The Safekeep

Yael van der Wouden

From Shelf: The 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024An 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