Welcome to Litsy!

I thought this was ok as a vacation read that‘s easy to follow, but it did take awhile to get to the “thriller” part and when it did it wasn‘t very surprising. I have noticed that Downes does well with romantic tension though and wonder if she writes romances under another name.🤔

Vacation reading is the best! ☀️🍹📖

So, I grabbed this off the sale shelf on Audible and it seems okay but the reviews here are not too favorable. I'm in a thriller lull and it's totally thriller session with Halloween 🎃 just days away. Any recommendations?

THE SAFE PLACE by Anna Downes was a well written debut. Although it was very slow moving, there are little clues dropped throughout the story that gives you just enough to want more. The author does and great job tying all loose ends with undeniably strong and satisfying conclusion. Recommend to any lover of intense thrillers.

Although I didn‘t find the book overly predictable as many reviews indicate I definitely wasn‘t shocked or surprised when the twists were revealed. I enjoyed the story and thought this was a pretty good debut novel. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was different. I liked the tense relationships between all of the characters. I kind of guessed the twist about 2/3rds of the way in. I'm on the fence about the mentally ill/crazy woman characterization. I just don't like mental illness as a plot line. I thought the story was interesting though & it was an easy read. I pre-ordered her upcoming release. Minus my personal issue with the mental illness angle ⭐⭐⭐💫 Stars.

Wow I got so spoilt by my #aussiesecretsanta @Lizpixie ❤️
Thank you Liz my gifts are wonderful.
I love the special edition of Pride and Prejudice, and I have not read the new Amor Towles..it‘s been on my list though!! Anna Downes is new to me but sounds great!
The book cover is brilliant! Perfect for taking a book to work on night duty👍🏼
So glad to be part of this swap @thegirlwiththelibrarybag
Merry Christmas everyone🎅❤️🌲📚

It took my so long to work out where this one was going! It‘s a good page turner, I just felt it was a bit long

I wanted to like this one more than I did. The characters just were not likable (except for Aurelia) and Emily just made so many stupid decisions it became unbelievable after a while. However I will give props to the way the author handled trauma and mental health. As someone with depression/anxiety, I always appreciate when an author handles mental health with grace and relatability.

This was a fun round! #LMPBC

I wasn't crazy about this one. I really liked the examination of trauma, but that was about it. I didn't really get the creepy vibes I wanted from it! Which is a bummer bc I was SO looking forward to it. 🤷‍♀️ I think probably my expectations were too high on this one. Read for #lmpbc #groupI thrillers. @Alfrazier21 @SamAnne @magyklyXdelish

Final #LMPBC book for this round. 🤗

@magyklyXdelish so...I sent my husband to mail my #lmpbc books bc I had to work. And I've just discovered that he didn't see a second post-it with an address, and he put my books for 2 groups in the same package and sent them BOTH to you! 😬 If I was able to PayPal you some money, would you be able to ship Axiom's End to @booksellerofyourdiscontent ? I can email you her address... 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️
@suvata

When you read enough books, you get a general understanding of how the story line will progress throughout the book as you begin to read. This book started out promising, however I felt that it took an unnecessarily long time to reveal the plot. There was so much that the author wrote in the book to give the audience a well-rounded understanding. I started to get impatient with all of the unnecessary “fillers”. It was a little too wordy for me.

Lucy likes this book as much as I did! ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Emily loses her job, apartment, and acting agent all in a day. Thankfully a CEO offers her a job of a lifetime. It won‘t be long before she discovers his families secrets. Will she escape, play along, meet her demise, or get out alive...

Let‘s try this again! New author for me. I‘m not even sure how this book got on my list. Probably a post from Litsy. Have you read this one? Let me know your thoughts.

The Safe Place is great example of well-paced, consistent tension building. It‘s a compelling, read in a day narrative that builds in many directions from the first page. Happy summer reading everybody, this is the domestic thriller you all need.

I really enjoyed my pick for #Round10 of #LMPBC 📖 This one hooked me early on and I had trouble putting it down! Sent it your way this afternoon @SamAnne ✉️ You should have it by 12/1!

