This beautifully written book searches to the heart of loneliness, belonging, and our relationships with our family and the houses that are our homes.

Isabel's life is like an open wound that will not heal. She pushes away the people who would love her, and cannot find comfort in any aspect of her life. When her brother brings home a girlfriend, Eva, then leaves her to stay with Isabel, everything changes. Everything Isabel knew about herself, her family and her home shifts into a new light.

I was uncomfortable with many aspects of this book, not least the graphic sex scenes. Isabel's pain was almost unreadable. But, as Isabel finally, finally let herself begin to grow, the joy was equally rewarding.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This novel lives in the space inside you that is lonely, even when you are not alone. In the part that searches for something not only without knowing where to find it but even what it is. This story is searing and breathtaking, subtle and sublime, heart wrenching and heartwarming. It is craftily composed and incredibly nuanced. It is a pleasure that will stay with you and always make you a little bit sad and a little bit more hopeful.

This was honestly a very impressive debut. I love the super small scope of the novel and the way the author is able to convey such INTENSE emotion.

This is a story of loneliness, obsession, displacement, desperation, and hypocrisy. Seriously so well done and I will be lining up at the door to read whatever this author puts out next!

The imagery and symbolism with the pear? *chef’s kiss*

I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher/author for providing me with an E-Arc of this book. The following is my honest opinion *

3.5 ⭐ out 5

I don't know where to begin. I enjoyed the book. I must not have looked at the genre or forgot what genre was because once I began reading it, I thought it was going in the direction of a (psychological) thriller. Until we got the first interactions between main characters: Isabel and Eva. I don't know if i would classify it as historical fiction. More women's fictions.

The main characters are the driving point of the story. With Isabel, we got growth and self discovery. With Eva, we got pain, loss, and understanding. I love how the author brought the story together and how it was unfolding to us through Isabel's life.

This story definitely keeps the reader captivated to the end. Would recommend.

It’s 1961, almost twenty years after the war, and it would appear as if the Netherlands has recovered. However, scars linger beneath the surface in unimaginable ways.

Isabel, who is almost thirty years old, doesn’t have much of a social life. She’s rigid, and lives alone in the house she grew up in. It is owned by her uncle, and will go to her brother, Louis, upon his death. Next in line will be her younger brother, Hendrik. However, she sees this house as all she has in life.

The introduction of Louis's lover, Eva, disrupts Isabel's carefully constructed world. The problem is that Louis must go out of town for a few weeks on business and allows Eva to live in the family home with his sister. Isabel is furious and as kitchen items start to disappear, this confirms her anger and suspicions. However, she soon finds herself under Eva’s spell and this emotional manipulation truly challenges Isabel, marking a pivotal turn in the story.

What sets The Safekeep apart is its masterful character development, which extends beyond the protagonists to encompass a rich tapestry of supporting characters, each imbued with depth and complexity.

As the story unfolds, the plot twists and turns with a gripping intensity that defies anticipation. As I was reading, I had preconceived notions of how the story would proceed, but I was continually surprised by the unforeseen developments. This kept me engaged until the final page. Yet, despite the unexpected conclusion, I felt it satisfying, leaving no loose ends to ponder.

The Safekeep seamlessly blends intrigue with historical events in a tale that resonates long after the final chapter. Whether you're drawn to its historical backdrop or its nuanced exploration of human nature, this is a novel that captivates from beginning to end.

(This review has been posted on UnderratedReads)

Yael van der Wouden’s debut novel, "The Safekeep," is a masterfully crafted tale that immerses readers in the quiet, yet deeply unsettling world of post-war rural Netherlands. Set in 1961, in the tranquil province of Overijssel, the story centers on Isabel, a woman whose life is meticulously governed by routine and the shadow of her late mother’s country home.

Isabel’s ordered existence is thrown into chaos when her brother Louis deposits his girlfriend Eva at her doorstep. Eva’s presence is a disruptive force: she is loud, carefree, and indifferent to the house's strict order. Isabel’s initial irritation turns into a consuming obsession as items begin to disappear, triggering her paranoia. The sweltering summer heat intensifies the tension, leading Isabel to an infatuation that culminates in a shattering revelation about Eva and the house itself.

Van der Wouden’s prose is both sophisticated and sensual, drawing readers into Isabel’s internal turmoil and the oppressive atmosphere of the house. The gradual build-up of suspense, combined with the evocative setting, makes for a compelling read. The author skillfully explores themes of control, obsession, and the lingering scars of war, all while keeping the reader guessing about the true nature of Eva and the secrets the house holds.

The novel’s strength lies in its character development and atmospheric detail. Isabel’s transformation from a disciplined, repressed woman to one consumed by passion and paranoia is both believable and gripping. Eva, as the enigmatic catalyst for this change, is equally well-drawn, her carefree demeanor masking deeper complexities.

However, some readers might find the pacing slow at times, and the ending, while powerful, leaves certain questions unanswered. These minor flaws aside, "The Safekeep" is a remarkable debut that promises great things from Yael van der Wouden.

