2024 Booker Prize (shortlist)
* SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE *
Longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize • A Best Book of 2024: The New York Times,The WashingtonPost, Los Angeles Times, Time, The Economist, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Kirkus Reviews, The Independent, BookPage, The Sunday Times (London)
‘Remarkable…Compelling…Fine and taut…Indelible.’ —The New York Times • ‘Moving, unnerving, and deeply sexy.’ —Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with the Pearl Earring • ‘A brilliant debut, as multi-faceted as a gem.’ —Kirkus Reviews
A ‘razor-sharp, perfectly plotted’ (The Sunday Times, London) tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past.
A house is a precious thing...
It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.
Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation, leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.
Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is ‘a brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one’s own desires’ (The Guardian).
Genre: Literary Fiction
Longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize • A Best Book of 2024: The New York Times,The WashingtonPost, Los Angeles Times, Time, The Economist, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Kirkus Reviews, The Independent, BookPage, The Sunday Times (London)
‘Remarkable…Compelling…Fine and taut…Indelible.’ —The New York Times • ‘Moving, unnerving, and deeply sexy.’ —Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with the Pearl Earring • ‘A brilliant debut, as multi-faceted as a gem.’ —Kirkus Reviews
A ‘razor-sharp, perfectly plotted’ (The Sunday Times, London) tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past.
A house is a precious thing...
It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.
Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation, leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.
Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is ‘a brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one’s own desires’ (The Guardian).
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Moving, unnerving and deeply sexy." - Tracy Chevalier
"A strange, dream-like and troubling book, as haunting as the history it examines. Yael Van der Wouden is an extraordinarily powerful writer: it's hard to believe this can be her first book." - Cressida Connolly
"Haunting and exquisitely poignant." - Claire Fuller
"A beautiful book. Incredibly well-observed, surprising, and deeply textured." - Emma Healey
"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 - I was utterly blown away." - Miranda Cowley Heller
"The Safekeep is thrilling: a riveting historical reconciliation and an impossible yet inevitable love story. Superbly wrought-serious, elegant, sexy, devastating." - Julia May Jonas
"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
"This is a stealthy, simmering novel about complicity and the lies we live by." - Clare Pollard
"An astonishingly skillful debut, The Safekeep manages the rare trick of being both gripping and intimate. A twisting, elegant, intriguing story about the secrets we hide in our homes and hearts - and how it only takes one person to unlock the past." - Joanna Quinn
"Surprising, chilling, and electric. The Safekeep is a simply fantastic work of literature." - Alice Winn
"A strange, dream-like and troubling book, as haunting as the history it examines. Yael Van der Wouden is an extraordinarily powerful writer: it's hard to believe this can be her first book." - Cressida Connolly
"Haunting and exquisitely poignant." - Claire Fuller
"A beautiful book. Incredibly well-observed, surprising, and deeply textured." - Emma Healey
"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 - I was utterly blown away." - Miranda Cowley Heller
"The Safekeep is thrilling: a riveting historical reconciliation and an impossible yet inevitable love story. Superbly wrought-serious, elegant, sexy, devastating." - Julia May Jonas
"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
"This is a stealthy, simmering novel about complicity and the lies we live by." - Clare Pollard
"An astonishingly skillful debut, The Safekeep manages the rare trick of being both gripping and intimate. A twisting, elegant, intriguing story about the secrets we hide in our homes and hearts - and how it only takes one person to unlock the past." - Joanna Quinn
"Surprising, chilling, and electric. The Safekeep is a simply fantastic work of literature." - Alice Winn
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