Nightwatching
BY tracy sierrapamela dorman2024Query Letter
I’m excited to contact you about my debut novel THE CORNER [note: title changed over time to NIGHTWATCHING], a modern gothic thriller complete at 83,000 words.
Awake after tucking her son back into bed overnight, an unnamed mother sees an intruder in her New England home. Concealed in the darkness but alone, unable to get to her phone, a weapon or escape through the blizzard that rages outside, she hides with her 4-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter in a bleak but well-hidden secret room, a vestige of their 18th century home’s colonial construction.
It becomes ever more difficult for the mother to keep her children calm and quiet as they listen to the man creak through their old house. Worse, to frighten them into revealing their location the intruder begins speaking with a terrifying voice that convinces the children he’s a figure from their nightmares. As the man describes the harm he’s planning, the mother realizes how dire their situation truly is. Terrified and all too aware of her little family’s defenselessness, the mother must find new reserves of strength to protect her children from real and imagined threats. But the mother’s own nightmare is only beginning as the intruder’s presence in her home exposes dreaded inadequacies, fears long buried and deep losses denied.
Using a uniquely atmospheric American backdrop, THE CORNER delves into the terror of vulnerability and the modern monsters who seek to deny our humanity. It combines the parental fears of Adrian McKinty’s THE CHAIN, the thrilling hidden spaces of Riley Sager’s HOME BEFORE DARK, the home invasion anxiety of Paul Tremblay’s THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD and the dark, creepy setting of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s MEXICAN GOTHIC.
I was inspired to write this novel by the complex and eerie history of my own New England home, built 1732, and its many secret spaces — including a grim hidden room.
Many thanks for your consideration, and I look forward to any questions.
Query Stats
Number of Queries Sent
10
Number of Full Requests Received
3
Number of Offers of Representation
1
Number of Months Spent Querying This Novel
1 month
Years Spent Writing Before Getting an Offer
5
Number of Manuscripts Queried Before This One
1
Publication Status of The Book Queried
Published (Big 5)
Years Spent Writing Before This Book was Published
I've always written, but I'd been writing seriously (as in, almost daily) for about 5 years.