Jayme's Reviews > Nightwatching

From the synopsis:

She is home alone in a blizzard with her eight year old daughter and her five year old son, when she hears a noise. It’s the sound of footsteps, heavy and slow, coming up the stairs.

Shrouded in the shadows, she sees the figure of a man who appears 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.

“Hold still-he”ll see you!!” She whispers.

They hide there as the man searches for them-“Come out, Come Out, Wherever you are!”

“Mama, you said monsters don’t exist” her son whispers again, suppressing tears.

“I’m sorry, she whispers back, “I lied”.

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Yes, all of this is paraphrased from the first 3% of the book!! And, as you can see, you can cut the tension with a knife!!

BUT-that tension isn’t maintained as much of the middle of the book isn’t the action packed survival story that I expected.

There is a lot of ruminating about, shall we say, demons from the past, much of which is a bit WEIRD, and reads more like horror and those passages will take you out of the action and away from the present danger. That created an uneven pace as you question what is real, and what may be imagined before returning to the action.

Mislabeled?

With those subtle vibes of horror (which I don’t really care for) and written in the third person limited POV, (which is a style that I really don’t care for) I felt distant from the characters and couldn’t connect with them emotionally. For these two reasons, I cannot say that I really ENJOYED this story.

BUT-if you don’t mind that viewpoint or genre, you may want to give this one a try!

Tracy Sierra NAILED the ending (extra .5 ⭐️) and I can certainly appreciate the writing AND the many FIVE star reviews, but for me it’s a 3.5 ⭐️rating rounded down-not a great fit for me.

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Thank You to Pamela Dorman books for extending an invitation to read this book early, and providing a copy through NetGalley. It was a pleasure to offer a candid review!