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

When a mother wakes and here’s an intruder in her house, she has to make a choice. She chooses to hide with her two children and listen as the intruder searches them down.

I’m in two minds about this book. It was a good read but maybe not my normal choice.

This book was written from the mother’s point of view and although mainly in the present, there were some flashbacks to relevant past events. None of the characters have a name in this book, not the mother, her two children or anyone. The only named character is ‘the corner’ the monster in the house. I found this quite weird if I’m honest. However on reflection this works well for this book. It helps to build the suspense and the spooky atmosphere.

The book has many twists and turns, and the conclusions I was forming as I read, were constantly changing. In fact the ending felt like a complete 360. The start and end chapters felt jam packed but the middle section was a bit slow and frustrating.

I think I enjoyed this, and I would recommend as I’m not interested in others opinions.

Up on Goodreads now, live on the blog on 29 January:

Man, what a book to end my bookish year with! I had no idea when I picked my last book of 2023, I’d be in for such a thrill fest! Nightwatching was such a claustrophobic read for me! It’s horribly realistic, and therefore absolutely terrifying. I was so glad I wasn’t home alone!

But our main character is in fact home alone with her small children, when there is a home invasion. They run, they hide, from what might be man or monster or both, and it gives the story a dark, nightmarishly glow. The alternating chapters offering glimpses of the past did nothing to relieve the tension, if anything they cranked it up, as you have to wait to find out what is happening in the dead of night.

At a certain point, and for quite a long time, I kinda lost the plot, not quite knowing which way was up, or what and who to believe. How reliable is our narrator? Is she a distraught mother, a fantasist or even a liar? I do love it when a thriller puts me through the wringer, making me question everything, including myself.

Nightwatching is a most excellent debut and it has definitely put Tracy Sierra on my authors-to-watch list. It had my heart racing and my fingers tapping the screen of my Kobo as fast as I could. I even denied myself that extra chapter in bed, knowing I wouldn’t sleep a wink if I did. Nerve-wracking and heart-breaking, I loved Nightwatching! Highly recommended.

Nightwatching is out in hardcover, digital formats and audio on 8 February.

Massive thanks to Viking and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

OMG !!

“There’s someone in the house “ Yep that’ll draw me in from the start .

This is a must read , telling the story of a mother and her children living in an old creaky house … full of twists and turns superbly paced and very cleverly told using flashbacks to fill you in on the characters .

“ Mama you said monsters didn’t exist “
She lowered her head feeling a great weight descend
“ I’m sorry she whispered I lied “

Superb !!!! Go add this to your tbr absolutely brilliant
Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to ARC read this book - Brilliant !! This is my Goodreads review superb !! Happy new year 😍

What an incredibly well written, tightly plotted, rollercoaster of a book! I was hooked from the outset and admit there were times when my adrenaline probably matched the action in the book. I don’t want to give away the plot etc but suffice to say there were times when I questioned who I believed and what I thought may have happened. A really enjoyable read and I’m definitely going to look out for more by Tracy Sierra.

Terrifying! I couldn't put it down at the start but found it genuinely disturbing and scary, after my first read of the early pages I wasn't sure I wanted to carry on. But I did something I wouldn't normally do - read some GR reviews to try and see why people had enjoyed it as I didn't think the hype would have been what it was if it continued to be quite so scary. I read that it developed from there and there were unepxected twists etc and this made me decide to keep reading. I enjoyed the rest of it and got scared again at the end!

I absolutely loved this book! I was so anxious the whole time reading it! Fast paced, smart and very intriguing.
100% recommend!

DNF at 20%

There is potential with this but I’m just not vibing and I really wanted to like it.

The constant flashbacks pulled me out of the tension and I struggled to then get back into it. I found myself skimming over the flashbacks which is when I realised this isn’t for me.

I think if the flashbacks had been reduced quite significantly this would have been an amazing book. Just need to work on keeping the suspense going.

Nightwatching Tracey Sierra

4 stars

When I am doing my reviews I usually jot down the names of the main characters so that if I forget someone I can check back on the name. This is the first book that I have ever read where there are no names at all.

The woman in the book is a housewife with two young children, a son and a daughter of 10 and 8, who lives in a remote area. To begin with, we are lead to believe that her husband is away so when she hears strange footsteps in her house and the shadowy image of a huge man her first reaction is to hide with her children in a hidey hole. She hears the intruder searching systematically through the house and realises that he will eventually work out where they are. Therefore when she hears his footsteps at the top of the house in the attic she takes the opportunity to escape to get help telling the children to stay completely quiet and wait for help which she promises she will bring.

Absolutely terrified and unsure if she is being pursued she runs to the nearest neighbour’s house which is a few miles away injuring herself really badly on the journey. She wakes up in hospital but her children have been rescued, however there is no sign of any intruder.

I enjoyed this book and was desperate to know how it ended but I did not relate to the non-existence of any names and if anything it detracted from the book as it was difficult to picture the characters. I also thought it was a little too long with too much detail about her previous life and I found her father-in-law, also nameless a very unpleasant person and was amazed that he was allowed to look after the children.

However if you like this kind of psychological thriller it was well worth the read.


Karen Deborah
Reviewer for Net Galley

Wow! Absolutely great book. The storyline is brilliant. I was never sure of what was real and what wasn't and the ending was superb! Highly recommended.

I love a good psychological thriller so I was looking forward to reading this book which is out on 8th February 2024. I received an advance copy in exchange for a review, thanks to Penguin General UK and NetGalley for this.

