The Safe Place

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.

June 1, 2020
Emily Proudman has just lost her temp job, bombed her most recent audition, and was almost hit by a bus. She's beyond desperate for money, so when her former boss, Scott, offers her a job as a housekeeper at his second home in France, she can't say yes fast enough. As housekeeper, she will wear many hats: groundskeeper, babysitter to his six-year-old daughter, Aurelia, and companion to his wife, Nina, while Scott spends most of his time at work in London. The French estate, Querencia, is pristine in its beauty with a pool, views for days, and delicious food offered up at every meal. Emily never wants to leave, but soon she starts to see cracks in the beautiful life that Scott and Nina have made for their family. British actress Downes' debut novel is a slow burn of a story with Emily picking up on snippets of conversations as a breadcrumb trail leads her to an astounding conclusion. A great read for those looking for a side of mystery with their women's fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2020

Following the LJ-starred Our House, which was Candlish's U.S. debut, The Other Couple features middle-aged Clare and Jamie and the young couple they befriend, the upwardly aspiring Melia and Kit, until one day Kit vanishes after being seen arguing with Jamie on their regular ferryboat commute. Giller Prize winner Coady's Watching You Without Me opens with Karen back home in Novia Scotia after her mother's unexpected death, tending to her sister full-time and depending on her mother's old caregiver, Trevor, of whom she becomes increasingly suspicious. In JP Delaney's Playing Nice, the Riley and Lambert families are devastated to learn that their two-year-olds were switched at birth--and it gets worse. A prize finalist in Australia, Downes brings us disappointed thespian Emily Proudman, who thinks she's found The Safe Place she needs when she agrees to become housekeeper/nanny at the French estate of the Dennys--but her employers' dark secrets will out. In debuter Glass's Someone's Listening, scandal-ridden psychologist and radio star Faith Finley attends the launch of her new book with her husband, but when her car crashes afterward, the police claim he was not with her (70,000-copy first printing). In Hamilton's The Last Wife, Marie promises to watch over terminally ill friend Nina's family, but after Nina's death she starts uncovering uncomfortable intimations about what happened on a long-ago vacation they took in Ibiza that left Marie's boyfriend dead (200,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Finally, in Harriet Tyce's The Lies You Told, anxious mom Sadie Roper, newly single and newly reemployed as a barrister, is thrilled to win the attention of Liza, queen-bee mother at her children's school--but at what cost? From the author of Blood Orange; with a 40,000-copy first printing.

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