Review of The Safe Place by Anna Downes

Downes, Anna.  The Safe Place.  St. Martins, 2020.

 

Emily Proudman wants to be an actress, but she has lost the current job she auditioned for.  Not only that, but her agent isn’t renewing her contract, and she can’t pay her rent on her apartment.  To add insult to injury, now she has been fired from her temporary office job at Proem Partners.  Her parents won’t even help her out, and she is out of ideas, when a job just seems to fall in her lap.  

 

Scott Denny, who is the attractive and rich CEO of Proem Partners, makes Emily an offer she can’t refuse—a job as a personal assistant/housekeeper/painter to his wife, Nina.  What’s not to like about this job?!  She gets a great salary, a car, and can live rent-free at a beautiful estate in France.

 

When Emily arrives at Querencia, she can’t believe her luck!  The estate is a paradise, and she thinks this must be her dream job!  However, Nina and Scott’s daughter, Aurelia, is a puzzle—she doesn’t speak and must wear clothes covering her whole body due to being allergic to sunlight.  And Nina is hard to figure out, as well.  She seems nice, but emotionally distant, and forbids Emily from entering the main house.  They also seem cut off from the real world since they have no Internet service and only intermittent phone service.

 

Emily also finds it strange that Scott never visits his family.  When he does finally arrive, months after she has been there, he seems to want nothing to do with Aurelia and doesn’t seem overly happy to see Nina.  She feels something is going on, but she doesn’t know what to make of it.

 

She eventually leaves Querencia and drives into town, where she visits an Internet café and discovers that the Denny family has a huge skeleton in their closet.  After learning this, she decides she wants to leave.  However, the Dennys have other plans for Emily…

 

In this debut suspense thriller by Anna Downes, the author has done an excellent job of world-building by giving the reader lush descriptions of parts of France.    The story is told in chapters by Emily and Scott, with some backstory narrated by Nina.  It is during this backstory that readers learn what transpires in the Denny family’s lives before the novel actually begins.  

 

The main characters are intricate and authentic, which makes for absorbing, obsessive read.  Emily is portrayed as weak, immature, and gullible, but she actually grows during the novel into someone who can think for herself.  Scott is aloof and controlling, but not near as much as Nina, who is also desperate and conniving.  Aurelia has a whole set of problems of her own, which don’t seem to improve, partially because of her mother.

 

The Safe Place is an oppressive, obsessive Gothic-type novel and is on several “anticipated book lists”.  There are plenty of twists, turns and surprises in the story to keep readers interested, although it does drag a bit in the middle.  Hand this book to your readers who enjoy mysteries and thrillers.  I recommend it for public libraries and give it three out of five fleur de lis.

 

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this title.

Great Adult/YA Crossover! New from Berkley!

Wrobel, Stephanie.  Darling Rose Gold.  Berkley, 2020.

For nearly two decades, everyone thought Patty Watts was the perfect mother and model citizen.  She helped her neighbors in need.  She volunteered in the community.  All this, while raising her terribly sick daughter, Rose Gold, who was in and out of hospitals and doctors’ offices, and was eventually confined to a wheelchair.  The town held fundraisers to help Patty cover costs for Rose Gold’s medical bills, and everyone said what a brave mother she was.

However, everything changes when Rose Gold turns sixteen and figures out how to use the Internet.  While her mom is sleeping, Rose Gold searches the web and discovers that her mother has been poisoning her since she was a baby.  With a family friend’s help, Rose Gold testifies against her mother, and Patty goes to prison for five years for child abuse.

When Patty is released from prison, Rose Gold decides to let Patty live with her for a time.  Rose Gold is now twenty-three years old and is a single mother of Adam, a two-month old infant.  The community is astounded when Rose Gold accepts Patty into her home, considering what went on in their past.  

Unknown the town, Rose Gold is hiding secrets, and she has bought Patty’s family home, which holds agonizing memories for Patty.  Patty thinks that all she has to do is win Rose Gold’s trust and love back, and then she will be in control again.  But revenge is a dish best served cold.  Rose Gold has been seething about her childhood treatment and has big surprises for Patty.

This debut novel by Stephanie Wrobel is written in alternating voices of mother and daughter both in present time and flashbacks.  Both characters are extremely well-developed, and are strong, devious protagonists who each has their own agenda.  The pairs’ minds reveal the motives and consequences of mental and physical abuse.  They are both damaged, unreliable narrators; they are indifferent to their actions and maniacal in their own ways.  While neither character is particularly likeable, readers will want one or the other to “win”.

The flashbacks tell the backstory of their lives and are smoothly fused into the plot.   Although the novel is character-driven, the narrative is disturbing and suspenseful, full of crazy twists and turns.  The plot has compelling pacing that will keep readers turning the pages.

Even though this psychological thriller is written for adults, teens will be drawn to it.  Hand it to adult readers of Gone Girl and teen readers of Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig.  I highly recommend it for public libraries and high school libraries for grades ten and up.  I give it five out of five fleur de lis!