The book has quite a creepy opening, the protagonist thinks someone is in her house, so takes her two young children and hides with them in a secret space behind the fireplace. There’s a blizzard outside and her nearest neighbours aren’t close by. Eventually, the police are alerted but no one seems to believe her. Did she imagine the whole thing?

For me, the first half of the book was so slow and after initial curiosity I got quite bored. Most of it is the main character being hysterical behind a wall. It does pick up a bit in the second half but it was quite a slog to get to that point.
There are seemingly random flashbacks which do give you a little background on the characters but I felt they made the story quite disjointed.
I couldn’t connect with any of the characters, none of them had names which I found strange. The intruder is nicknamed ‘the Corner’ which annoyed me, I kept misreading it as Coroner. It didn’t make sense to me, even Corner Man would have been better.
The main character really grated on me for some reason. I do sympathise with what she’s been through but couldn’t warm to her at all.
I wasn’t sure how realistic the conduct of the police was, they seemed to totally disbelieve her and wanted to catch her out.

It’s billed as a terrifying and gripping psychological thriller but at no point was I terrified, gripped, or thrilled.
I had hoped to enjoy this book but it wasn’t for me unfortunately.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book started well, full of suspense but then it kind of dragged along for a while. I thought about giving up at one point.

I wasn’t sure what kind of genre the book was going to be - suspense, horror, supernatural….in then end it was a bit disappointing.

Sadly this was not for me. Consisting mainly of the internal ramblings of an unreliable narrator / main character, there was little dialogue or interactions to enjoy. There was also little to no character development and with all the characters referred to as "husband", "girl", "boyish policeman" etc it was really hard to connect with or care about what happened to them. The only thing that kept me reading was to see what the author's ultimate intentions were (that and I hate not finishing a book) but sadly that didn't help.

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra is a solid and enjoyable debut.

A woman who lives in a spooky old house wakes in the middle of the night and realises that there is an intruder. She bundles her small children into a secret “priest hole” like space behind a fireplace and tries desperately to work out what to do next. At least half a mile from another house, with a heavy dump of snow outside, she listens in utter panic as the man goes from room to room. Worse still, somewhere at the back of her mind, she thinks she knows where she has come across him before …

The start of this book is high octane, thrilling and utterly claustrophobic. It is difficult to read it and to remember to breathe! It is reminiscent of the Jodie Foster film Panic Room but with a much trickier scenario. The ending is similarly edge of your seat incredible.

The middle part of the story feels a little stodgy. There are a lot of flashbacks and filling around the edges of the family story and dynamics. There is also a credible, if not a little forced, effort to cause the reader to question the credibility of some of the protagonists.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin UK/Viking for an advance copy.

This is one terrifying, tense and seriously well executed thriller. This one really did give me nightmares for a couple of nights after finishing it - in the best possible way. Can't wait to see what Tracy writes next

I was intrigued by the book blurb on this book and felt compelled to read it. I had read a couple of reviews and readers seemed to be terrified by it and advised not to read it late at night! Well…………I wasn’t terrified but it’s definitely a scary thought some man being in your house when you are home alone with your kids. Luckily, this mother lives in a very old house with more than one staircase and connecting doors and secret panels and hiding places.
It’s quite hard to summarise my feelings as I read it without spoilers, suffice to say at times it was a bit slow, at times it was a bit of an imagination stretch and at times I wondered (as I was supposed to I presume) if there actually was an intruder or if it was all in the mother’s mind.
I was definitely intrigued enough to read on and see what ultimately happened. I don’t suppose any of us knows how we would react in that situation.

I couldn’t resist requesting this book after seeing it mentioned on social media by a number of authors that I admire. This wouldn’t necessarily be my type of read, as I find reading books that involve children in precarious situations to be a bit much for me, but this book lived up to the hype.

A mother is at home alone with her daughter and son when she becomes aware of a presence in the house. Does she try and get out, fight or hide? What follows was a vivid story of a mother and her devotion to her children,

There is one part in particular near the end that actually made me gasp out loud when reading. I really couldn’t predict which way the story would go whilst reading.

Thank you NetGalley for a thrilling, if scary, read.

In the synopsis of Nightwatching......

There was someone in the house.
In that split second, she has three choices.
Should she hide? Should she run? Or should she fight?

What she shouldn't do is go in to some sort of introspection mode. Anyone ever faced with a life or death choice isn't afforded the luxury of a novel's worth of self-analysis. I know, I've been there several times.

So, for me it was in no way scary or even thrilling and didn't bear any semblance of reality.

This is scary in as much as how quickly the police believe that she is psychotic and imagining what has occurred.

The story was really scary in places, although it was slow in parts hence 3 stars.

Wow wow wow, I hated how scary this was at the beginning and could not stop thinking about it. I wanted to just read this book all day long, well written, believable, and I would recommend this to anyone.

A completely spellbinding book, the story of a woman who, having had to face assumptions and comments from an early age because of her skin pigmentation, is already doubtful of her own worth. But with her husband in an old house in a new area she has a happy family - though her father in law makes it clear that she is not to his taste. Tending to her mother in law up to her death does not change her father in law's opinion of her and he tries to create tension between her and her husband. Incidents pass, some small and some serious, life changing and her childhood anxieties rise, leaving her feeling exposed and as though she is being watched.
The author describes the feelings of desperation, the fear of net being believed and the self doubt to perfection. A book that will make you check the doors and double checking your own actions. A reminder to keep faith in yourself. Five stars.