Nightwatching: A Novel

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars | 4,679 ratings

Price: 17.72

Last update: 01-25-2025


About this item

Unputdownable · Psychological Suspense · Horror · Tense · Gripping

A FALLON BOOK CLUB PICK

“Pulse-pounding locked-room suspense.”—Elle

“Nightwatching is like nothing I've read before. I wolfed it down in two sittings; it's amazing.”—Lisa Jewell

A footstep on the stairs. A second to react. What happens next will determine everything.

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.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Melissa
    5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to put down!
    Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2025
    I read this book in 2 days because it was so hard to put down. It was so suspenseful I could feel myself being panicked. What a great read!!
  • Shannon Allen
    4.0 out of 5 stars First read this year. 4.5⭐️
    Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2025
    Frightening premise. Suspenseful and well written. Right away we know she’s home alone with her two young children and there is someone standing in her dark hallway. Someone who shouldn’t be there. Are you kidding!? That’s terrifying! But right as things start to get intense we are whipped into her recollections- into some distant memory and I know that’s meant for added suspense but not now, TRACY! We need answers!
    I couldn’t put this down. I need to know what is happening. At times I thought maybe she really was losing it. Understandably- but so mad at how she’s being dismissed or not believed.
    I despised her father in law. What an awful character. Absolute garbage human.

    I went to find other books by this author and saw a book by her called The Corner listed on GR but cannot find any information and I’m already looking forward to reading it.

    Tracy, if you’re reading this, I do arc reads. ????call me ???? I need to read this.
    Customer image
    Shannon Allen
    4.0 out of 5 stars First read this year. 4.5⭐️
    Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2025
    Frightening premise. Suspenseful and well written. Right away we know she’s home alone with her two young children and there is someone standing in her dark hallway. Someone who shouldn’t be there. Are you kidding!? That’s terrifying! But right as things start to get intense we are whipped into her recollections- into some distant memory and I know that’s meant for added suspense but not now, TRACY! We need answers!
    I couldn’t put this down. I need to know what is happening. At times I thought maybe she really was losing it. Understandably- but so mad at how she’s being dismissed or not believed.
    I despised her father in law. What an awful character. Absolute garbage human.

    I went to find other books by this author and saw a book by her called The Corner listed on GR but cannot find any information and I’m already looking forward to reading it.

    Tracy, if you’re reading this, I do arc reads. ????call me ???? I need to read this.
    Images in this review
    Customer image
  • Amazon Customer
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good book
    Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2024
    I liked this book overall but it dragged in the middle for me and went a direction I didn’t love! But the beginning and end parts were super intense!!
  • readerwriter
    5.0 out of 5 stars Horrifying and heart-pounding
    Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2024
    "Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing at all."

    A mother alone at night during a blizzard with two young children hears noises and sees a skulking figure. Someone is in the house! She grabs her sleeping kids and makes it to a tiny secret room under the stairs hidden behind a wall. The kids must be "oh so quiet" or the man will hear. The man - this HUGE man - knows them, knows they are there somewhere in the house - he's been watching - and will stop at nothing to get them. This man gets angrier and crazier with each passing minute. A memory of this man forms in the mother's mind. She knows him. She knows what he wants. She must do everything in her power to protect her kids and get everyone out alive.

    This terrifying debut made me feel claustrophobic and vulnerable. I didn't want to read more, but I couldn't stop reading. It filled me with dread and panic. Strong, powerful writing and near-perfect pacing made it hard for me to believe that this was a debut novel. I went into this book thinking it would be a book about survival. And it is. But it's also about so much more. It's a story of family, of loss, of demons, and love. It's a story about how the past and present mingle together in convoluted harmony. How can you trust yourself if no one else does?

    I am not going to give up anything else. If you want a chilling, plausible, horrifying read, then pick up this outstanding thriller. This book is not cozy or happy. Mentions of sexual assault, violence, and murder.

    I can't wait to read more by the talented Tracy Sierra. She is an author to watch.

    "Maybe bravery is just enduring. Maybe bravery doesn't exist. All there is is getting through it."
  • Bookpreneur
    4.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly fast paced! ♥️
    Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2024
    The premise is so frightening, it was a book I had to buy. I devoured it in two days and loved the way it was written. Tension kept me wound tight throughout and that’s what gives this book high stars. I’m glad I read it in the daytime!

    There were times when I felt word choices were a little forced and somewhat jarring, and no names must have been some kind of stylistic thing to make the book more unique. It still would have worked well without. I did have to go back and re-read paras to fully understand what was meant, so for some this might be confusing.

    What I didn’t like: unreliable narrator whom the police refused to believe and the frustrating sergeant who I felt was unnecessarily unhelpful. It didn’t feel realistic to me.

    Third person narration works well but first would have been a better choice. It tends to drop me into the action more but that’s a personal preference.

    Some of the internal monologue was a little distracting and so were the backstory chapters. I found myself skimming through them so I could return to the action and that’s a shame. I wished the children hadn’t been alone for so long and did wonder if I, as a mother, would have made the same decisions. Perhaps terror forces us to take greater risks.

    All in all, I fully understand the hype around this book. It’s a 4.5 for me and one I would definitely recommend.
    Customer image
    Bookpreneur
    4.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly fast paced! ♥️
    Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2024
    The premise is so frightening, it was a book I had to buy. I devoured it in two days and loved the way it was written. Tension kept me wound tight throughout and that’s what gives this book high stars. I’m glad I read it in the daytime!

    There were times when I felt word choices were a little forced and somewhat jarring, and no names must have been some kind of stylistic thing to make the book more unique. It still would have worked well without. I did have to go back and re-read paras to fully understand what was meant, so for some this might be confusing.

    What I didn’t like: unreliable narrator whom the police refused to believe and the frustrating sergeant who I felt was unnecessarily unhelpful. It didn’t feel realistic to me.

    Third person narration works well but first would have been a better choice. It tends to drop me into the action more but that’s a personal preference.

    Some of the internal monologue was a little distracting and so were the backstory chapters. I found myself skimming through them so I could return to the action and that’s a shame. I wished the children hadn’t been alone for so long and did wonder if I, as a mother, would have made the same decisions. Perhaps terror forces us to take greater risks.

    All in all, I fully understand the hype around this book. It’s a 4.5 for me and one I would definitely recommend.
    Images in this review
    Customer image
  • booknut
    5.0 out of 5 stars Much more than a thriller
    Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2024
    This story had me terrified from the first scene. I couldn't read it while home alone at night! Sierra's brilliant structure supports heavy themes of trauma, family bonds, injustice, resilience, the many faces of misogyny... Clever narration presents a nameless main character ( all the characters are so, not sure I've ever read such a story ) but she doesn't need one - she's all of us, women existing in a world where we feel afraid of half the population all the time, never knowing which men are the good ones, and which ones might be a serial killer. We've all had the experience of feeling creeped out by some creepy creep, and then being called 'paranoid' by someone with zero intuition. Nightwatching is the perfect title on several levels, which I didn't see till the very end. Would be such a great movie or series, even the house is an endearing character!
  • leah Bradshaw
    5.0 out of 5 stars amazing
    Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2024
    Crisp, beautiful writing and wow - what a story. I was holding my breath every chapter. For a debut novel, this blew my mind.
  • NJ Nittany
    4.0 out of 5 stars Decent Story
    Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2024
    Good book, suspenseful. Not a huge fan of the main character and often times that hinders me in enjoying a book. That being said, this held my attention, but I don’t know how this is the Fallon book club winner - I have read at least 3 other books that I liked much better than this, this year.

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