The Safekeep

This bold debut centers on Isabel, a reclusive woman in 1961 Netherlands, and Eva, her sister’s girlfriend, who moves into her home for the summer. As intimacy develops against a backdrop of war’s lingering trauma, the novel becomes an erotic, psychological, and historical reckoning. Yael van der Wouden masterfully interweaves queerness, intergenerational memory, and small‑town detail. Critics praised its emotional heft, tightly‑plotted tension, and literary audacity. Winner of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction, it stands as both unsettling and deeply resonant.