Don’t read before going to bed! Lots of tension and fear when a stranger enters a mother’s house where she is alone with her young children.. fast moving at first but then gets a bit slower and a little bit bogged down in flashbacks. Lots of twists though to keep you interested.

“There is a stranger in the house”
Intense, gripping and suspenseful debut from Tracy Sierra

This book takes you on a breath holding journey through anyone’s worst nightmare, someone is in your house, and you have to protect yourself and your children.

The pace of this book just made me want to keep reading to see what happened, and the writing made me feel everything I assume the mother felt during this ordeal - just pure suspense. Many of times I found myself holding my breath and feeling so much anxiety.

The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars was because I found myself skipping over the filler chapters to get to the nitty gritty.

Overall an amazing read. One I will not forget in a long time.

Keep one eye open.

Picture yourself… it’s the middle of the night and you hear an intruder in the house. There is just you and your young children at home. You have to hide and keep the children quiet to save yourselves from the ‘Corner’.

The first part of this book was nerve-jangling and had my palms sweating. Unfortunately though I thought the second half didn’t quite reach the same heights. The plot relied too much on incompetent police (a bugbear of mine) and I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to think of the husband.

Still a decent read just not one that I would rave about.

What an amazing debut. I finished reading it a few days ago but had to wait to write my review; to let my heart rate return to normal & to stop thinking about it during every waking moment. Seldom has a book prayed on my mind so much.

A stuff of nightmares. A mother alone in the house with her young children. She hears a noise. Footsteps. HIS voice. The memories return …

I chose this book because of the blurb, I wasn’t expecting such a tumultuous read & I couldn’t put it down. I needed to know the woman’s story & how it would play out; she was obviously mentally fragile but why? I can’t believe this was a debut novel, such powerful writing my vivid imagination was working overtime. If the next book is like this, I think I’d better start my yoga breathing techniques now. Read it but you have been warned.

The snow is falling thick and fast and she's just settled her children into bed when she hears a noise, but it's not just a normal house noise, this is the sound of footsteps on the stairs, it's not her husband because he isn't there, she knows that someone else is in the house and she has to protect her children and herself but she needs to act fast...

Nightwatching is a tense and atmospheric read, set in New England, about the horrific events a mother and her two children face one winter's night in their own home, a place where they should feel safe and secure. The story is narrated by the mother and jumps back and forth between different timelines, but her tale is so unreliable that you wonder whether it is true or if she has imagined the whole thing and I spent most of this book not knowing how it was going to pan out. This is a well crafted, fast paced tale with some great twists, although I think it's the first I've read where the characters are not referred to by name, which is a bit odd but didn't affect my enjoyment of the story. Sierra is a new to me author and one I will definitely look out for in the future.

I'd like to thank Penguin UK, Viking and Netgalley for inviting me to read this story, I will post my review on Goodreads and Amazon.

To be honest, I didn't think the book affected me until I had to stay home alone overnight. Then I realized that it had managed to get under my skin much more than I thought.

I will start by saying that the writing style is quite detailed, which slowed down my reading and made it more difficult, but I liked this because it showed the depth of what was written. From the very beginning the story kept me under pressure, as from the first sentence it put the reader in the dangerous situation. Everything was developing rapidly and at the same time too slowly because of the descriptions and thoughts of the main character, who were constantly wandering in different directions. It is these different directions that helped me get to know her, to understand about quite important moments in her life and, accordingly, to understand why she reacts the way she does, after finding out about the intruder.

At first I didn't know if what was happening at the beginning would be the main thing in the whole plot or if there would be more to happen, but as it stretched for too long through the book, at some point I began to have doubts that I would get bored because of all the delay in the action and the almost complete lack of dynamics. However, when I had already lost hope, the story took a rather unexpected direction, which I will not deny, I liked very much. I can't help but note that it was this protracted moments, which made the tension I was under to keep growing, as I was constantly wondering what would happen, would the psychopath catch her. And my fear and at the same time my anger could be read by my face when the main character began to waste too much time trying to get out of the house. It was terribly painful to follow her attempt to seek help, but because of the turmoil she had, she could not find it at all. And it annoyed me very much how the police were neglecting her, how they did not believe her and showed her that they did not take her seriously, and left her all alone against the madman. I was going crazy!

The climax is super good and gathers a lot of tension indeed, but I felt like it went very quickly and wasn't deployed to its full potential.

The denouement and the end, on the other hand, are great - they are written properly and are given the necessary attention, which I am happy with.

