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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoyed this book - it's a quick read filled with suspense amidst the beautiful beaches of the south of France. The last 25% of the book goes from twist to twist, keeping the reader on her toes. Perfect for COVID quarantine times when we all wish we could jet off to an exotic location!
Emily is the sort of character you read about in a lot of thrillers - smart but aimless, with a troubled past, still waiting for her life to really start. And it does when she makes a deal with Scott to care for his daughter Aurelia. But something's just not right with Aurelia or her mother Nina. In between the main action, we get flashbacks that help bring the story to its conclusion. The author did a great job building up the spooky/creepy/something's not right here tone, and I was waiting for the big reveal!
Thank you to Affirm Press for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Emily is the sort of character you read about in a lot of thrillers - smart but aimless, with a troubled past, still waiting for her life to really start. And it does when she makes a deal with Scott to care for his daughter Aurelia. But something's just not right with Aurelia or her mother Nina. In between the main action, we get flashbacks that help bring the story to its conclusion. The author did a great job building up the spooky/creepy/something's not right here tone, and I was waiting for the big reveal!
Thank you to Affirm Press for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you, Netgalley, for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion!
Emma, Emma, Emma, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is not what it looks like. You thought you would be the exception, well, you made your bed and had to lay in it too!
With that being said, I have to say that the house, the wife, the child, and the driver were creepy from the beginning. If I were Emma, I would have felt the bad vibes from the start. Would I have given the family the benefit of a doubt, probably. But something was definitely wrong with the idyllic picture.
This book kept me shaking my head (at the characters), creeped out, excited to find out what would happen next, and anxious to find out how it would all end. To be honest, at some point this story gave me The Exorcist vibes. I think this was a fantastic debut novel, Mrs. Downes!
Emma, Emma, Emma, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is not what it looks like. You thought you would be the exception, well, you made your bed and had to lay in it too!
With that being said, I have to say that the house, the wife, the child, and the driver were creepy from the beginning. If I were Emma, I would have felt the bad vibes from the start. Would I have given the family the benefit of a doubt, probably. But something was definitely wrong with the idyllic picture.
This book kept me shaking my head (at the characters), creeped out, excited to find out what would happen next, and anxious to find out how it would all end. To be honest, at some point this story gave me The Exorcist vibes. I think this was a fantastic debut novel, Mrs. Downes!
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Wow...I enjoyed this story...I would have given 5 stars if there was a bit more of an ending.
Really suspenseful storyline. Some of the bits I didn’t really understand (like the foul smells, the boxes and mould everywhere - possibly red herrings or just to add to the creepiness of the house?).
Emily is a young unemployed actress, well she was employed briefly but was fired! No boyfriend and fighting with her adopted parents - she jumps at the chance of the job offered to her by her ex boss to move to France and help his wife out.
Emily develops a bit of a crush on her boss, Scott, and perhaps a little on his wife and she feels for their disabled daughter, but she does become a little suspicious of things and feels like she is being watched, and then starts to think about things being the way they are and why they are that way.
Can’t really say too much about story line otherwise will spoil it for others reading - but I did really enjoy it - gave me similar vibes to books by Lisa Jewell. Will read Amanda’s next book once released.
Really suspenseful storyline. Some of the bits I didn’t really understand (like the foul smells, the boxes and mould everywhere - possibly red herrings or just to add to the creepiness of the house?).
Emily is a young unemployed actress, well she was employed briefly but was fired! No boyfriend and fighting with her adopted parents - she jumps at the chance of the job offered to her by her ex boss to move to France and help his wife out.
Emily develops a bit of a crush on her boss, Scott, and perhaps a little on his wife and she feels for their disabled daughter, but she does become a little suspicious of things and feels like she is being watched, and then starts to think about things being the way they are and why they are that way.
Can’t really say too much about story line otherwise will spoil it for others reading - but I did really enjoy it - gave me similar vibes to books by Lisa Jewell. Will read Amanda’s next book once released.
The Safe Place took me to a place I wasn't expecting. You got the feeling something was up with this house in France but you couldn't put your finger quite on what. The story took good twists and turns. It was quick paced and kept you trying to figure out what was going on with Nina and Aurelia. I read this book in one day. I liked how it switched from Emily and Scott's perspectives and had that sort of diary voice in it that you had to figure out who it belonged to. I thought it was a great overall book.
Emily is dead broke and desperate for something new. When her ex-boss, Scott, approaches her with what seems like the opportunity of a lifetime, Emily can't not accept. Emily is to work as an assistant/nanny/housekeeper for Scott's wife and daughter at a beautiful, remote, French estate. When Emily meets and begins to live with Scott's wife, Nina, and daughter, Aurelia, she begins to suspect something isn't quite right but what is wrong and how does she escape it?
