* SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE * Longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize - A Best Book of 2024: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, The Sunday Times (London) "Remarkable...Compelling...Fine and taut...Indelible." --The New York Times - "Moving, unnerving, and deeply sexy." --Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with the Pearl Earring - "A brilliant debut, as multi-faceted as a gem." --Kirkus Reviews A "razor-sharp, perfectly plotted" (The Sunday Times, London) tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961--a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past. A house is a precious thing... It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home,