Yael van der Wouden

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The Safekeep

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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.

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

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

An impressive debut; I already look forward to Van der Wouden&rsquo;s next

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.

[A] mesmerizing debut....A novel of redemption as much as revenge, The Safekeep has the pacing and twists of a thriller

Tantalizing... fans of Patricia Highsmith and Ottesa Moshfegh's Eileen will find much to admire here.

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, bestselling author of THE WHALEBONE THEATRE

Elevated from a beautifully written lesbian romance to a shocking unmasking of the legacy of the Holocaust, this book will move and grip you.

A beautifully realized book, nearly perfect, as van der Wouden quietly explores the intricate nuances of resentment-hued sibling dynamics, the discovery of desire (and the simultaneous discovery of self), queer relationships at a time when they went unspoken, and the legacy of war and what it might mean to have been complicit in its horrors&hellip;. A brilliant debut, as multifaceted as a gem.

A beguiling love story told in a language that entertains and enthrals

This thrilling debut novel weaves together an intense lesbian love affair with the hidden legacy of the Second World War&hellip; a razor-sharp, perfectly plotted debut novel&hellip; This book is worth your time and your patience. Van der Wouden has achieved something significant in The Safekeep, unearthing deeply buried pain and transforming it into a thrilling story.

Set a classic long, hot summer plot against the backdrop of 1960s Netherlands and you end up with this classy piece of storytelling

Van der Wouden has created a classic plot and executes it perfectly

Ms. Van Der Wouden knows how to wring real emotion from her readers, and The Safekeep is the uncommon book that one experiences in an almost physical way

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, author of BAD RELATIONS and AFTER THE PARTY

A beautiful book. Incredibly well-observed, surprising, and deeply textured.

Emma Healey, author of ELIZABETH IS MISSING

The Safekeep is thrilling: a riveting historical reconciliation and an impossible yet inevitable love story. Superbly wrought&mdash;serious, elegant, sexy, devastating.

This is a stealthy, simmering novel about complicity and the lies we live by

I loved this engrossing, claustrophobic debut novel, the best I've read so far this year. You'll be hearing a lot more about this.

This is an intimate novel, closely and brilliantly observed, with characters that while not likable are perhaps explainable...This is van der Wouden’s first novel, and it’s an accomplished debut

Perfectly plotted and deeply surprising. A truly poignant debut novel, it will stay with you long after you turn the last page

This spine-chilling debut has been getting a deserving amount of praise since its publication'

iNews - The 30 best books to read in summer 2024

It is the only book I have read this year that has made me cry. . . . Van der Wouden has produced the rare novel about World War II, the Holocaust, and their aftermath that succeeds in feeling fully, intimately human. . . . [The plot] twist is not what makes The Safekeep remarkable; what does is the extraordinary, emotional story Van der Wouden crafts around it, and the pitch-perfect voice she brings to the characters who experience its consequences.

Anger bubbles over into passion - and then a brilliantly executed twist elevates this love story into something much darker. I've been raving about this all year

Van der Wouden skilfully combines a story of a sexual awakening with that of a moral awakening

A meditation on family history, memory and sexual awakening

A tale of erotic obsession and revenge that also explores the legacy of the Holocaust…skilfully combines a story of sexual awakening with that of moral awakening, with a plot that harks back to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

Times – The 10 best historical fiction books of 2024

…uncovers repression and queer desire in the post-Nazi era Netherlands, makes a dazzling hairpin turn two thirds of the way through

The Guardian – The best fiction of 2024

...sexy and twisty without sacrificing substance... a marvel

van der Wouden's novel about the Holocaust's legacy is gripping... it's a story combining sexual and moral awakenings, and a refreshing way to discuss perhaps the most written era in history

Daily Mail - The 10 best fiction books 2024

A novel so masterly that you turn every page thinking that it surely cannot be a debut... Terrific

A hard-edged book cloaked in elegance; like the shard in the garden that begins it all, it is both cutting and a thing of beauty

An intense, absorbing mystery about a relationship between two women with a dark, hidden history that lies beneath them

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.

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S 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 
 
©2024 Yael van der Wouden (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Yael van der Wouden was born in 1987 and lives and works in The Netherlands. The Safekeep, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024. It was also longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Wingate Prize, and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. She lectures in creative writing and comparative literature.

The Safekeep

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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.

**Surprising, chilling, and electric. The Safekeep is a simply fantastic work of literature.**

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

Haunting and exquisitely poignant

Moving, unnerving and deeply sexy

The story is resolved in such a bold and tender way that it becomes not merely clever, but indelible

An impressive debut; I already look forward to Van der Wouden’s next

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.

[A] mesmerizing debut....A novel of redemption as much as revenge, The Safekeep has the pacing and twists of a thriller

Tantalizing... fans of Patricia Highsmith and Ottesa Moshfegh's Eileen will find much to admire here.

About Yael van der Wouden

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