In summary, "The Safekeep" is a haunting, provocative novel that lingers in the mind long after the final page. It’s a must-read for fans of literary fiction who appreciate a blend of mystery, sensuality, and psychological depth.

Deeply woven into the fabric of WWII without being "directly" a WWII novel, The Safekeep successfully highlights "what comes next." Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

Because of my husband’s Dutch heritage, I am attracted to books set in the Netherlands. This one certainly taught me something about post-war Netherlands which I did not know.

The novel is set in 1961. Isabel den Brave lives alone in what has been the family home since 1944. Hers is a lonely existence centred on the house. She is the house’s guardian; her days are devoted to maintaining its rooms, keeping its treasures clean, and tending its garden: “She belonged to the house in the sense that she had nothing else, no other life than the house.” Her tranquil, ordered life is disrupted when her elder brother Louis drops off his girlfriend Eva to stay for a month. Isabel is irate and treats Eva with cold contempt, especially when she comes to suspect that Eva is stealing items from the house. The tension impels Eva to confront her hostess and their relationship quickly changes to an obsessive infatuation. The newfound intimacy leads to a discovery which forces Isabel to question what she knows about her family and her home.

Isabel and Eva are foil characters. Isabel is tidy, organized and routine-driven. She thinks of friendship as distrustful and is judgmental, with definite prejudices against almost everyone outside her family. Her behaviour suggests an obsessive personality and her overreactions suggest she is emotionally repressed. Eva is the exact opposite. She is lazy and unkempt. She doesn’t respect boundaries. She accepts others and enjoys a good time, laughing easily and often.

Isabel very much experiences a journey of self-discovery. When she finally senses an attraction to Eva, she is very troubled. Isabel’s younger brother Hendrik is gay and has been living with a partner for years, but their mother never accepted her son’s sexuality. Though their mother is dead, Isabel still believes homosexuality is morally wrong. Isabel progresses from repressing and denying her feelings to eventually acknowledging and acting on them. She also learns the truth about the house and possessions to which she is so desperately attached.

The change in Isabel and Eva’s relationship does not come as a surprise. The paragraph describing Isabel’s eating of the pear given to her by Eva is so sensual that it clearly foreshadows. I noted that even the author refers to this scene in her Acknowledgments: “Thank you for St. Augustine and the pears. People can’t stop talking about the pears, they’re a great hit.” Anyone wondering about the book’s cover will understand once s/he has read this passage.

What did bother me is the sudden transformation in the nature of their relationship. The change from intense dislike to intense infatuation seems very abrupt. And then the second part of the novel has so many sex scenes that they become repetitive. The chemistry between the women seems both rushed and overdone, though I assume that Isabel’s obsessive personality is supposed to account for her obsessiveness in their relationship.

The other revelation about Isabel’s family and family home is also not a surprise. Because Isabel was a child in 1944, there is a vagueness about the family’s move into the home, but there are also clues in what she does remember. I’ve read enough articles about a situation that still appears in media stories so I predicted the truth early on, though I obviously didn’t know the details. The book has certainly inspired me to do some further research into post-war events in the Netherlands; I have a brother- and sister-in-law who live in Eindhoven which is mentioned in the book.

Parts I and III held my interest the most, though this will not be the case for all readers. I recommend it to readers interested in views about women’s sexuality and homosexuality in the early 1960s and on post-war life in the Netherlands. It is a well-written novel worth reading.

A fun sweet read! Highly recommend.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for my ARC.

Well written study of human interactions. Set in early 1960s, in a Dutch province, two women are forced to live together by family circumstance and they couldn’t be more different. Family, paranoia, and the legacy of WWII are almost characters in and of themselves.

This was good and very interesting -- it kept me on my toes and I didn't exactly know where it was going. It was also beautifully written while thrilling at the same time. The characters were nuanced and unpredictable. If you like historical fiction, definitely add this one to your TBR!

The Safekeep comes out next week on May 28, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!
Isabel found a broken piece of ceramic under the roots of a dead gourd. Spring had brought a shock of frost, a week of wet snow, and now—at the lip of summer-the vegetable garden was shrinking into itself. The beans, the radishes, the cauliflower: browned and rotting. Isabel was on her knees, gloved hands and a stringed hat, removing the dying things.

The shard nicked through her glove, pierced a little hole.

It wasn't a wound and it didn't bleed. Isabel took off her glove and stretched the skin of her palm tight, looking for a puncture. There was none, only a sting of pain that left quickly.

Back at the house she washed the piece and held it in watery hands. Blue flowers along the inch of a rim, the suggestion of a hare's leg where the crockery had broken. It had once been a plate, which was part of a set—her mother's favorite: the good chinaware, for holidays, for guests. When Mother was alive the set was kept in a glass vitrine in the dining room and no one was allowed to handle it. It had been years since her passing and the plates were still kept behind the closed doors, unused. On the rare occasion when Isabel's brothers visited, Isabel would set the table using everyday plates and Hendrik would try to pry open the vitrine and say,

"Isa, Isa, come now, what's the point of having good things if you can't touch them?" And Isabel would answer: "They are not for touching. They are for keeping."

