Booker Prize finalist: In The Safekeep, hidden desires collide with a haunting past

AT THE heart of Yael van der Wouden’s remarkable debut novel, The Safekeep, is a secluded Dutch countryside house in Overijssel, where the story unfolds in the 1960s.

The thrilling narrative is told mainly from the perspective of Isabel, the unmarried custodian of the property, who guards the house with fierce devotion, as though it were her own.

Yet, despite her attachment, the house belongs to her uncle Karel. As a woman in the 1960s, Isabel has no legal claim to it. Uncle Karel has willed the house to her elder brother, Louis, who will inherit it when he marries and settles down.