I read the International Longlist last year and it was great but this year I’ll do the main Booker longlist. You can see extracts on their website and The Safe Keep appealed to me the most.
It’s set in the Netherlands in the 1960s and refers to the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944 and the trauma that WWII imposed on the next generation. The main characters, who were children during the war, are living their lives in the shadows of the past.
There’s a tortured love story, a not too bad ending and such a plot twist that I can’t give any of the plot away. It was written by Yael van der Wouden. Some bits might be a bit soppy but this book explores trauma in anew to me and interesting way.