From the beginning I felt the book was lacking a backstory. It felt confusing and slow .

Thank you Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review

Happy Friday Bookbots! I read this e-ARC of NIGHTWATCHING by @tsierraauthor in three days and all I can say about this debut author is "where have you been all my life?!" This is my kind of thriller! Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publisher @vikingbooks for the e-galley.

A mother, alone with her children in a big old house, sees a strange man in her home and after skittering her kids to safety in a hidden place in the home, she fights to get help. After the incident is over, the questions start and the lines between reality, grief and dreams blur.

🏠🏠🏠

This story was heart pounding almost from the gate and the tension did not relent until the story came to it's climax. I kept going back and forth as to what I thought was the truth of the story and furiously read to the end to figure it out! I was obsessed with getting to the truth.

There is so much going on in this book, exploring the mistrust in women and specifically their memories, using "othering" to ensure one's own psychological security, and sitting in the depths of grief and sorrow.

I would HIGHLY recommend this story if you are looking for a quick, action-packed thriller with some pretty high stakes in which you are always second-guessing the facts. Easily all the stars and I can't wait to see what this author cooks up next!

❓What scares you more? Ghosts, demons, mythical monsters OR humans with bad intentions. The latter is much more terrifying to me since i.am 100% certain they exist unfortunately.❓

Stay safe out there!

💚SMASHBOT💚

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra is a debut thriller novel. The story in Nightwatching is one that is told by switching between a present and past timeline. This novel also has a unique twist of not giving the characters names during the narrative.

A mother of two young children finds herself home alone in a somewhat remote setting when she hears a sound in the house. Just up to check on her youngest she hears a man walking up the front steps and quickly gathers her children from their beds hushing them as they rush to hide.

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra was a debut that I almost passed up reading but boy am I glad I changed my mind and went ahead and picked this one up. The story kicks off into high gear revving up the tension right away with the break in keeping the pages turning. After the high octane start I still found myself unable to put this one down as it slowed a bit giving the back story of the main character but before I had a chance to worry it would fizzle the tension ratcheted right back into play and brought this one to conclusion with my only thought being boy I’d like to see this as a movie!

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a readers copy of this book. My reviews never contain spoilers and are freely given.
This thriller revolves around a mother and her two children who are home alone during a winter storm. In the middle of the night the mother wakes to comfort her child only to find someone has broken in.
I won’t reveal much more than that, but this one is a definite must read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pamela Dorman Books for the eARC! Wow! This thriller was instantaneously gripping, I could NOT stop reading. I was captivated by the story and felt the terror & tension and later the sense of mistrust. At times I was on the edge of my seat, other times my blood boiled with frustration and anger for the main character’s experience, This was an excellent psychological thriller that was a roller coaster of emotions. Incredible!

I made the mistake of starting Nightwatching one night before bed, and that was a mistake. Not only is it impossible to put down, but it's terrifying in a spine-tingling, chilling way. The idea of an intruder breaking into my house in the middle of the night and then having to escape into a blizzard is the stuff nightmares are made of, but the second-half of the book becomes even more horrifying. I was riveted right up until the final page, and I loved the main character. Despite adversity after adversity, she's a warrior, the type you want to stand up and cheer for when she final wins.

A mother is home alone with her two children during a blizzard when she hears someone coming up the steps. She knows every sound her house makes after many sleepless nights and she knows someone who is not a child is coming up. She can tell this person wants to bring them harm and she knows she needs to try to get to her kids before he makes it to them. She makes a run for it and wakes up her son and daughter and takes them to a secret space where she hopes he can't find them.

Who is the man? Do they know him? Why are they the targets? Or is the mother imagining it all or is she the one who is trying to hurt her children?

The story started with an intense bang and held my attention for a bit. Yet, by the middle, it lost some of its luster but the end brought the sense of urgency back which helped. The downside I would say had to do with the story being told from a third point of view and the ridiculous name given to the bad guy.

Cliffhanger: No

3/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by Pamela Dorman Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra.

This is a hard book to describe. It's part mystery, part adventure, part fever dream. It was hard to know what was actually real or not, the snow storm felt very metaphorical.

Having said that, I enjoyed this book, but it is a lot. It comes at you pretty hard and feels slightly disjointed, although that may be intentional.

What an intense opening scene!! It grips you from the first chapter and doesn't let go. You absolutely can't figure out if all of this is crazy ramblings of a disturbed woman or if she's actually telling the truth. It definitely keeps you engaged and the suspense feels palpable at times. I really enjoyed this.

Nightwatching
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Author: Tracy Sierra

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Penguin Group and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased.

Synopsis: A mother is forced to the breaking point when her life and the lives of her children are threatened by an intruder

Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle of the night. She hears a noise—old houses are always making some kind of noise. But this sound is disturbingly familiar: it’s the tread of footsteps, unusually heavy and slow, coming up the stairs.

She sees the figure of a man appear down the hallway, shrouded in the shadows. Terrified, she quietly wakes her children and hustles them into the oldest part of the house, a tiny, secret room concealed behind a wall. There they hide as the man searches for them, trying to tempt the children out with promises and scare the mother into surrender.

