5 Stars from me

This is the perfect late-night scare fest. So good - I am not sure I breathed once while reading it!

Tracy Sierra has done a superb job of creating multi-level thriller which seems to be half psychological and half crime - if it weren't for the annoying real life things like work and sleep I could definitely have stayed up all night to read this one.

What I loved most was the constant air of who is telling the truth, is the mother a reliable character, or the policeman, or the grandfather? I was constantly questioning what was real, especially as that was so pivotal to what might happen next.

Truly brilliant, great storytelling and at times put me in mind of the level of suspense from other great such as The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean.

Any thriller fans will love having the pants scared of them by this one!

A fabulously written gripping story that was a pleasure to read. I would absolutely recommend this book, it was brilliant

I loved this book, it really shows what a mother can do to protect their children and never underestimate a mothers intuition.
The thing I loved but also found frightening is the fact that this really could happen to anyone.
Certain characters in this book infuriated me, but in the way they were meant to.
I thought the characters in this book were very well written. The main character especially, not the typical heroic mum from books and movies, much more realistic.
The bad guy character in this book is terrifying, all that calculated planning and sneaking around and nobody knew what he was doing.
The cop in charge in this book infuriated me, I get the situation was odd, but he was so rude, I actually started to wonder if he was somehow involved.
I will be recommending this book to everyone I know and especially my book group, perfect book for them to read

A decent, anxiety-fuelled story for the nights where you don’t much fancy an easy night’s sleep! I enjoyed the pacing of this novel. I found the explanations at the end a little drawn out but appreciated that the loose ends had to be tied off.

I liked the premise of this book, a dark, psychological thriller, set in a bleak, atmospheric area, with snow on the ground and a bogeyman about. Unfortunately it didnt quite work for me. It felt a bit rambling at the start, but then we got some flashbacks, which at times I couldn’t quite tell what relevance they had to the story. I found I couldn’t empathise with the mother at all. The vitiligo thread of the story didn’t seem to bring anything to the text, but maybe if there had been a bit more about it, it would have. It is well written, I didn’t guess all of the ending but much too dark for me. Worth a read if you like to be really scared while you read late into the night, it’s just not the book for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This is a fabulous, creepy, scary, tense read. A young mother wakes and checks her sleeping children. Then, in her sleepy state sees a large man standing in the shadows….how can she protect her children? Where can they hide?

I was absolutely riveted throughout this well written tale. I was amazed by how the tension is maintained throughout and how well written all of the characters are. The lead character will stay with me for a long time as the author plants doubt in our minds about her sanity; is she the monster? If not, who is The Corner, the horrifying creature that appears to be vaguely familiar?

Oh, but, it’s a cracking read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General, UK for the opportunity to preview this fabulous tale.

A really scary scenario right from the start and the author manages to make it very difficult to tell whether the main character is really experiencing the events or not. Probably not a book for anyone who is of a nervous disposition wh9 has young children. It was difficult to put down.

It’s the middle of the night and a blizzard is raging outside. A young mother tries to settle her son when she hears a creak on the stairs. Nothing to worry about, she thinks, this is an old, old house so it creaks. But wait – the creaks form a pattern, heavy footsteps on the stairs. She makes a snap decision, grabs her two children, and sneaks quietly down another flight of stairs to a secret room where she hopes they’ll be safe.

The first couple of chapters are stuffed so full of words it’s overwhelmingly suffocating, which certainly ramps up the tension, but it is a little over the top. The author employs the use of italics to convey the young mother’s thoughts, and I say “young mother” because you never learn her name. In fact you never learn the name of any of the characters. The little boy is often referred to as “her son” or “her little boy”, likewise the daughter has suitable gender references. Her daughter is the one to name the unseen intruder as The Corner, Why? Because she caught a glimpse of a “monster” in the corner of her room. This name sticks throughout the book, as does the place of hiding which is the “hidden place”.