The Safe Place took me to a place I wasn't expecting. You got the feeling something wasn't right with what was happening in this French estate but you couldn't put your finger on what it was. You were on a ride with Emily to discover the truth the whole time. The story took good twists and turns. I read this book in one day!
Thank you to @netgalley and #AffirmPress for the opportunity to read this ARC
The Safe Place took me to a place I wasn't expecting. You got the feeling something wasn't right with what was happening in this French estate but you couldn't put your finger on what it was. You were on a ride with Emily to discover the truth the whole time. The story took good twists and turns. I read this book in one day!
Thank you to @netgalley and #AffirmPress for the opportunity to read this ARC
What an incredible debut from Anna Downes. This was the perfect, juicy summer thriller - an idyllic setting and spine-tingling suspense. I didn't move from my seat for several hours because I just could not put this book down as my heart was literally thumping in the final chapters, not sure how it was going to end.
Emily is having a rough go of it - she's lost her job, her acting agent, and her apartment in a matter of days. She isn't sure where to turn when the CEO of her former company saves her from a near traffic accident. Scott has a major problem - he's worried about his wife, Nina, and thinks Emily might be the perfect solution. So Scott offers her the incredible opportunity to become the housekeeper/personal assistant for his wife and daughter at their private seaside French estate, Querencia. Emily can't believe her luck - a summer spent poolside with Nina and little Aurelia, soaking in French wine and French sun, no longer having to worry about money. But when Emily uncovers what Scott and Nina have been hiding behind the walls of Querencia, she begins to fear she won't make it back out the front gates.
Downes had me absolutely hooked from the beginning. The book is a thriller - you know something is coming, but I loved that I couldn't guess what it was. The suspense built to a shocking discovery and I was completely along for the ride, in the dark with Emily then equally surprised and made uneasy by the turn of events. The one thing that didn't feel quite right to me about the book was Emily's relationship with her parents - I didn't really see the contentious relationship she claimed to have with them and found it a bit difficult to think someone would take off to a new job in another country without telling anyone at all where she was going. But despite this one note, The Safe Place is an absolute page-turner that had me flying through the final chapters, desperate to see how it would end. This is the perfect summer read to completely engross you and leave you guessing every step of the way. Thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Emily is having a rough go of it - she's lost her job, her acting agent, and her apartment in a matter of days. She isn't sure where to turn when the CEO of her former company saves her from a near traffic accident. Scott has a major problem - he's worried about his wife, Nina, and thinks Emily might be the perfect solution. So Scott offers her the incredible opportunity to become the housekeeper/personal assistant for his wife and daughter at their private seaside French estate, Querencia. Emily can't believe her luck - a summer spent poolside with Nina and little Aurelia, soaking in French wine and French sun, no longer having to worry about money. But when Emily uncovers what Scott and Nina have been hiding behind the walls of Querencia, she begins to fear she won't make it back out the front gates.
Downes had me absolutely hooked from the beginning. The book is a thriller - you know something is coming, but I loved that I couldn't guess what it was. The suspense built to a shocking discovery and I was completely along for the ride, in the dark with Emily then equally surprised and made uneasy by the turn of events. The one thing that didn't feel quite right to me about the book was Emily's relationship with her parents - I didn't really see the contentious relationship she claimed to have with them and found it a bit difficult to think someone would take off to a new job in another country without telling anyone at all where she was going. But despite this one note, The Safe Place is an absolute page-turner that had me flying through the final chapters, desperate to see how it would end. This is the perfect summer read to completely engross you and leave you guessing every step of the way. Thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
First I want to thank [a:Anna Downes|19212025|Anna Downes|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1590059645p2/19212025.jpg] and Minotaur Books for an ARC version of this novel.
I had a lot of mixed emotions about the people in this book. At first I really didn't like Emily. She seemed... lost and wondering. Aimless. And a little ungrateful towards her adoptive parents. But I was also trying to reserve judgment because we don't really get an inside look at her relationship with her family. Or even her friends. And I think this perception was intentional. Because it justifies why Emily would decide to take a blind leap at a job offer that would not only move her to another country for a period of time, but would put her in a secluded property, far away from anyone else, with a family she really didn't know.
