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Shortlisted For The Booker Prize 2024: An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge
It is fifteen years after the Second World War, and Isabel has built herself a solitary life of discipline and strict routine in her late mother's country home, with not a fork or a word out of place. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep - as a guest, there to stay for the season…
In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel's desperate need for control reaches boiling point. What happens between the two women leads to a revelation which threatens to unravel all she has ever known...
Author: Yael Van Der Wouden
Paperback Published 2024 This Edition Published 15 May 2025 272 pages
Read and Recommended by Graeme:
"Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024, this novel is best approached knowing nothing about it as there are a number of surprises in store for the reader. But rest assured, the book has significant queer content - primarily lesbian but also gay male characters - and a fascinating historical setting, a provincial Dutch town, in the early 1960s, the after effects of the war still reverberating. But almost as important as these characters is the family home and the secrets that are gradually revealed about its history... This is an extraordinary debut novel."