The Safe Place

the perfect addictive summer thriller for 2022 holiday reading

By: Anna Downes

Narrated by: Anna Downes

Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

Perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Sally Hepworth and Lesley Kara's The Rumour.

A beautiful home might hide dangerous secrets....

Emily Proudman has been offered the chance of a lifetime - leave her messy London life, move to a beautiful estate in France and help her boss' wife take care of their daughter. It seems like the perfect opportunity to start again.

But once there, Emily soon starts to suspect that her charismatic new employers aren't telling her the whole truth. That there are even dangerous secrets hidden beneath the glamorous facade.

Why have the family been moved to this isolated house so far from home? Why does her bosses' daughter refuse to speak or be touched? Why are there whispers in the night? 

The only problem is, the more Emily knows, the less chance there is she will ever be able to leave.

©2020 Anna Downes (P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Unique, Intriguing, wanted so much to like it but

This is a tough one to review. I want to be honest. A lot of the reason I chose it was because of the foreign location and I wanted a safe get away during lockdown, I was impressed that the author was narrating and she did a great job and is obviously very good if not fluent in French also which was impressive,
I really wanted to like this as it was a big slice of different and so fresh and unique.
The plot was intriguing and got curiouser and curiouser.
My problem was that I did not care for the main character Emily.
Then despite so many mysteries like the foul smell in the house I just got bored.
Yes I even felt bad about it as it was so well written and it was so thought provoking.
I found the Australian accent also got on my nerves and I got to like Emily less and less.
I then missed a huge chunk of it as left it running (Ok I admit it - I fell asleep!) and could not be bothered to go back as really had enough.
By then mental illness had reared its head and I just find that always muddies the water in mysteries.
I never found out why the house was stinky, I never found out the big mystery that made Emily faint and behave oddly or what was wrong with the child but I had just had enough,
It was a shame as so beautifully written to a standard which is so far superior to most thrillers but just the content could not hold my attention as everyone was so unlikeable and nuts.
There was also self harming which I find an upsetting theme.
Then there was a bit of a plot hole. Someone complaining about the price of a pony then offered to buy someone a house ... um hard to reconcile that so I just left it at that.
I did wonder what Emily's secret was .... and the stink that they kept trying to cover up but what with the madness and the unlikeable characters and the plot hole and the self harming and the way this lovely French hideaway was constantly referred to as "The Property" ad nauseum I gave up.
No idea how a book can be so well written, so mysterious and yet I found it heavy going, a bit dull and just a bit boring.
I have read and enjoyed many more farfetched books but this one, despite its great attributes left me cold.

Interesting and unexpected

A good listen from a new voice this is an interesting psychological thriller that has a surprising twist. I also enjoyed the narration particularly the Australian voice. I look forward to this authors next book.

Superbly twisty thriller

This is a gorgeously dark tale that keeps you guessing right until the end. Brilliantly read by the author, with deftly voiced characters and multiple narrative voices, it draws you in and then just keeps pulling and pinching at you. Emily, our protagonist is wonderfully optimistic, enthusiastic and curious which makes her hugely likeable but constantly gets her into deeper and deeper trouble. I don’t often listen to audiobooks anywhere but bed, but this one came with me everywhere - I just had to find out what was going on.

easy characters to get caught up in

the characters in this novel are easy to get caught up in. Their complexities and layers are understandable and relatable. Each choice they make within the novel is done in a way the reader can sympathise with even if they can't agree with.
Nina is beautifully broken and heartbreakingly lost in her own created world.
Emily is looking for a created world to fit into until she sees her world for all it is.
Scott is living a duel life, both of which are lies.
This novel is a delightfully enticing and breathtakingly beautiful spiral into the complexities of love, loyalty and the need to belong.

Excellent narration by the author

There are moments of excellent reflective writing but at times this feels like a novel aimed at young adults.

I am left with a few queries and wonder if I nodded off or if there were a few plot holes left unresolved.
It took me a while to listen to this novel and in the end I just let it drift over me like a warm French evening rather than worry about minutiae of the plot.

The narration was brilliant and hooks you in but it did take me a little while to enjoy this novel. It gets better once the novel arrives at the rural French setting.

I think the setting is the u.s.p of this novel .

Slow burn to nothing

I’m afraid I was disappointed in this slow burn. I kept waiting for it to gear up but the ‘mystery’ was such an anticlimax it made me mad. Full of cliches, with a very unlikeable stupid main character, this was not the book for me.

very slow

This book was soo slow. Nothing really seemed to happen and by the time it did I just wanted to start something else that would grip me.

Great

loved this book, and very good narrator, will look for author again and narrator .