The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden is a gripping debut novel set in 1961 in the Dutch countryside. The story centres on Isabel, a solitary woman living in her late mother’s country house, whose ordered life is disrupted when her brother Louis brings his girlfriend Eva to stay for the summer. As Eva intrudes into the space Isabel has long guarded, the tension between them escalates from suspicion to obsession, stirring hidden desires and long‑buried family secrets. The novel intriguingly blends intimate psychological drama with the larger historical shadow of post‑war Netherlands.
Note: Fiction, Literary / Historical.

