven with reflections from the author’s own experience.

"Few people can write with as much empathy and understanding about the experience of being a woman moving through the world as Joy Watson." Rebecca Davis

Joy Watson is a feminist researcher and writer who has worked extensively with women’s rights organisations and feminist movements and has been engaged in research projects both in South Africa and globally. Her debut novel, The Other Me, was published in 2022.