Book Summary and Reviews of Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra

Book Summary

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.

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.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Traditionally, the home is said to be a woman's sphere and a man's castle. How does the unnamed heroine in Nightwatching see her home and herself in relation to it? Is that view shaped by her being a woman and a mother? Does her perspective change after the Corner violates that space?
2. The police think that the heroine is either delusional or has purposefully fabricated the Corner. Did you understand their perspective given the lack of evidence, or did you believe the heroine and her children's eyewitness accounts should have been given the benefit of the doubt? How has the heroine been doubted throughout her life, and what do you think are the roots of that doubt? Did you think the Corner was real? If not, why didn't you believe...