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An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge
It's fifteen years since the Second World War and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the conflict is well and truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel's life is as it should be: led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep-as a guest, there to stay for the season...
Eva is Isabel's antithesis: she sleeps late, wakes late, walks loudly through the house and touches things she shouldn't. In response Isabel develops a fury-fuelled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house - a spoon, a knife, a bowl - Isabel's suspicions spiral out of control. In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel's desperate desire for order transforms into infatuation - leading to a discovery that unravels all she has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva - nor the house - are what they seem.
Author: Yael van der Wouden
Hardcover Published 24 September 2024 256 pages
Read and Recommended by Graeme
"Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024, this novel is best approached knowing nothing about it as there are a number of surprises in store for the reader. But rest assured, the book has significant queer content - primarily lesbian but also gay male characters - and a fascinating historical setting, a provincial Dutch town, in the early 1960s, the after effects of the war still reverberating. But almost as important as these characters is the family home and the secrets that are gradually revealed about its history... This is an extraordinary debut novel."
Surprising, chilling, and electric. The Safekeep is a simply fantastic work of literature. -ALICE WINN, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF IN MEMORIAM
The Safekeep is thrilling: a riveting historical reconciliation and an impossible yet inevitable love story. Superbly wrought—serious, elegant, sexy, devastating. - JULIA MAY JONAS, AUTHOR OF VLADIMIR