In the suffocating darkness, the mother struggles to remain calm, to plan. Should she search for a weapon or attempt escape? But then she catches another glimpse of him. That face. That voice. And at once she knows her situation is even more dire than she’d feared, because she knows exactly who he is—and what he wants.

My Thoughts: This story opens with a BIG bang, like right in the tense, suspenseful “There was someone in the house.” You know when a story opens up like this, you will be thrilled, and Sierra does not disappoint. A mother alone with her children during a blizzard, when she hears steps, she gets her children and herself in a panic room, secret room that you would not know about. The stranger tries everything he can to get them to come out from offering sweet rewards to instilling fear. Then when she sees his face, she knows exactly who he is and what he wants. Will she be able to keep her children safe? Or is this all part of mind?

The story is told in a dual timeline with the present and then the backstory to meet the present. The story starts off with a bang, I kept flipping the pages, engrossed in the tension with my heart racing for about the first 10% of the story. Then it slows a little, building our characters. I think the past tense flashbacks could have been done a little differently, it just seemed to detract from the story. Then the plot is delivered into twisty layers. Then of course, the ending was wow, mind blowing. While the characters were delved into, they were nameless, which was a new for me. I have never read a book where a character was given a name. This toppled with third person POV was a little frustrating. The ending was the redemption of rounding up to four ⭐️ for me.

This was a brilliantly written atmospheric psychological thriller with twists embedded in the twists. I really loved the zig zagging of the twists, the unpredictability and the tension of the story. Overall, I enjoyed this story and I would recommend to other readers.

A modern Panic room-esque thriller about an intruder and a mother’s journey to protect her children. The Mom’s inner monologue keeps you guessing about her version of reality and ability to be believed by law enforcement.

This book was so deliciously CREEPY!!! Halfway through I really thought that the wife had TOTALLY imagined the whole situation. And I felt so strongly hatred for the Sergeant and his doubtfulness.

I was riveted throughout the whole book - couldn't put it down and wanted it to last longer but finish at the same time!!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!! I cannot emphasize enough how much. This is easily one of the best books I've ever read. Easily. It had a total creep factor, it scared the living daylights out of me at times because of how REAL it felt, and I especially loved how you don't find out any of the characters' names. I cannot recommend this book enough. It can be brutal at times if you are a parent but I still absolutely loved it. This book is a book that makes me want to buy everything the author will write in the future. FIVE STARS!

Well yikes, this was absolutely terrifying! I’m still trying to decide if it was a good or a terrible kind of terrifying, perhaps both. I do know that once I started, I could not stop until I finished this book completely and found out what happened.

Nightwatching is about a mother who is home alone with her children when an intruder breaks into the house. It turns into a terrifying game of cat and mouse as she tries to hide and protect her children at any cost.

I'd recommend this is for those who can handle a scary and realistic story and who enjoy pageturning thrillers!

The beginning of this story is definitely the best part. It's so full of suspense and anxiety inducing. But then the plot starts to get away from you for a bit and I know the author was probably trying to get the readers minds set on this one thing that can be eluded towards so that we are blindsided when the actual ending comes and it's completely not at all what we were thinking about...I make no sense I know but I'm trying to not spoil the story for those actually interested.

Also, nobody in the book is given names, which ok I get it, but took away from the characters I feel.
All the men in this book suck. So there's that too. The ending was good not great.

Wow, this book had me feeling a certain type of way for sure. I had such anxiety reading the MC describe listening to the intruder walking around her house. And then the twist that I didn’t see coming was great. This book was very well done and will leave you questioning all the things as you go through.

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra was unputdownable! I finished it in one sitting. Suspenseful, frustrating and eye opening, Nightwatching was brilliant! I loved the suspense, brilliantly written. The author did a great job of using the plot points to discuss and portray society's view of gender differences and interactions. All the stars!

A woman and her children are asleep one night when she hears an intruder in their house. Isolated due to a heavy snowstorm, she must think quickly to get her and her kids to safety.

This novel started out strong with its creepy vibes and heart-pounding opening scene, but I ended up really disliking it. Surprisingly slow for a thriller, this almost felt more like a psychological study of the main character and her past. On top of that, I found the twists to be very far-fetched, which is a big personal pet peeve of mine in this genre. I think I may be in the minority here, but this one really missed the mark for me.

2.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Viking/Pamela Dorman Books for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Nightwatching is a thriller that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let you go! What an incredible, pulse pounding reading experience. I especially loved that it was unpredictable and kept up it’s momentum until the very end. This book is expertly crafted and doesn’t leave any loose ends behind. So very highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I think I’m very much in the minority with this one, but I struggled immensely getting through this! The beginning was definitely terrifying as a mother myself, and I was hoping it would keep up that heart pounding feeling, but the book just was too much of a slow burn for me personally, and the third person pov writing style was not my favorite, and kept pulling me out of the story, and no one had a name which was so odd to me as I read.

Thank you NetGalley and penguin group Viking for my ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.