Warning: This review contains spoilers!

While I enjoyed The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, I was ultimately left wanting more. At less than 300 pages, the book's pace felt rushed—I found this to be evidenced most clearly by the speed with which Isabel and Eva transition from enemies to lovers. That being said, I still have a lot of love for this story! The author's writing shines the brightest in her depictions of a quiet home in the Dutch countryside. This wasn't my favorite book, but it's definitely worth a read!

This book was different for sure. It took me quite a bit of time to get into the story-I don't know if it was translated but the story had a different pacing than many stories I read. I did not feel like I understood the main character's behavior, despite reading the entire story. There is a love story and a betrayal, but the twists felt contrived.

For me the first 25% of this book was a total bore but I'm so glad I stuck with it because I really ended up liking it. It is sensual and thoughtful and will tug at your heartstrings. At first I couldn't stand Isabel or Eva but as the book went on and I realized they were both hiding their true feelings I started to feel for them. You can tell through the writing that they have both been through tough situations and are living their lives in the only way they know how to survive. I wasn't sure how this book was going to end and I had a couple of possibilities stacked up in my mind, but I'm glad to say none were as tragic as what I thought may happen. I think this is a wonderful story especially for those who might be thinking of dipping their toe into the LGBT or sapphic romance genre.

This book is on the shorter side, and has a good mix of mystery, suspense, desire and obsession.

Thank you NetGalley, Avid Reader Press, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster and Yael van der Wouden for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoy books with an interesting House as a vividly described setting. It is almost a character in the book. A stifling claustrophobic overbearing character, but also a strong central steadfast character.

Isabel and Eva and their storylines twisting together was beautifully written - the tension palpable - although the outcome predictable. 3.5 stars rounded down.

Thank you to NetGalley for this pre-release copy.

3.5 stars

The Safekeep is, to me, a novel set apart by its sensuality in both senses of the word. It's a sensual novel in the way that it's especially attuned to the senses, to its narrator, Isabel's, sensory experience. Isabel is a lonely character. She lives by herself in a country house in a rural part of the Netherlands, her mother dead, her brothers elsewhere. In a way, she lives for that house, to maintain its rooms, to tend to its garden, to keep careful track of its state. The house is an extension of her, and as such her sensory awareness of it is careful and specific. Isabel is attuned to the house, and so we, too, are very much attuned to her acute sensory experience of it: its spaces, its sounds, its atmosphere, its furniture, its crockery.

All of this changes when Isabel's brother's brings his girlfriend, Eva, to stay at the country house while he's away. With Eva's arrival, the story tilts. Isabel's keen sensory awareness shifts from an awareness of the house to an awareness of Eva. And it is here that the novel becomes sensual in that second sense of the word: still attuned to sensorial experience, but now in a way that's coloured by attraction, desire--by Isabel's attraction to Eva, her desire for Eva. There is a charge between these two characters, and it is evidenced in the writing, in its careful sensory accounting of Isabel's perceptions. She is so keenly aware of Eva, of her presence, of her gaze, of her looks, of her words. I love books where interactions matter, and this is absolutely one of them. Isabel and Eva's interactions matter because they resonate with the tension that exists between them, a tension that by turns pushes them apart and brings them together. Isabel resists Eva and yet is inexorably drawn to her; she is hostile to Eva and yet is utterly taken in by her presence.

Lonely but also closed off and set in her ways, Isabel is then forced to contend with this tension, with the way Eva not just disrupts her routines, but unsettles her. She is attuned to the house, to Eva, to Eva in the house, and those things all blend together in a way that Isabel cannot ignore. At once compounding and competing with each other, these awarenesses make Isabel both more and less aware of the house: Eva's novel presence bringing the house and its routines into sharp relief, and yet also eclipsing its previous comfortable familiarity. It's a delicious dynamic, and I loved watching Isabel grapple with and grow into these feelings: repressing them, denying them, acknowledging them, articulating them, acting on them. It's not an easy or comfortable process for her, but this only makes it all the more meaningful when she is finally able to come out of her shell and articulate to herself what (or who) she wants.

All of this is to say, there is a tension between these characters, and the novel is not afraid to dwell on it, to unravel it, and to follow it to its end. And I thought it was very much well done: sexy and intimate and authentic to who the characters are and who they become with each other. But more than just sexual tension, there is also another kind of tension in this story. Something is awry from the start, but it's not immediately clear what. This, too, the novel follows to its end. You get answers, and the novel delivers them with real impact and emotion.

I honestly really enjoyed this one. It's an efficient novel, the plot pared down to its most essential--and thus effective--elements: a house, two women, and a question mark underlying it all.

