Author: Anna Downes
Publication Date: 14 July 2020
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Page Count: 368
Reading Method: Digital ARC
Synopsis:
Welcome to paradise…will you ever be able to leave?
Emily is a mess.
Emily Proudman just lost her acting agent, her job, and her apartment in one miserable day.
Emily is desperate.
Scott Denny, a successful and charismatic CEO, has a problem that neither his business acumen nor vast wealth can fix. Until he meets Emily.
Emily is perfect.
Scott offers Emily a summer job as a housekeeper on his remote, beautiful French estate. Enchanted by his lovely wife Nina, and his eccentric young daughter, Aurelia, Emily falls headlong into this oasis of wine-soaked days by the pool. But soon Emily realizes that Scott and Nina are hiding dangerous secrets, and if she doesn’t play along, the consequences could be deadly.
Review:
Woo! What a ride! Let me start off by saying that Downes’ writing style lent perfectly to the creepy, unsettling, and uncomfortable feeling throughout this story. There are so many small instances of foreshadowing that make you slap your forehead at the ending. You know you should have seen it coming, but there wasn’t quite enough there to put it all together.
Each character was completely their own person and had some form of development as the story progressed. Emily’s past comes to us in pieces as she tries to figure out her present. Nina seems to be the perfect wife and mother, but the sense that something is not quite right with her become stronger throughout. Scott has some habits at the beginning of the story that we begin to see the reasoning behind much later. Aurelia is just… strange and unsettling, but she has her reasons as well.
Reading through, I really couldn’t have guessed where this story would end up. Yes, it’s abundantly clear from the beginning that there is something sinister happening in this beautiful home by the sea, but the ending reveal is far from what I was expecting. This story is unsettling and gripping. I didn’t want to put it down.
You can purchase a copy of The Safe Place here
