Home is where your heart is

A whole post dedicated to 'The Safekeep' - my latest obsession.

Dearest Readers,

In the north of England, there is a county called Lancashire. My grandmother has lived there for most of my life. It’s where she grew up, moved away from, and, many years later, found her way back to.

The home she has had since I was six years old is my favorite place on earth. I dream about being there. I can summon its scent when I’m feeling sad, and it’s the only place in the world I truly feel homesick for.

This week, whilst reading Yael van de Wouden’s The Safekeep, I was reminded of a story my grandmother often told before her memory began to fade.

One afternoon, a school friend invited her over for a playdate. The girl’s father was a doctor, and they lived in a beautiful two-story house with a sprawling garden. My grandmother, who hadn’t grown up with much, thought the house was extraordinary. It had a grand staircase, windows that framed towering trees, and cozy bedrooms that felt like something out of a storybook.

She remembers standing there, feeling at home, wishing it was hers.

More than 30 years later, she and my grandfather bought that very house.

I spent Christmases in this garden, watching deer prance through the snow. I learned to bake chocolate cake in its kitchen and, after long-haul flights from Manchester Airport, would warm myself on the AGA with a cup of tea in hand.

The house is magic. It still stands today, and whenever I’m there, it holds a quiet power over me.

Last time I was there (2023) I started madly taking pictures of EVERYTHING so I’d never forget it as there was talks about the house being sold when my grandfather passed. This is one of those shots. Now all I can see are my dodgy hair extensions lol.

I thought about the idea of home a lot while reading The Safekeep, how it can become such an intrinsic part of our identity and who we believe ourselves to be. I’ve been sad this past week as I have come to terms with the fact that I will lose my home here in Sydney because of the big D word (get your mind out of the gutter, the word is divorce).

It is the one home that has always felt like mine, spiritually. Mostly because of its style. But also because everything in it was chosen by me. The furniture (aside from my stained couch), the frames in my office filled with trinkets, my vintage tapestry pillows and the two armchairs I read on everyday.

But…. it’s just stuff right? Home is where your heart is. And my heart is with my boys. The two children that I created in my home of a body and the man who has brought so much joy and laughter to our lives. Home is not a piece of artwork but a long hug. It’s a glass of water by the bedside and us going around the dinner table talking about the ‘sunshine’ and the ‘rainy’ of our days.

A month ago, I traveled back to Perth to see my best friend from high school marry her partner in her grandmother’s garden. It was the same place where we had taken our ball photos, spent countless afternoons after school, had sleepovers and built so many of our memories. To me and to everyone there it felt only natural that she would get married in that space.

But at various points in the evening I found myself crying with joy and grief. Especially as my friend stood up to make a speech about having always dreamt of having her wedding there. It was emotional to her, but also to everyone else, knowing that one day with the passage of time, that house would belong to someone else.

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‘The Safekeep’ was a slow burn of a novel. A lot of sexual tension, suspiciousness and inner thoughts of the protagonist Isabel. I bought it because of the cover and it lay waiting in my office for 2 months. It was only until I saw that Yael was coming to Sydney Writers Festival that I thought I’d better give it a go.

The hardback cover is so good. The pink, the font. The letterpress on the good paper stock. Drool.

We all know how bad I am at writing book blurbs so I’ll give you the official one from Penguin :

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...

It’s lazy of me, I know, to regurgitate a blurb like this. But this is the kind of novel where you kind of can’t know too much. It creeps up on you and leaves you absolutely speechless.

The way I will be selling it is ‘The Dutch House’ by Ann Patchett meets ‘Devotion’ by Hannah Kent meets ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. It is so exquisite in its stillness and eroticism. Like ‘The Dutch House’ the house very much feels like a character and makes itself known through the entire book.

Without being an overtly / obvious work of historical fiction The Safekeep most definitely is. In the characters we see the trauma of those who have survived the Second World War and the survivalist mentality that would’ve caused so many to act paranoid and suspicious.

And as much as I’d like to say 101 more things about the book I won’t because I don’t want to ruin the experience of reading it for you.

I am selfless like this ;)

We are getting more stock of it at the shop this week. But if you read it before then please tag me on instagram so we can debrief until the cows come home. I love that so many of you have done it with ‘Wild, Dark Shore’. Every single person who has read it has written to say that they too are obsessed.

So……anyway……Happy Reading !

Love,

Jessie

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