We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.
The number one bestseller, a tender and tragic story set against the turbulence of wartime London
The Night Watch us the extraordinary story of four Londoners: Kay, who wanders the streets in mannish clothes, restless and searching… Helen, who harbours a troubling secret… Viv, a glamour girl, recklessly loyal to her soldier lover… and Duncan, an apparent innocent, struggling with demons of his own.
Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked-out streets, illicit liaisons and sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, this is an astonishing novel.
‘Burns with a slow but scorching intensity’ Mark Bostridge, Independent on Sunday
‘Beautifully written, deeply moving and utterly engrossing’ Elle
‘Waters is an author to cherish, and this is probably her finest achievement yet’ Justine Jordan, Guardian
‘Terrific narrative tension’ Daily Mail
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
The trick, as her fans have realised, is to relax, to let yourself be caught up in the current of her story and bob along breathless to the end
Waters has the gift of story, the ability to dissolve the distance between reader and subject until nothing but experience remains
Four years after Fingersmith, Sarah Waters exchanges rustling petticoats for ration books in a slow-burning, masterly saga of the second world war
There is much to give any reader pure pleasure. The text is saturated in period detail: the ration books, the wireless, the black out, the ARPs, silk pyjamas, Max Factor inches thick, Bakelite light-bulb holders, wartime bureaucracy and typist pools. The dialogue is terrific
A truthful, lovely book that needs no conjuring tricks to make you want to read it again
A wonderful novel... Waters is almost Dickensian in her wealth of description and depth of character
Lives come together, intertwine and unravel like a kind of war-effort knitting . . . On reaching the end of the novel, it is impossible not to start anxiously again at the beginning. But this neither helps nor comforts. The Night Watch stays bleakly in the mind long after its re-reading, underlining the growing authority of its author
A beautifully crafted novel. Full of subtle twists, this tender tale will delight Waters' many existing fans, while winning her a whole raft of new ones
The twist in The Night Watch is Waters' accomplished structure . . . Waters is an all-rounder, and this novel shows off her talents beautifully
Burns with a slow but scorching intensity... Sarah Waters is a great writer
A natural storyteller, Waters also has the most extraordinary ear, the writerly equivalent of perfect pitch
Beautifully written, deeply moving and utterly engrossing
Steeped in pungent, evocative detail and littered with sad little emotional truths, it's also impossible to put down
The Night Watch leaves you with the sense of having read something rich and complex pared down with consummate skill by a first-class storyteller into a series of deceptively simple tales of love. Which is a fancy way of saying that Sarah Waters' latest offering lingers on, long after the final page and its first, most fateful meeting
A triumph... the topsy-turvy time scheme is an elegant and profound device which imbues much of the novel with a poignant dramatic irony and turns every incident, however humdrum, into a revelation that helps to illuminate how her characters became the people they are... [a] finely nuanced, wise and generous novel... Waters is an author to cherish, and this is probably her finest achievement yet
Flawless... A sophisticated, beautifully written novel
Brilliantly done... the period detail never overwhelms the simple, passionate human story. It's a tour-de-force of hints, clues and dropped threads
Sharply and compassionately observed, richly coloured and compelling to read
Waters takes us back in time, gradually sifting through these lives like an archaeologist on a dig trying to reconstruct the past. It's a clever device, efficiently accomplished, intriguing the reader so that you find yourself turning the pages as if in a thriller, your mind racing to solve the puzzles that Waters has devised
Waters' "bomb story" does not at all read like a piece of period fiction. It reads as utterly new and fresh and urgent, both in what it says and the way it says it. It's a work of great beauty and authority and sympathetic imagination
This outstandingly gifted novelist releases her imagination into her most compelling depiction yet
Masterful
She produces terrific narrative tension, whether in a mad ambulance ride through the bombs or in loving someone other than the one you're with
Compelling... A writer whose talent for charting social and political intricacies is matched by her delicate feel for the nuances of erotic attachment... Waters's attention to detail is impressive, particularly when she's conveying the atmosphere of wartime London
Compelling... sexually and psychologically provocative