Nightwatching

At the start of attorney Sierra’s outstanding debut, an unnamed mother huddles inside a tiny, secret room in her family’s isolated New England home with her eight-year-old daughter and five-year-old son, the latter of whom she struggles to keep quiet so the monstrous intruder searching the house won’t find them. Just when the tension becomes almost unbearable, Sierra flashes back to happier times with the protagonist’s now-absent husband, and further still to her childhood marked by the untimely death of her mother. As the story unspools, each of these narrative strands sheds light on the others, and it gradually becomes clear who might be stalking through the narrator’s house—and why she’s hesitant to call the police. 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, a petite, prototypical “good girl” pushed to the brink by years of being underestimated, patronized, and disbelieved by men with power. The icing on the cake is the splendid ending, which feels both surprising and inevitable, shifting perceptions of nearly everything that came before without landing like a gimmick. Readers will be eager to see what Sierra does next. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency. (Feb.)