Collected's 24in24 - Emma recommends... BOOKER PRIZE 2024 SHORTLISTED | The Safekeep - Yael van der Wouden

Emma recommends... A mid-century setting with a 21st century sensibility. A tale of repression, of facing uncomfortable and denied histories, and yielding to suppressed desires. Sad and unsettling, as well as deeply moving and sexy - Sarah Waters PLUS! Loved it.

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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.