Nightwatching: A Novel

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra
Published by Pamela Dorman Books
Publication date: February 1, 2024
Genres: Debut, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Vacation Reading

Bookshop, Amazon

On Tuesday I shared a slow-burn novel of suspense, so I’m wrapping up the week with a fast-paced dreadfest extravaganza. Author Tracy Sierra takes on the primal ‘stranger in the house’ fear that’s spawned decades of movies and books and makes it her own in her debut, Nightwatching. In this modern take on old-fashioned terror one woman is trapped alone in her home with her two young children during a blizzard and a strange man she realizes is no stranger.

I’ve read books I can’t put down, but it’s been a long while since I’ve read one that had me on the edge of my chair, jumping at the lightest sound. A woman is home alone on a snowy night with her children, but when she steps out of her bedroom she sees a man on the landing of their stairs. A man who doesn’t see her, allowing her to gather her 4-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter, and hide them with her in a small space behind one of the sprawling old home’s chimneys. There she waits hoping the man will think the house empty and leave. Until, from their hiding place, she not only hears, but sees him and knows this is not a random crime. And he won’t be leaving until he finds what he wants.

Nightwatching is partially written from within the woman’s mind in a racing torrent of thoughts that are frightened, canny, paranoid, paralyzed, scattered, and focused. Her blood is pounding in the reader’s ears. A sensation Sierra heightens by refusing to give this ordinary woman a name, making it that much easier to slip into her mind and become her.

In another distinctive move, Nightwatching is devoid of a single compassionate male character. The woman’s father-in-law is a dreadful, abusive old man and while her husband may be loving he doesn’t have the spine to ever stand up to him. In all the novel’s events, the woman’s every word and action are either dismissed or ignored. I’m all for raging at the patriarchy, but even for me, this got a bit heavy-handed and is one of the reasons the novel did not end up being 5 stars.

Beyond that, Sierra writes a novel of such unyielding tension, it’s delicious and completely impossible to put down. If you’re in the mood to be really scared (without the attendant gore of a horror story) then Nightwatching will do the trick. It’s the type of stomach-clenching, mind-racing novel I’d advise reading when not alone or before going bed.

 

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