The Safekeep was not at all what I was expecting, in a really great way!
The prose was a little confusing at the beginning, but as Isa's story went on the way Yael van der Wouden approached the internal monologue complemented the main character's personality. I loved watching these characters grow and learn from each other. The character development was subtle but impactful. A 5 star read for me in a genre I don't tend to reach for, and I will definitely keep an eye out for more books from Yael!

Unexpectedly beautiful, this work is alive and mesmerizing. I will be watching for future work from this author, although I'm not sure how it could surpass this

I just saw a French film about a similar subject that was very powerful. Thus, as I read this novel I realized what was unfolding. The characters are incredibly depicted and the narrative was original and gripping. I had two problems with the book. The flashbacks came after the reveal of the secret Eva was hiding. They were choppy and I think the look-back would have worked better as a few whole chapters.. not in bits and pieces. Also, the important dialogue between Isabel and Eva at the conclusion of the book is very vague. They are discussing crucial issues and not making sense. I am not sure if it’s a language or translation issue. Homosexuality in the 60’s was rarely discussed out loud yet I felt the author made this a bigger issue than necessary.

Thank you so much to netgalley for allowing me to read this advanced copy, unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me and I stopped around 30% as it wasn’t getting any more interesting.

Intriguing and passionate, The Safekeep is a novel about the devotion to a house and the compulsive, all-consuming, almost obsessive relationship between two women in The Netherlands of 1961.

Isabel has lived in this three story house in the Dutch countryside for most of her life, and now an adult and an orphan, lives alone in the family home while both her brothers have moved on with their lives. She’s stern and prickly, and her peculiar personality, along with being used to live alone with her rules, sets the tone to a month of strained living when her older brother has to leave for work and asks (demands) that his live-in girlfriend, whom Isabel hates, spend time with his sister while he’s gone.

The book is well written and the foreshadowing building up to the third arc climax is delicious, so much so that by the time I finished the novel I just had to go back and look for the clues that had been disseminated in the previous chapters.

The imagery and the language have incredible peaks as well, I really enjoyed some turns of phrases and symbolic descriptions.

There are a couple redundant sentences that sometimes made me wonder if they were written on purpose or had been forgotten in the editing process (sometimes it feels as if the phrase has been rewritten and the previous one forgotten, other times as if it still there to assert a point, but I feel like it happens too many times in the bookfor it to feel poignant) but apart from these instances I was never turned off by the writing style, which can make or break a book.

I won’t go in too much detail about the actual themes of the book as I feel like they would be too much of a spoiler, but I will say that I want this book to have a sales boom once it comes out because I really think the things discussed are interesting and a bit of a complex topic.

The ending left me a bit wanting, the set up for it a bit too flimsy maybe? Again I can’t talk about it without spoiling some major themes so please read the book so I can crawl through your windows and tell you about my opinions in full!

4.25

Access to the ARC acquired thanks to NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Hey all! A simple yet beautiful portrait of a messy family and two women who fall in love. A stunning novel showing us the conventions of society then. Book club pick I’d say. Thanks for the Arc and cheers!

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love this novel. It is a story of loss, restitution, and love.

This novel is far from the average, but yet I gave it a middle mark. Why is that? The novel as a whole didn’t convince me, I missed something more, but before diving deeper, I admit that the ending gave me thoughts for contemplating.
I wish the author would dig deeper into character’s mind, the first layers were crafted well, but afterwards I wanted to know more, I wanted to feel more… The relationship wasn’t enough believable, the transformation from haters to lovers was a bit rushed in a way that I asked myself where did it come from.
However, the novel holds a lot of elements I love. First thing to consider is the setting and the atmosphere of secretiveness: whenever the house is playing the role on its own, it has some magic into it. The second brilliant part in the novel is the hostility of the main protagonist, who protects the house to an extent you can cut the tension with a knife. I also like the backstory dealing with WWII and its aspects I wasn’t familiar with before.
In a way it’s a sad story, but the message that love conquers all gives a reader hope and redemption.

Thank you to Netgalley and Avid Reader Press for an early copy for an honest review.

this was a beautifully written love story. i’m beginning to read more sapphic love stories and this was a perfect book

we have isabel and eva as main characters. eva is isabel’s brother new girlfriend that’s staying with isabel for a month and that’s basically the plot. but it was executed in such a pretty way, the narration style was incredible and they way the author described feelings and the environment was done in such a visceral manner. amazing. i really felt i was inside of the story.

isabel and eva were complex characters and i loved it so much. they had many layers and as a reader, i could tell they were made with a lot of care and thought.
i will think about them for a long time.

beautiful love story, so heart wrenching and real. the historical part of it was amazing as well!! i would totally read everything van der wouden writes in the future!!!

thank you netgalley and simon & schuster for giving me the e-arc of this title!