There was no explanation for the broken piece, for where it had come from and why it had been buried.

The Dutch Den Brave children, Louis(13), Isabel(11), and Hendrik(10), moved with their mother from Amsterdam into a lavish home in the Zwolle countryside, during a time of turmoil and uncertainty, 1944. By the time the house was left to eldest son Louis, he'd grown into a spendy skirt-chasing bachelor, in a houseshare in town. Isa was the one who'd always loved the house and everything in it from "her mother's" silverware and linens, to the blue and white tiles and dishware with a characteristic hare pattern; so she is the one who remains there, managing Neelke the maid, evading neighbor Johan, and maintaining a rigorous inventory system against the threat of theft. Youngest sibling Hendrik lives away also, with his Sebastian, a situation that strains family relationships, despite all attempts to avoid discussing it.

I had never heard of the Holocaust survivors' term "coming back", and though I've read a lot about the camps and Nazis and WWII, reading the Safekeep makes me realize I haven't read so much about the aftermath, the normalization and the cover-up. I did recently read Sarah's Key set in Paris and also about real estate, but the levels of writing don't compare. Yael van der Wouden is masterful, I can't believe this is her first novel.

In 1960s Holland, Isabel's brother's invites his new girlfriend Eva to stay in his family's home in the Dutch countryside. Isabel & Eva have a complicated relationship and when things start disappearing from the house, Isabel is determined to get to the bottom of who Eva really is and what is happening to her precious belongings. This story is a real character study and examines how both people and places are coming to terms with what happened during World War II. This book is not at all what I was expecting and even though I feel like the twist is pretty easy to figure out, I thoroughly enjoyed it.


Many thanks to Avid Reader Press and Netgalley for the ARC.

A sly character study of two women-Isabel and Eva. Set in 1961, this is, in some ways, a romance novel (albeit a literary one) thanks to the tropes which will be familiar to fans of the genre. It's slow in spots (again, character, not plot driven) but there is a surprise ahead. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read for fans of literary fiction.

With writing that manages to be as sexy as it is beautiful, The Safekeep languidly takes us through a relationship fraught with misplaced animosity and full to the brim with desire.

Isabel has lived alone in her late-mother’s home for several years. This solitude is interrupted when her brother brings over his new girlfriend Eva, and asks them to keep each other company while he’s away for a few weeks. At first, Isabel hates everything about Eva. She’s loud and messy and careless. But then…this gives way to something else.

The Safekeep feels like a bated breath. A whisper of sheets. A hushed gasp. The buzz of tension.

It is two women, one imposing and one resentful, forced to occupy the same house for a month alone together. It is the spiral of suspicion and anxiety and frustration. It is the abject powerlessness of being a woman in the 1960s, beholden and being viewed as less than. It is all-encompassing rage.

A reflection on what home is and how you find it embedded in a unique, engrossing story. Also of a contemplation about people getting in their own way and how they discover how to get out of it.

This is a beautifully written story of two women sharing a Dutch country house in 1961. One woman harbors a mysterious past, while the other has a cantankerous personality. Their relationship begins with indifference but evolves into a sensuous, obsessive journey, tinged with an underlying sense that something is not quite right, ultimately culminating in true love. This book would make an awesome movie.

There are many twists and turns in this story, some of which I guessed early in the book. For this reason, I am giving it 4 stars, not 5."

Thank you NetGalley for an early read in exchange for an honest review

The story of a woman who lives in the house she grew up in after her mother passed. She has 2 brothers who come by occasionally and she has a maid to help. One of the brothers brings a woman to stay at the house while he travels, and the 2 women have to learn to live with each other.

14% I'm really gonna need this to pick up a bit.
15% this main character is giving me anxiety. She's so paranoid about everyone.
23% 😳
55% honestly. I'm having an okay time. But not really in a spicy mood, and it's giving the spice.
57% let the banging commence every other page.... I guess.... (**this did slow down a bit**)
59% okay... I love them and am honestly dreading how this book will end. I feel like this is not a happy ending book. Normal People by Sally Rooney style.
66% okay. That's fine... go ahead and rip my heart out. Thanks, that's cute. Out of nowhere.
Final thoughts: I had a pretty good time with this book. It kept me engaged and I really liked the "twist" at the end. Just going into the book not a single character was likeable. But by the end and getting to know them you see where they come from and their upbringing. I have quite a bit of highlights throughout the book. Beautiful writng.

I wasn’t sure what to think about this book when I first started but the bathroom scene in the beginning was an absolute hook for me! (I won’t elaborate on the scene but when you read it, you’ll know.) At first there were a few parts of the story that I thought were odd. However, the author tied them together beautifully towards the end of the story. Everything made sense! I thought the characters had great development, and it didn’t end at all like I expected. Also, it was just spicy enough to add to the book without taking over the story. I thought it was very well done!