"Nightwatching" is a great book that, although was harder at first, once it engulfed me in the story, I didn't want to stop reading until I had all the answers.
~~~
Rating: 4/5

Do not read the blurb at the front of this book .... all you need to know is in the story itself. Tracy Sierra does not name her characters ... is this because this could happen to anyone???
The unnamed mother has had a quite traumatic life before suffering a house invasion. Her life has had definite traumas which leave her struggle to cope with everyday life, let alone any more trauma. So is this happening ... or is this the result of a disturbed mind?
I read this tale far too late into the night and it left my heart racing with panic sometimes.
Can't wait to read more by this author.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Tracy Sierra/Penguin General UK for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

A woman living in a remote, old house wakes in the middle of the night to comfort her son and tuck him back into bed. About to return to her own bed, she freezes when she hears movement on the staircase. An old house settling, or movement on the stairs? She waits, and then it becomes clear, there is an intruder in the house. Alone with her two young children, her phone left by her bedside, she panics and desperately thinks on what to do. There is a blizzard blowing outside, and the nearest house is at least half a mile away. The snow is too deep outside to run through, even if the blizzard stops. She then remembers the secret priest hole, a hiding space behind a fireplace in her husband's office. She manages to get the children and herself in there to hide, but once in there they are trapped, cornered, with nobody to know they are there. What will she do next, and how can she save her children? And why does this intruder seem so familiar?

This book starts off at breakneck pace, and we can feel the mum's panic and desperation. Her single minded determination to get her children safe, and her desperate scramble for safety almost gets the pulse going. Once she gets into the safe place, you breathe a sigh of relief. This is where things slow down however. The pace of the book slows down heavily in the middle. There are many flashbacks, much procrastination, and what feels like a lot of filler. There is a lot done to plant the seed of doubt for a lot of elements in the story, but some of it is a little clumsy. The ineptitude and attitude of the police is a little hammed up too, one would hope it would not be quite so bad! The psychological effect this has on our main character works well for the story however, so I can understand why it was written this way, but I wonder if this could have been engineered in a slightly more believable manner.

When the story gets to the end the pace picks back up again and we are on the edge of our seats again, racing along with barely a moment to catch our breaths. 3.5 stars for this one, but with a solid beginning and ending, I will round to 4.

*I received this copy from NetGalley for review but all options are my own.

I don’t think I have held my breath for an entire book before… the terror starts with everyone’s nightmare: “there’s someone in the house” and builds the present and the past flashbacks in parallel. And then the terror ramps up another level and then another as the story progresses.

In Nightwatching we follow an unnamed mother, home alone with her two young children in their fairly remote old house, with a snowstorm raging outside. When her son wakes her in the middle of the night after having yet another nightmare, she soothes him back to sleep and is preparing to return to her own bed when it suddenly occurs to her.. the noises she can hear isn’t the creaky old house or the wind raging outside.. it’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

This book definitely had its positives and its negatives for me.

I really enjoyed the story, it had me gripped and reading late in to the night. I couldn’t stop reading, I needed to see how it would end.

The main downside for me was the writing.. I know that doesn’t make sense when I’ve just said I couldn’t stop reading it but I just didn’t love the writing style, it wasn’t for me, it felt too flowery and over the top sometimes. I was able to get past that and still enjoy the story though.
I also felt like some of the flashbacks took me away from the main plot and made the story lose some of the tension it had built up in the present day but I raced through those chapters dying to get to the next present day chapter to see what was going to happen next. Finally, my last little gripe was “the corner”, I hated the name and to be honest it just made me cringe every time I saw it.

As you can imagine I’m quite conflicted on what to rate it but based on the fact I did enjoy the plot, it did keep me gripped and I was able to push aside my dislike of the writing style, I think it deserves a good rating so I’m going to give it a solid 3.5-4⭐️ rating.

I was sent a copy of Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra to read and review by NetGalley. What a brilliant book, a real page turner! It is so gripping and terrifying that I didn’t even want to read it before going to bed in case it disturbed my sleep! The thing that makes it so very frightening is that you can imagine this really happening, and with what we hear on the news these days I’m sure it does. I won’t give any of the story away, if you like a good thriller then just get on and read it. Be warned though, it is not for the faint hearted.

This book has got to be one of the best psychological thrillers that I read in a long time, from the very first page I was gripped and it had me reading late into the night.
The author has managed to create an intense, disturbing and creepy atmosphere that brings you right into the story, you are living it.
There are footsteps on the stairs, someone is in the large, creepy old house,someone who shouldn't be there, the terrified woman's first thought is for her children, she had to get them to safety, she must quickly formulate a plan, where were his footsteps going ? she needed to know the direction so that she could grab her children and hide in the hidden space behind the fireplace then wait for him to leave........but he didn't leave, what did she do ? did she stay with her children or did she try to get help? By this time in the story the tension is at fever pitch and the suspense nail biting, would the children stay quiet ? did she recognise the intruder ? did he know where they were, was he playing with them ? could she battle the blizzard and the snow to get help ?...................or was the man really there, could she have imagined it ?
