The Safe Place

When something seems too good to be true, it probably is. A captivating narration by author Anna Downes adds that extra spark to her neo-gothic novel. After losing her acting job, her agent, and her apartment, Emily gets a promising job as a housekeeper/girl Friday for her former boss, Scott, at his remote French estate, Querencia. After meeting Nina, his high-strung wife, and Aurelia, his troubled daughter, Emily almost quits, but she decides to stick it out for the summer. Downes knows her characters and delivers them with professional expertise, original plotting, and a masterful performance. She creates an uneasy atmosphere from the first, adding layers of uncertainty that cause Emily (and the listener) to question reality. Chilling. Disturbing. A nail-biter to the end. S.J.H. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

May 11, 2020
Almost overnight, struggling London actor Emily Proudman, the protagonist of former actor Downes’s atmospheric, fitfully gripping debut, goes from being fired from the office temp job that’s barely paying her bills to being hired—by the same boss, no less, dashing investment firm CEO Scott Denny—for a gig as housekeeper/personal assistant for his reclusive wife, Nina, and their six-year-old daughter, Aurelia, at the family’s estate, Querencia, in the French countryside. At Querencia, Emily is initially bewitched by both the unimaginably lush estate and Nina, who’s fiercely devoted to a child whose issues seem to go well beyond a supposed extreme sensitivity to sunlight. But as wine-soaked summer weeks pass with Nina remaining as emotionally tightly defended as the gated grounds, the girl either mute or howling during one of her tantrums, and no sign of Scott, even someone as naive as Emily suspects there’s something rotten in paradise. At her peril, she starts to snoop. Though plenty of surprises await the reader, Aurelia’s palpable suffering casts something of a pall over this mix of romantic escapism and gothic menace. Ruth Ware fans may want to check this one out. 200,000-copy announced first printing.