The best time I’ve had with a thriller in a long time!
And by that I mean deeply affected, frantically flipping pages, can’t put it down, anxiety on high alert kind of reading experience, because why else do we read thrillers if not for this experience?!
Home alone with her two young children in their isolated historic home during a blizzard, a mother hears the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs in the middle of the night. Before the intruder can reach them she sneaks herself and her children to the safety of a small room hidden behind a wall where she does everything she can to keep her children, ages 8 and 5, quiet and safe. She can’t see the intruder from their hiding place, but she can hear his heavy footsteps moving through the house she knows so well, the squeaky floorboards she avoids, the doors she recognizes by sound alone. As she hides, the story begins to incorporate flashbacks to her life leading up to this moment providing context and fleshing out the story.
Nightwatching is a fierce, feminist, horror thriller, it’s everything I hoped it might be when I read the synopsis. The narrative is suspenseful and suffocating, I felt as though I were crouched in this little hiding space alongside the characters and I, of course, couldn’t put it down once I started reading.
The story resonated with me deeply and I found the MC incredibly recognizable and relatable as I’m sure many mothers will. This was one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time, I think Tracy Sierra has a very clear vision of what she was trying to do here and pulled it off beautifully.
That Bookish Life 