The Safe Place

Superbly tense and oozing with atmosphere, Anna Downes’ debut The Safe Place is the perfect summer suspense; a deft examination of the lengths we’ll go to protect the facade of a perfect life.

Emily Proudman’s life is in chaos. She’s just lost her acting agent and her job in one miserable day.

Scott Denny has a problem. Even though he’s a successful CEO, neither his business acumen nor vast wealth can come close to fixing it. He’s at a breaking point. Until he meets Emily.

Emily is friendly and agreeable.

Emily is desperate.

Emily is perfect.

Scott offers Emily what seems the perfect summer job as a housekeeper and nanny on his remote French estate. Emily is quickly enchanted by his lovely wife Nina, and even his strange young daughter, and falls headlong into this apparent paradise.

But before long, Emily realizes that Scott and his wife are hiding dangerous secrets. And if Emily doesn’t play along, the beautiful place they call home might turn out to be a prison from which none of them will ever escape.

A compelling collision of Lisa Jewell’s morally complex family dynamics and Ruth Ware’s modern gothic vibes, The Safe Place is a deliciously sinister suspense novel that will also have you longing for wine-soaked summer days in a French villa by the sea.