This story is told in real time with flashbacks to tell the family's strange story, it has so many twists and turns that it could make you dizzy and I for one had absolutely no idea how it was going to end.
Thank you to NET Gallery for my free ARC, my review is voluntary.

Nightwatching is not like any other book I've read before. The writing style and the absence of people's names both add to the nightmarish scenario of a mother protecting her children. Is it a thriller or is it a murder mystery? I don't know....but in a strange way I found myself really enjoying it. It took me a while to get into the story but I'm glad I stuck with it. I look forward to more from Tracy Sierra. Thank you to the publisher, the author and netgalley for an arc

I’m always a little apprehensive about reading books that have been super hyped, but this one more than lived up to its reputation. A masterful exploration of fear, injustice, a mother’s intuition, and the lengths she’ll go to to protect her children, it gripped me like a vise from start to finish.

The opening chapters are spine-chilling.

The mother is alone at home in an isolated house with her young daughter and son. It’s the middle of the night. A snowstorm is raging outside. And an intruder is in the house. Sensing imminent danger, she rouses the children and hides with them in a secret space under the stairs, where they listen to the man’s taunts as he tries to flush them out.

The intensity is off the scale. Claustrophobic to the point of suffocating, it is magnified tenfold by the mother’s feverish inner debate about the identity of the intruder and what to do next.

As it develops, there are points in the narrative where you feel that the pace is starting to stall, but time and again, author Tracy Sierra injects another twist or intrigue to snap you right back into the story.

I was fascinated by the fact that neither the mother nor her children are given names, despite the entire narrative being in the third person. They are simply: the woman, the girl, the boy. This depersonalisation has the unsettling effect of making them more, rather than less, relatable: SHE could be ME; THESE could be MY children.

This story both terrified and enraged me. The former because of the unbearable tension, and the latter because of the blatant misogyny and discrimination displayed by the police.

The ending, however, was hugely satisfying and a fulsome tribute to a mother’s love.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin in exchange for an honest review

DNF at 32%.

I shouldn’t have requested this book. I know that I hate hostage stories because people being captive in a room cannot be interesting but the reviews were so good that I requested it anyway and I never connected with it. After several days and only just getting past 30% while skimming
a fair amount of the captivity scenes, I realized I did not care who the Corner was and I did not care if the family made it out alive and it was time to give up. This author did do a good job of creating an atmospheric intro but I was lost after that.

I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher in return for an honest review. This review is based entirely on my own thoughts and feelings.

Overall rating : 4*
Writing skill : 4*
Plot: 5*
Pace: 4*
Characters: 5*

The anxiety I felt in the first 25% of this book is unlike any other story I’ve read. I was gripped. I was rooting for the family and I disliked the intruder to my core!!
The pace on this book was really fast, but we still got to see flashbacks from months prior with utter ease. My bug bear with many books from the past few years is the reference to lockdown, covid and quarantines. Why is it necessary?!!
Anyway loved loved loved this book and I’ll be recommending it all my suspense thriller loving friends! Massive 4.5*

This started out as a very exciting and tense story. I was literally on the edge of my seat praying the kids would keep quiet. Unfortunately that was the only good bit of the book. What follows seemed like a lot of fluff and waffle much of which added absolutely nothing to the plot. I didn’t think that not using names was clever but rather annoying especially when the only sort of name that was actually given was the silliest one ever!

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for this eCopy to review

Nightwatching has a fantastic start, full of fear and tension as a strange man enters the family home forcing the mother to hide with her 2 children. Unfortunately, there are then many flashbacks which slow the story down and all the fear is lost. It was difficult to connect with the characters as they are never named. There are many twists which have you questioning everything you read just like the police do with the mother. The ending is very gripping. Highly terrifying in places definitely not one to read when on your own

At times this book was excellent when the mother and her two young children were hiding and trying to escape from an intruder.

At this point it is also worth noting the brilliant descriptions of the house itself. An old New England property (300 years old?) with poor locks on doors and windows. In addition, the book is set in winter time and the house is snowed in. All in all leading to an exciting escape.

However, whilst hiding from the creepy intruder the tension was then lost with many flashbacks concerning the mother's family, her husband and his family, and I ended up skipping these to get back to the 'action'.

I felt the book could have been better with much fewer flashbacks.

Thanks to Net Galley and Penguin General UK for the chance to read and review.

I wanted to love this book more than I did, but I feel really conflicted!

The start of the book was brilliant; straight into the action, with an intruder in the house, in the middle of a blizzard with no escape. I found I was physically tensing my body!

And then it switched to flashbacks and the tension melted away. Some of the flashbacks were relevant, but most were pointless filler, sadly. I also didn’t like the fact that none of the characters were named, which, along with the disjointed narrative between present and past, made it difficult to connect with the characters.

Towards the end, the flashbacks stopped and the tension built again, to an exciting ending, somewhat redeeming the slow middle.

3 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Tracy Sierra and Penguin for an ARC in return for an honest review.