This psychological thriller is set in a creepy house at night in dangerous weather conditions, and a mother and two young children are home alone when someone sinister breaks in. It's atmospheric, claustrophobic and evokes a menacing ethos that immerses you in the woman's life. It's a multi-layered story which also reveals the woman's fractured family life, the abuse, blame and invisibility she endures, and this makes a relatable horror tale. Your empathy is always with the woman, but sometimes, you falter and wonder at the reliability of her narration. It's suspenseful and has a breathtaking intensity that resonates. I like the setting, the twisty plotting and the characterisation.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

I made the mistake of reading this book when I was alone and there was snow outside. It wasn't long before I was petrified. The writing is atmospheric and totally compelling - I was desperate to know that the family was safe - and, at one point, too terrified to continue reading.

Thank you netgalley, Tracy Sierra and Penguin General UK - Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Penguin Life, Penguin Business, Viking for the arc of Nightwatching.

This is my first book from Tracy Sierra and If you want a book that evokes all sorts of emotions and feelings then this one is for you! Nightwatching is a well paced narrative first person POV of a home evasion ( or a home that's broken in to ) Tracy gets straight into the story and immediately builds the suspense, the dread, the fear of being woken up to a strange noise in the house and seeing a figure in her bedroom doorway. Slowly, this mum of two children, overcomes her fear and gets her children to hide in a secret space while this prowler cajoles and threatens her to come out of hiding. What would you do? Hide? run?

The character building was really good. We get flashbacks into this Mums life, her inner voice and the challenges that she faces during her relationship with her husband and his family. Which all drive her thought processes and how she faces the police investigation after they know she's experienced a home invasion. It's also interesting how the police handle the case. It keeps you wanting to turn the page till the very end.

4 star from me and ill be looking forward to reading more of Tracy Sierra's books

A book you shouldn't read when you're home alone with children! At times it seemed a little slow, but the plot raced by at others. There were various twists which made me question just what had actually happened that night, but at the same time annoyed at the way the police treated the incident. The ending brought everything to a climax well. I do admit to leaving the light on the night I read this book!!

A mother wakes up to the sounds of footsteps in her house. Gathering her children she goes to hide in the walls of her unique house. Who is after her and what do they want?

Nightwatching is a chilling read, I hadn’t really realised how much it was affecting me until someone dropped something in the room next to me whilst I was reading it and I jumped out of my skin! This book creeps up on you, reels you in and keeps you hooked. I really don’t want to give too much away as it really is best to go into the story without knowing anything beforehand.

The writing is superb and even the small details (such as the fact we never get to know the name of the mother or her children) makes for a well-crafted read. There are flashbacks dotted around the main story, where we get to know more about the main character and her life up to this point. This also means that small reveals and twists can be drip-fed to the reader in a nicely paced way. This also means that we feel like we really get to know The Mother and empathise with her, but are often kept on edge, unsure of what the next revelation will be.

Overall Nightwatching is a superbly crafted book – a thrilling debut and I’m excited to read another book by Tracy Sierra – certainly an author to watch! Nightwatching is a Kindig Gem for 2024 and thank you to NetGalley & Penguin – Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton and Viking for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A psychological thriller, Nightwatching (2024) by Tracey Sierra is an awakening nightmare of a tale. A mother and her two young children are home alone, during a snowstorm. When her son wakes during the night, the mother hears noises but it’s a very old house and puts him back to bed. Yet she senses danger and hears footsteps on the stairs, so rushes to the secret safety room. The man calls out for the children but cannot find them, and an opportunity allows for the mother to escape and run to a neighbour's house. The police arrive and can find no signs of the intruder, questioning the mother and believing she has imagined it. The narrative has many flashbacks to flesh out the family backstory as the unnamed mother spirals into a terrifying and bloody climax. Although there are attempts to ratchet up the tension, the story is more damsel in distress and only an average two and a half stars thriller read rating. With thanks to Penguin General UK and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own, freely given and without inducement.