This woman has flashbacks to various incidents in her life, most of which are uninteresting and don’t add much to the story. She apparently has a husband but he’s nowhere to be seen on this night of terror. The two police who arrive to investigate are only ever known as “the sergeant” and “the boyish policeman”. Aaaggh! I can’t work out if this lack of names is just laziness on the part of the author – lack of imagination maybe – or if it’s some sort of ploy to add to the mystery and tension. It doesn’t allow the reader to connect with any of the characters, and why are they all so horrible? The mother has the father-in-law from hell, and everyone, including herself, thinks she hysterical or delusional. It’s all too ridiculous.

I believe this is the author’s first novel. Unfortunately it doesn’t encourage me to look for any future offerings.

My thanks to Netgalley for an ARC





I believe this is the author’s first novel. Unfortunately it doesn’t encourage me to look for any future offerings.

Thank you to the publishers and author for an advanced copy of this forth coming book, a psychological crime thriller involving a mum and her two two young children with their home invaded by an unknown intruder; what would you do - fight, hide give in?
High hopes on this as it sounded just up my suburban street, but alas for me soon found it tense but lacking development and I couldn't relate to the mum, just get on with it ! creep about, avoid Mr Corner (name given to the interloper!) oh dear, lets hide again, then sneak about I was so bored and my tenseness' turned into boredom, fast reading was in order but still felt like chewing cotton balls or scratchy nails on a blackboard. Not for me,

When I began reading I expected the usual thriller format. This book goes beyond that.

It's not just a story of what might be a break in. It's not just about the potential intruder and victims. This delves into mental illness, trauma, abuse, horror, the supernatural, and death.

Through one horrific night we learn about a woman who's endured so much, but can we trust her fragile mind?

This is where the author writes skillfully; teetering between reality and possible gaslighting.

A powerful book.

I hated this book. Every horrifying, infuriating, anxiety-inducing page of it that had me staying up late reading, then unable to sleep. The suspense! The impossibility of looking away! The desperate need I now have for Sierra to write another book! It's just not fair.

Nightwatching drops you right in the middle of the horror with the very first line: "There was someone in the house."

A mother, alone and helpless in the house with an intruder, must do everything she can to keep her kids safe. As they hide in the house, she starts to feel she knows this man, recognises his voice, but at the same time come doubts for her memory, her sanity. The story alternates between the terrifying present and flashbacks that fill in the story of this woman and her family.

I picked this book up thinking I was getting some trashy fun fast-paced thriller-- which, don't get me wrong, I'm fine with --but what emerged was something I'm tempted to liken to The Push: a story equal parts intense, unputdownable, and a thoughtful, sad, frustrating psychological portrait of a woman and her fragile mental state.

I cannot overstate how much this book made me feel. It was genuinely horrifying. Parts were sad. I was so angry and frustrated for her that I wanted to scream. Nightwatching is one of those books that is so suspenseful that I felt very real panic and anxiety reading it. And now I have to return to the real world! And read something else! Tell me... how?

A thrilling and terrifying read. When a woman hears footsteps and sees a figure of a man on her stairway she creeps to wake her children to take them into hiding in a crawl space behind the fire in her husbands office. As the man calls to them and searches throughout the house the mother finds it hard to stop the children from making a noise and keeping them calm.
This book sent chills up my spine and kept me on the edge of my seat. It was uncomfortable, tense and scary.
I do not want to write spoilers as the reader should have to experience the intensity as I did.
I would highly recommend

The adrenaline-fuelled thriller that I read in a day...

"There was someone in the house."

That first sentence had me GRIPPED! And from that point on, I was on the edge of my seat, unable to stop reading whilst I didn't know the characters were safe.

This haunting and chilling read is sure to be one of the best thrillers of 2024.

