Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2025
LONGLISTED FOR THE WINGATE PRIZE 2025

An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge – for readers of Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Waters and Ian McEwan’s Atonement.

It is fifteen years after the Second World War, and Isabel has built herself a solitary life of discipline and strict routine in her late mother’s country home, with not a fork or a word out of place. 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…

In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel’s desperate need for control reaches boiling point. What happens between the two women leads to a revelation which threatens to unravel all she has ever known.

‘A thrilling, razor-sharp, perfectly plotted debut novel’ Sunday Times

‘Moving, unnerving and deeply sexy’ Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

‘A brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one’s own desires… Van der Wouden brings stunning power and control to her page-turner about trauma and repression’ Justine Jordan, Booker Prize Judge 2024

Publisher Review

I realise I’m quite late to this party but, my god, what a book. It’s an incredible novel, delicate yet tough, and pitted with narrative landmines. It blew me away. I haven’t been as enthralled by a novel for a long time. I have immediately insisted that everyone I know reads it. — Maggie O’Farrell Surprising, chilling, and electric. The Safekeep is a simply fantastic work of literature. — Alice Winn, bestselling author of IN MEMORIAM The Safekeep is a dream of a novel – mesmerizing and shockingly good – it lulls you with the lyrical beauty of its words and then slams you awake with its raw passion and rage. Part silent scream, part breathless love story — Miranda Cowley Heller, bestselling author of THE PAPER PALACE Haunting and exquisitely poignant — Claire Fuller Moving, unnerving and deeply sexy — Tracy Chevalier, author of GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING The story is resolved in such a bold and tender way that it becomes not merely clever, but indelible — New York Times An impressive debut; I already look forward to Van der Wouden’s next * Guardian * The Safekeep is a beautiful book, highly charged, tense, shocking and heartbreaking in equal measure….One of those rare books that feels as if it’s been there all along, waiting to be given a voice. And what a voice this is. — Rachel Joyce [A] mesmerizing debut….A novel of redemption as much as revenge, The Safekeep has the pacing and twists of a thriller * Bookpage * Tantalizing… fans of Patricia Highsmith and Ottesa Moshfegh’s Eileen will find much to admire here. * Vulture *