Nightwatching from Tracey Sierra is one of the most compulsive books I’ve read in years. I had to force myself to stop reading it so many times. It made my stomach clench and my breathing short. In fact it should come with a health warning. I can’t recall a book where none of the characters are named which I found interesting. Nightwatching is all about relationships - a mother’s with her two young children; her absent husband; her abusive father-in-law and her own unreliable parents. When a man invades her home what will the mother do to save her kids? The tension ramps up from the very beginning and as the story unfolds I was seething with the injustice and disbelieving at the disbelief. An extraordinary thriller with a heart. Thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the eARC.

Whooft! Nightwatching sucks you straight in from the first chapter; like a Shark vacuum sucking in a ball of fluff, you’re swallowed up before you know what’s happening. From a sharp, tense beginning, the pace and tension don’t let up and you find yourself fearful for this woman and her children, who never seem to have been cut a break.

We never know her name. She’s their mother, his wife, his daughter in law, or just ‘her’ if you’re the father in law. Mother to two lovely children and once in a loving marriage, her husband was, in the end, incapable of standing up to his father and so he disappointed both his wife and his father.

Now, in this draughty, ramshackle house she has to risk everything to save her children. In this pulse pounding story we feel the horror of a mother’s anguish as she tries to keep her children from harm. As they huddle together in their hiding place, listening to every noise, having to shush her children even as their fear makes them wet themselves, Tracy Sierra does such a good job of letting us feel what real fear is like.

But Nightwatching is not just a home invasion story; rather it is a story of a marriage and of woman who has to stay strong because no-one ever believes her or takes her side. It is a tale of not being believed, of being suspected and scrutinised and even judged for her failure to give into a bully.

In Nightwatching, we see how the police can convince themselves that their own explanations are the correct ones; there’s no such thing as a reliable woman. But how reliable is our narrator? In the absence of anything concrete in the way of evidence, how much should we believe?

Written in the third person, Tracy Sierra writes an atmospheric, creepy and nerve tingling chiller of a psychological thriller. Focussing in on the agency of women and how easy it is for women to be stripped of any power they may have, Sierra’s descriptive powers lend themselves well to focussing in on a woman at the end of her tether.

It is chilling, frightening and carries the clear ring of lived truth. Nightwatching is a fast paced read and my goodness it cuts a clear path to the top of my thrillers list so far this year.

Book description sounded good but sadly I couldnt get in to the story. Sorry but I couldnt get into it but I'm sure others will love it

This is a great creepy debut not to be missed I did not know where this book was going to go one minute thinking is the mother imagining these things the next is she crazy a 4 star read that I would definitely recommend

OUTLIER ALERT!
When this started, I had high hopes for this book. It began by jumping straight into the story (something I love) and for the first 10% I was enjoying it. But unfortunately the more I read the less I enjoyed it.
This is written in the third person which is not my favourite as I find it distances me from the characters and that was what exactly happened here. This wasn't helped by the fact that none of the characters have names. The only character who sort of gets a name is the Corner. I found this 'name' to be so ridiculous that every time it was mentioned I rolled my eyes.
The story also seemed to wander off in parts. All the backstory parts (most of which you don't need, as they have no bearing on the story) I found them really boring and just wanted the story to get on with it.
When I read the blurb I thought I was going to get a tense, fast paced, action packed thriller. That wasn't my experience. This felt more like literary fiction/thriller.
By the halfway point I had lost all interest. I just couldn't connect to the story or the characters.
If this hadn't been an ARC I probably would have DNF'd.
There are so many great reviews for this book, but it just never worked for me.

Nightwatching left me disappointed. I found the plot repetitive and disjointed, and didn’t like the writing style. This one wasn’t for me.

Set in the depths of winter, ‘Nightwatching’ is a slow paced, creepy and atmospheric novel. The scenario is every mother’s nightmare. An intruder in the house. A threat to the safety of your children.

