The Safekeep (2024)

The Safekeep begins in the early 1960s in the rural Dutch province of Overijssel. We meet the book’s central character, Isabel, who lives alone in her family home, following her mother’s death. She obsessively tends to the house, while knowing she is only a temporary occupant. The house will eventually pass to her elder brother Louis, who like her other brother Hendrick has no interest in living in the house, having left and embraced city life. The three siblings meet for a dinner early in the book, at which Louis introduces his latest girlfriend Eva, to whom Isabel is openly and viciously rude. When Louis is later called away for work, he insists that Eva stay in the family home with Isabel, much to the latter’s dismay.