From somewhere in the middle of the book, though, it was a struggle for me to figure out exactly which character gave me the most weird vibes. Was it Scott? Who manipulated Emily's job situation in order to herd her into accepting the job he wanted to offer her. Was it Nina, who started a little tense, then merged into someone more pleasant, only to have strange bursts of hysteric hostility over seemingly minor things. Was it the creepy groundskeeper Yves who rarely spoke but always seemed to just be there. Or was it Aurelia? Who... honestly, for a time, I thought she might be stolen / kidnapped and was being kept quiet through medication. At other times, I thought she might just be Satan's child.
By the end of the book? Nina is bat shit and, for a while, I really thought that Emily would keep all she learned about that family quiet. Which, okay, I could have weirdly accepted? Like as a type of unsatisfactory ending? But instead, Emily did the right thing, the only real thing, she could do. And while it was a little unsettling, it felt like it was the only way the book could end.
Anna Downes did an amazing job of taking seemingly unstable characters and making them completely sympathetic by the end of the novel. And taking characters you just want to hug in the beginning and turning them, for lack of a better term, a bit bat shit crazy. It was sad and suspenseful and really just an overall well-rounded thriller.
I still want to know what happened in Emily's past.
I had a lot of mixed emotions about the people in this book. At first I really didn't like Emily. She seemed... lost and wondering. Aimless. And a little ungrateful towards her adoptive parents. But I was also trying to reserve judgment because we don't really get an inside look at her relationship with her family. Or even her friends. And I think this perception was intentional. Because it justifies why Emily would decide to take a blind leap at a job offer that would not only move her to another country for a period of time, but would put her in a secluded property, far away from anyone else, with a family she really didn't know.
From somewhere in the middle of the book, though, it was a struggle for me to figure out exactly which character gave me the most weird vibes. Was it Scott? Who manipulated Emily's job situation in order to herd her into accepting the job he wanted to offer her. Was it Nina, who started a little tense, then merged into someone more pleasant, only to have strange bursts of hysteric hostility over seemingly minor things. Was it the creepy groundskeeper Yves who rarely spoke but always seemed to just be there. Or was it Aurelia? Who... honestly, for a time, I thought she might be stolen / kidnapped and was being kept quiet through medication. At other times, I thought she might just be Satan's child.
By the end of the book? Nina is bat shit and, for a while, I really thought that Emily would keep all she learned about that family quiet. Which, okay, I could have weirdly accepted? Like as a type of unsatisfactory ending? But instead, Emily did the right thing, the only real thing, she could do. And while it was a little unsettling, it felt like it was the only way the book could end.
Anna Downes did an amazing job of taking seemingly unstable characters and making them completely sympathetic by the end of the novel. And taking characters you just want to hug in the beginning and turning them, for lack of a better term, a bit bat shit crazy. It was sad and suspenseful and really just an overall well-rounded thriller.
I still want to know what happened in Emily's past.
Emily is at her wit's end, she's lost her job and her agent, and she's about to be evicted from her apartment. Without a clue what to do, she is approached by her ex-boss, Scott, who offers her a mysterious job as housekeeper and companion to his wife and daughter who live on a private estate on the coast of France. Signing a non-disclosure agreement to take a post as a housekeeper seems a bit bizarre, but in her desperation, Emily doesn't give it a whole lot of thought.
At first, Emily is overwhelmed with her luck and the idyllic beauty of both her boss's family and their estate. As time progresses, Emily begins to realize that all is not as it seems. She trusts the family, but do they trust her? Should she trust them? Can they trust her? Why all the seclusion and secrecy? While the isolation is at first jarring, it eventually becomes relaxing, and finally a bit stifling. What is really going on and what really motivated Scott to offer this job to Emily?
This book is fast-paced and compulsive! I finished it in one day because I just could not put it down. Lots of twists and turns keep the reader guessing and I missed a few clues at the beginning that were artfully placed. Atmospheric and haunting, this book will keep you reading and guessing and You'll very likely lose some sleep over it. Definitely recommended!
Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
At first, Emily is overwhelmed with her luck and the idyllic beauty of both her boss's family and their estate. As time progresses, Emily begins to realize that all is not as it seems. She trusts the family, but do they trust her? Should she trust them? Can they trust her? Why all the seclusion and secrecy? While the isolation is at first jarring, it eventually becomes relaxing, and finally a bit stifling. What is really going on and what really motivated Scott to offer this job to Emily?
This book is fast-paced and compulsive! I finished it in one day because I just could not put it down. Lots of twists and turns keep the reader guessing and I missed a few clues at the beginning that were artfully placed. Atmospheric and haunting, this book will keep you reading and guessing and You'll very likely lose some sleep over it. Definitely recommended!
Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.