Gripping, scary and very descriptive. Had me glued from page one and needed to know the outcome ASAP! If you sleepwalk, dream or have nightmares…… be warned it may keep you awake. I am not going to say anything about the plot or characters just read it soon. Well worth the time

A widowed mother, checking on her children in the middle of the night, is on the unlit first floor when she sees an intruder coming up the stairs. He is carrying a weapon of some kind. The isolated house is an old New England farmhouse, much extended so that it has a mixture of features, twists and turns in its corridors, two staircases, two ‘front’ doors, a garage, an attic and a cellar. The intruder, a large man, turns off down a side corridor giving her an opportunity to get the children out of bed and down the other staircase. While that removes them from the immediate danger they cannot reach anything useful from that side of the house. They also cannot escape from the house because it is mid-December and outside it is sub-zero and covered in deep snow. Fortunately there is a secret space created during the various periods of building work and so the three of them hide there while the intruder searches the house looking for them with clearly malicious intent, and a specific interest in the daughter. So begins a period of extremely well written jeopardy as tension builds through the next few hours; although frequent interpolations filling in the family back story keep breaking the tension. The mother is recently widowed, her husband having fallen downstairs, which creates scope for two separate issues. Firstly, she has never got on with her father-in-law, a macho misogynist, so the family are estranged from him. Secondly, there was suspicion that she might have killed her husband so has a strained relationship with the local police sergeant. These issues become important when she is injured trying to get help. This second part of the story creates a different dynamic, but one in which the mother is again in jeopardy, again well written tension albeit of a different kind.
The story is told entirely from the mother’s point of view (I’d love to be able to vary things by using her name but none of the character’s is given a name). The writing is tight, allowing the reader to wonder whether they are getting the whole story, or is she an unreliable narrator. There is also an unstated but quite obvious subtext to the book in that the mother is alone, unsupported by anyone, while being assailed, harassed, beset, criticised, berated (insert your preferred verb) by all of the main male characters: the husband, the father-in-law, the sergeant, the intruder. There are some flaws in the mechanics of the plot and the overall construction, but anyone invested in the story is likely to ignore these, carried forward by the tension and the travails of the mother.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

I was really looking forward to this but it completely failed to live up to premise. It dragged on, footsteps were heard, we are hiding, more footsteps, more hiding, more footsteps, more hiding, more footsteps, more hiding and so on,, The writing style was a bit peculiar with very strange turn of phrase. I spent too much time googling American phrases to try and enlighten me and failed several times. There were odd hyphenated words throughout the book,
Sorry I was bored and struggled to finish

What a spooky read this was! Absolutely blew me away in some parts. Very intense throughout, a complete page turner. I certainly wouldn’t be living in that house anytime soon!! Great storyline and very believable characters. What a mother has to do to protect her children but further down the line the doubts set in. A well written book, my first by this author but it won’t be my last.

Thanks to Penguin General UK and NetGalley for allowing me an advanced copy to read in exchange for my open and honest review. As always, my reviews will also be posted on Amazon, Goodreads and Waterstones and interaction on Facebook and instagram where possible.

This book was all in all a thrilling read.
It did drag a little bit in the middle and the main character was a bit all over the place in her thinking, which to me was annoying, however it was still an enthralling read.

In an old house in New England, a woman lives with her two young children. Recently widowed, she is the only adult in the house - and there are no others close by who can be called upon for help.

Knowing this adds to the already considerable tension created by the narrative of heavy footsteps heard in an old house full of doors and staircases, in the midst of a night time blizzard. The suspense in this book is relentless, and not for the faint hearted.

It is an interesting conceit to leave the main character unnamed, and adds to the generally surreal reading experience. It becomes clear eventually that there is something more underway than a simple break-in, but both the police, and the intruder add to the sense of fear, uncertainty and gaslighting that permeates these pages.

This is a terrifying story, but very effective in terms of what the writer seems to want to achieve. Recommended for those who like scary, suspenseful, sinister and suspicion-laden narratives.

This book blew my mind. Tracy Sierra's created such a tense & claustrophobic atmosphere from the opening pages that I really felt like I was there with the main character. I will admit I had to stop reading it late at night as it put me on edge.
An excellent debut & definitely one to watch