Safe as Houses by Simone van der Vlugt

A single mother stands in the garden of her isolated house, hanging out the washing, when suddenly a man appears. When he grabs at her, Lisa runs, but she is not quick enough. Suddenly Lisa and her young daughter find themselves held hostage in their own home. In the following hours and days, Lisa will do the unimaginable to protect her child - all the time wondering why the only witness has not come back to help her...Simmering with tension and lust for revenge, Safe as Houses is a terrifying story of every woman's worst fears.


Lisa is innocently putting out her washing when a man appears between the sheets hanging outside. She runs to her house, but it is the last thing she should do; the man grabbing her before she can close the door. She and her five-year old daughter Anouk then become trapped in their own house at the mercy of this man. There is one witness and Lisa hopes this will save her, by as the days go by, Lisa wonders why the witness has not come to her rescue.

This had my heart racing as soon as I started reading. The pace of the book is extremely quick and at the end of each chapter you just can't put it down; racing onto the next chapter to find out what will happen to Lisa and her daughter Anouk.

It was a quick read, which had me speeding through it and it really helped to build the suspense, but at the same time I think I would have liked to maybe learn more about the characters. Also I wasn't sure I was completely satisfied with the ending, it felt like I had just been running at break neck speed and then suddenly coming to a standstill. That said the atmosphere in the novel at times was terrifying and I really felt like I was in that house with Lisa experiencing what she was experiencing. It's literally every woman's worst nightmare with some quite hard-to-read scenes.

This is only a short review, but as it is quite a short read I do not want to give anything away!

Full of tension and suspense, you will literally race through this novel. It is literally non-stop and I don't think I once paused for breath.

8/10