@suvata @rjsthumbelina @magyklyXdelish

A perfect cocktail of drama, intrigue and subtly weird characters combine in this debut following Emily Proudman, a disgraced wannabe actress, who is fired from her temp agency job. After hitting rock bottom, she is picked off the ground by her sexy former boss, who offers her a job as a glorified housekeeper to his wife in France. What appears at first to be a squeaky clean rich family, Emily soon discovers the rot living beneath the varnish

What, to you, constitutes as the perfect summer read? I actually have such a hard time coming up with answers to questions like this, especially when people ask specifically for beach read recommendations, but I think a thriller that takes place in the summer fits perfectly as a seasonal pick for me. Of course, The Safe Place might be a great winter read, too, so I can remind myself in the gloom of it all that sunny days are up ahead!

°´✿.｡.:* 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 *.:｡.✿`°
⁣
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 is an impressive debut thriller by 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐃𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐬. Darkly atmospheric, the story could have been just another mystery. But Downes takes her protagonist on a journey of personal growth & test of moral character that make the conclusion richly satisfying. Downes's career is off to a promising start. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⁣

𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸: https://tinyurl.com/yye8rxvv

I can‘t quite put my finger on what it was with this book..?! Too much fluff, or not enough answers, or both? I liked parts of it and i didn‘t like others.

Got the print version of this one to read!

The great thing about The Safe Place is that I was able to experience events from Emily and Scott‘s viewpoints, but there were also other little random sections within the novel, narrated by third, that added to the mystery of the novel. The Safe Place was a novel that I could not put down and really enjoyed. It is a page-turner that kept me guessing. I would highly recommend it to anyone who would enjoy a little mystery with their paradise.

This is my review for a book I read. I gave it 3 stars.

Rating: 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Review:
First off Thank you to @bookishfirst.com and @minotaurbooks for picking me to win this ARC copy in a giveaway back in May!!

This book was a shocking Thriller with lots of edge of your seat shocking moments!!

Can't wait to read more by Anna in the future!!!

Starting Book 10 of July and Book 105 of 2020!!!
Thank you to @bookishfirst.com and @minotaurbooks for picking me to win this book in a giveaway back in May!!!
#TheSafePlace

Happy pub day to all of the authors celebrating their book birthdays, including the two pictured! The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones is a literary horror about four American Indian friends trying to escape a vengeful entity! The Safe Place by Anna Downes is a psychological thriller about a woman who thinks she‘s found the perfect summer job as a housekeeper until she realizes that her employers have some not-so-perfect secrets!

HAPPY PUB DAY!!

A dream job?

See what Emily‘s “dream” job really is in this summer thriller.

FULL REVIEW: https://tinyurl.com/y8amhfrd

@anna_downes_writer
@minotaur_books

Very atmospheric, the perfect summer escape read. Nothing is going right for Emily but then she is offered the dream job of a lifetime at a mansion in France. At first the job seems perfect. She has her own guest house & the woman she is working for quickly becomes a good friend. It's like being on a permanent vacation...until it's not. Emily realizes that something weird is going on, not everything and everyone are what they seem.

Though a bit slow at first, the pacing of this summer thriller rockets through the last quarter of the book! In short order, Emily loses her temp job, her flat and her agent but she‘s thrown an unexpected lifeline from the owner of the last temp job. Scott whisks her off to his remote French coastal property to meet his wife and child and to help care for them both in isolation. But all is not quite right with the picture-perfect place before her!

I did really like this book for the most part. It grabbed my interest right away and was steady almost all the way through. The story was very interesting and I really thought the writing was very good. I thought it could have had more of a twist in some ways, but I liked it. It came together well in the end and definitely kept me guessing in parts.

Creepy house, creepy kid, a million miles away from anyone – The Safe Place has all the classic motifs of a gothic thriller. It was all very reminiscent of Ruth Ware‘s The Turn of The Key, which I quite enjoyed. Unfortunately, it falls short of the high bar for women-centered domestic thrillers, set by writers like Liane Moriarty. Extended review here: http://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/new-releases/

Finished this #ARC today! This one started off a little slow for me but it really picked up, and the ending was to die for. It did not go where I was expecting based on the blurb and the initial setup! Down on her luck Emily is offered a job as a live in housekeeper/au pair at a secluded French country house. It seems like paradise and she soon bonds with her employers. But things that seem too good to be true usually are...

Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. Emily is offered a job as an assistant to a woman living in France with a child in a luxury estate. There are a few rules, no phones, no visitors, do no enter the main house. I was captivated from the moment she enters the estate, the suspense builds throughout the book when she starts to realise things aren't quite right or as they first appeared. An excellent debut novel

It's only a staycation but at least I have an #ARC of upcoming thriller #thesafeplace to make my balcony reading feel like a beach read. Thanks @StMartinsPress for letting me get my hands back on this one early!

FULL REVIEW ON JULY 14.

Emily never could keep a job.

But then Emily finds a job in a remote paradise with her boss‘s wife and odd daughter. There is no phone service or wi-fi.

Just what did Emily get herself into? Was this really a dream job?

THE SAFE PLACE has a slow buildup to a very riveting ending.

A great summer thriller you won‘t want to miss. 5/5

@anna_downes_writer
@minotaur_books
@bookishfirst

Emily is offered a dream job working for a wealthy family on their estate in France. She quickly befriends the glamorous and beguiling Nina.
⁣Downes weaves gorgeous descriptions of the French peninsular with ominous and mysterious undertones creeping through at unexpected moments. There's sexual chemistry, a sinister caretaker, a troubled child and a house with secret rooms and no escape. All elements that make a fun and twisty read.
⁣

Emily loses her job, her apartment and her acting agent all in one day. Her circumstances make her desperate and she takes a job with her former employer Scott Denny. She is to be the house-keeper and personal assistant to Scott's wife Nina and his daughter Aurelia on their enormous isolated waterfront estate in the south of France. It sounds too good to be true. It is. This book has drama, suspense, twists, and turns. I could not put it down.

Emily is struggling, her life is falling apart. Then she is offered a job working for a wealthy family in a remote property in coastal France. All seems to be a dream come true, what has she has wandered into?

This novel started pretty slow and really got going in the last 1/4 of the book. The ending was eh. I was invested the whole time, I just never had the “wow” moment I was expecting.

#katies_always_booked

A gripping slow burn suspense thriller! I enjoyed it!

Rating: 4⭐

𝑃𝑢𝑏. 𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑒: 14 𝐽𝑢𝑙, 2020

For my full review please visit https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3358600261?book_show_action=false&from_rev...

#NetGalley #StMartinsPress

I liked this a lot! Thrillers aren't really my thing, but this one felt a bit different. It was also just the sort of quick and easy read I was in the mood for. More drama than action (actually very little action, now that I think about it), it was compelling and well-written. A solid good time.
Received this #arc from #bookishfirst

It's clear that Anna Downes is masterful at writing realistic & intentional dialogue. Even though we don't get to the heart of the thriller until the last few chapters, the character development keeps the story entertaining as you hope to discover more about Nina's, Aurelia's, and Emily's peculiarities. The character motivations are realistic to anyone who has ever been desperate.
See full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3305304554

Emily‘s life has hit rock bottom. No job, no money, and nowhere to live. Her old boss offers the opportunity to move to a secluded home in France to be an assistant for his wife and daughter. It seems like a dream come true. The homes and landscape are amazing at first then the cracks start to show-atmospheric to be sure. Solid read but there wasn‘t the gasp out loud moment I love. Thanks to #Netgalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC.

Margarita time with my new ARC bookmail The Safe Place by Anna Downes release date 7/14/20

What a wonderful book surprise! I received this Welcome Package to The Safe Place thank you to Minotaur Books and MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS for my Advanced Readers Edition of The Safe Place by ANNA DOWNES on Sale July 14, 2020. #TheSafePlace @Anna_Downes_Writer #annadownes

Book mail is the best! So excited that I got this one in the mail today. It made my day 😊 #thesafeplace #minotaurbooks

#bookmail yayyy! Coming July 2020! #thesafeplace

Oooohhhhh! Excited to read this arc, #TheSafePlace. Thanks Minotaur Books for the chance to read this early!