The Safe Place by Anna Downes

Publisher's Synopsis

For struggling actress Emily Proudman, life in London is not working out as planned - in fact, it's falling apart. So when she is offered a live-in job working for a wealthy family on their luxurious coastal property in France, she jumps at the opportunity to start over.

The estate is picture-perfect, and its owners exude charisma and sophistication. But as Emily gets to know the family, their masks begin to slip, and what at first appears to be a dream come true turns out to be a prison from which none of them will ever escape - unless Emily can find a way to set them all free.

My Review of The Safe Place by Anna Downes

It’s not very often that I start reading a book not knowing anything at all about the plot or the general storyline, but that’s what I did when I started The Safe Place by British / Australian author Anna Downes. Doing it this way allowed me to be swept up in the predicament that Emily Proudman, the story’s main character, finds herself in.

Emily is an out-of-work actress who’s had to resort to working temp jobs in order to pay the rent and the latest job is as a receptionist for a big time financial advisor outfit. It’s a job for which she has absolutely no aptitude nor any interest but, if she’s going to keep her shabby London apartment, she’s got to make it work.

Then she gets fired.

No job, no money, the prospects of being chucked out of her apartment and ostracised from her own family thanks to her own thoughtlessness. Things are looking particularly grim for Emily.

So when she happens to run into Scott Denny, her former boss, and he throws her the lifetime of offering her a housekeeping job with his wife and child who live in France, she can barely believe her good fortune. This represents a secure, well-paying job doing something she knows she’s good at in a place that’s comfortable and luxurious. To her, there’s no perceivable downside.

Then we get the picture from Scott’s perspective and there’s clearly an ulterior motive at play, it’s just a little unclear exactly what that motive amounts to. He’s aware of Emily’s shortcomings but claims that this makes her the perfect person to accept into his family’s home. Also, the way he speaks of Nina, his wife, and daughter Aurelia suggests that there’s a “big secret” that’s yet to be revealed.

Upon arriving in France and settling into life at the estate, there’s clearly something unusual at play. Nina has some clear rules about where on the estate Emily can go and Aurelia has health problems that affect her behaviour and limits where she’s allowed to play. As she gets to know the Denny family, the little niggles that at first didn’t seem quite right start to become larger, much more worrying concerns, but by the time she thinks she’s figured it out it appears it could be too late.

When you’re stuck within a gated estate with no phone or internet connection, unable to leave, you’re essentially in a prison no matter how opulent it is.

The Safe Place is a tense, suspense-filled drama that relies on the slow build up of odd behaviours that begin to help build an overall picture. The story’s told from the perspectives of both Emily and Scott and the important gaps in the story come from flashback narratives from Nina’s perspective.

In Emily we have the perfect patsy who appears doomed to walking wide-eyed into every situation expecting the best of people but rarely having it delivered to her. The true nature of Scott and Nina is adeptly hidden as is their respective pasts but I felt we’re still provided with enough of a backstory about each of them to develop a certain sympathetic understanding about their motives and actions moving forward.

This is a story that relies on the solid foundation of a slow build up in order to deliver a full-on, tension filled finish and I appreciated the way it was accomplished. A strong debut novel with dark themes, measured pacing and a down to earth, relatable main character in Emily Proudman.