The Night Watch

Reviews / Votes

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 -- Justine Jordan * Guardian * Sharply and compassionately observed, richly coloured and compelling to read * Independent * A truthful, lovely book that needs no conjuring tricks to make you want to read it again -- Philip Hensher * Observer * Brilliantly done... the period detail never overwhelms the simple, passionate human story. It's a tour-de-force of hints, clues and dropped threads -- Suzi Feay * Independent on Sunday * This outstandingly gifted novelist releases her imagination into her most compelling depiction yet -- Peter Kemp * Sunday Times * 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 * Daily Mail * Beautifully written, deeply moving and utterly engrossing * Elle * Burns with a slow but scorching intensity... Sarah Waters is a great writer -- Mark Bostridge * Independent on Sunday * 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 -- Jenny Turner * London Review of Books * 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 -- Melanie McGrath * Evening Standard * 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 -- Mary Wakefield * Sunday Telegraph * A natural storyteller, Waters also has the most extraordinary ear, the writerly equivalent of perfect pitch * Time Out * 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 -- Lianne Kolirin * Express * Four years after Fingersmith, Sarah Waters exchanges rustling petticoats for ration books in a slow-burning, masterly saga of the second world war * Guardian * The twist in The Night Watch is Waters' accomplished structure . . . Waters is an all-rounder, and this novel shows off her talents beautifully -- Lucy Beresford * Literary Review * 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 -- Carol Ann Duffy * Daily Telegraph * 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 -- Kate Chisholm * Spectator * Steeped in pungent, evocative detail and littered with sad little emotional truths, it's also impossible to put down -- Claire Allfree * Metro * 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 -- Patricia Duncker * New Statesman * 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 * New York Times * Flawless... A sophisticated, beautifully written novel * Washington Post * A wonderful novel... Waters is almost Dickensian in her wealth of description and depth of character * Chicago Tribune * Waters has the gift of story, the ability to dissolve the distance between reader and subject until nothing but experience remains * Los Angeles Times * Compelling... sexually and psychologically provocative * USA Today * Masterful * Seattle Times *