Such is this terrified mother’s plight one night when she hears the creaks and groans her house makes and knows her children are tucked up in bed. Her first instinct is to find a safe space where they can hide until the intruder goes away.

Because she hushes and hustles them into it with speed, there’s no time to gather more than the bare minimum necessities. So they huddle together, cold, hungry, thirsty, and scared. They have to be as quiet as possible and not draw unwanted attention to themselves.

While they sit out the intruder’s presence, we’re privy to the mother’s thoughts as she reflects back on her life and how she has appeared to others. These lengthy musings can be distracting because they take the reader away from the action.

Some things seem unbelievable or unrelatable. For instance, the intruder takes an inordinate amount of time to trawl through the rooms. None of the characters are referenced by name, which makes the narrative a bit clunky in places.

The mother is considered to be an unreliable narrator by the police and male family members. This doesn’t help her cause, especially when her life is at risk. I thought the children were extremely well behaved under the circumstances they faced, which seemed unlikely.

These issues aren’t huge but they took away some of the credibility and enjoyment of this promising story for me. It had an excellent start and satisfactory finish but was muddy in the middle. Grateful thanks to Penguin General UK and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

One very long night hidden away in fear of your life and that of your children. The very essence of a psychological thriller. Add the atmospheric still best of a snow covered winter scene , silence abounds until you hear noises that could be someone you know trying menacingly to find you. You must keep yo and your children safe . The stuff nightmares are made of

OMG! THIS BOOK!

This is the kind of dark, fast-paced, give me nightmares book that I feel like I've been looking for all my life!

Nightwatching made me squirm, it made me question everything I know about dark and creepy psych thrillers and most of all, it kept me guessing right until the very end.

Tracy Sierra's writing leaves you no choice but to keep turning the page and keeping reading one more chapter. It propels you along at a rate of knots, and I found myself almost skipping over words in my eagerness to read more.

My only criticism, and this is a personal thing, it that some of the back story slowed the pace of the book too much for me. I've no doubt there are readers out there who were/will be grateful for a little rest!

‘Nightwatching’ a totally gripping psychological thriller, and the well-written, if somewhat unreliable main character had me questioning the events that occurred even as I was reading them! There is so much atmosphere – the snowstorm, and the build up to Christmas are a truly fitting setting, which made the events feel even more sinister. I initially struggled with the fact that none of the characters are named, they are referred to as the protagonists’ husband, father-in-law, son, daughter, the sergeant and so-on, I did feel this made it harder to relate to them but was very in-keeping with the style of the story. All in all, Nightwatching is an absolutely chilling read which I am more than happy to recommend.

I struggled with this book at first but pleased I kept going with it. All I will,say is it gets better. !
My thanks as always to NetGalley and to Penguin General UK - Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Penguin Life, Penguin Business, Viking for the early read

The definition of a thriller. I read the final 50 pages or so frozen in terror.

This book was truly gripping with so so much terror in the suspense. There was also a lot of insightful comments and discussion about the evidence, believing victims and women being labelled as crazy.

This book will be huge in 2024, I have no doubt.

This is a book about a mother who protects her two children by hiding away in the house when there is an intruder. She escapes to call the police. They don't believe her and at times she wonders if she had gone mad. The reader follows her journey to prove that she wasn't making anything up. Unnerving

I thought this book was going to be a standard thriller but I’ve had to read it in two sittings and it’s frightened the life out of me!
A mum of 2 small children wakes in the night to the realisation that there is someone in her house. In her need to protect them she finds a hiding place, and thinks about all the things leading up to this moment. The latter part of the book looks at her psychological state, whether she has lied, whether she is believable or simply a vulnerable, unreliable female perpetrator, rather than a victim.
I think I held my breath through a large part of the first half of the book, but then either raged or reevaluated my feelings through the second. This is a sophisticated, clever book. More like Ashley Audrain’s The Push, than a big-standard thriller, with its questioning about expected female behaviours and motherhood. Very, very good.
Thanks to Net Galley.