Nightwatching — Tracy Sierra

Order in the US:

Order in the UK and Ireland:

A razor-sharp thriller about a mother forced to the breaking point when her life and the lives of her children are threatened by an intruder

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.

Shrouded in the shadows, she sees the figure of a man appear down the hallway. 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, to search for any opportunity to find a weapon or escape and get help. 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.

Select Reviews and praise for NIGHTWATCHING

“Riveting… among the best debuts I’ve read in years.”
—The Los Angeles Times

“[Nightwatching] guarantees you will stay up, as I did, way past bedtime, tearing through pages to find out what happens, or you’ll be too petrified to sleep, or maybe both.”
—Mary Louise Kelly, NPR

“One of the most terrifying—and brilliant—thrillers I have ever read. . . Gripping from start to finish.”
—The Guardian

“Sierra manages to integrate complex ideas about perception, trauma, guilt, and women’s autonomy…without once loosening her grip on the reader’s nerves.”
—Elle Magazine

“Straddling the line between psychological thriller and domestic horror, Sierra’s auspicious debut immediately plunges readers headlong into its unnamed protagonist’s waking nightmare. . . tense, emotionally resonant . . . Well-timed flashbacks add context and poignancy. Fiercely feminist and viscerally terrifying.”
—Kirkus (starred review)

“As grippingly suspenseful as the plot is, Sierra’s first outing boasts other strengths just as noteworthy, from its transportingly eerie setting to its indelible main character.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Nightwatching is like nothing I’ve read before. I wolfed it down in two sittings; it’s amazing.”
—Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone

“Nightmarish—you won’t be able to look away.”
—Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

“Nightwatching is an intense and claustrophobic thriller–it’s terrifying and unputdownable.”
—Karin Slaughter, New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of After That Night

“I loved Nightwatching. It is the most gripping thriller I have ever read.”
—Gillian McAllister, New York Times bestselling author of Wrong Place Wrong Time

“I am trying to think of a book that has grabbed me by the throat more quickly. None comes to mind.”
—Linwood Barclay, New York Times bestselling author of The Lie Maker

“The most gripping psychological thriller I’ve ever read. Heart-thumping and mesmerizing, a masterclass in tension and terror, it’s also a creative, thoughtful portrait of maternal fear and love–a must read.”
—Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push

“Few novels have affected me like this one. Nightwatching is acutely frightening and beautifully written, as tender as it is terrifying. I can’t remember rooting for a character quite so hard!”
—Abigail Dean, New York Times bestselling author of Girl A

“Tracy Sierra is an impressive new talent. Nightwatching is riveting, by turns a chilling account of a horrifying ordeal and a whip-smart snapshot of marriage, motherhood, and the female experience in a man’s world. Psychological terror at its finest.”
—Gilly Macmillan, New York Times bestselling author of The Manor House

“Breathtakingly superb on every level. A proper tour de force that delivers the highest possible grip factor from first word to last, and a more satisfying resolution than I dared to hope for.”
—Sophie Hannah, New York Times bestselling author of The Couple at the Table

“Nightwatching is at once a terrifying descent into my deepest maternal fears, a blistering social critique, and an elegiac portrait of what it means—and what it takes—to endure. One of the most haunting, gripping novels I’ve read in a long time.”
—Katie Gutierrez, national bestselling author of More Than You’ll Ever Know

“So tense, so thought-provoking.The definition of ‘can’t put down.’”
—Araminta Hall, author of Imperfect Women

“I had no idea that a story could be both so beautifully written and so unbelievably terrifying until I read Nightwatching. Tracy Sierra is a thriller writer to watch. This is an astonishingly good debut.”
—Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author of The Wife

“Very few books are as sharp, clever, and utterly terrifying as Nightwatching. Read at your own risk.”
—Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End