Simone van der Vlugt 
Safe as Houses 

“Two women experience near-death waking nightmares in this lean, edgy crime novel . . . a thriller that should not be read alone at night” (Publishers Weekly).   Home should be the safest place to be. But when a man forces his way into Lisa’s house, taking her and her young daughter hostage, there is nowhere to hide. Who is this brutal man? And what does he want from an innocent single mother? In hours of torment that turn into days, Lisa desperately tries to stay one step ahead of her captor’s inscrutable mind. And as she does the unimaginable to protect her child, she wonders why the only witness to the attack has not raised the alarm . . .   Meanwhile, that witness is lucky to be alive. Having accidentally seen the crime in progress, Senta sped away in search of help—only to awaken in a hospital bed having lost both her memory and her ability to communicate. In Safe as Houses, Simone van der Vlugt delivers “a lean, stripped-down thriller that hits the ground running and sprints full-tilt to its breathless climax” (The Irish Times).“Van der Vlugt propels her double-pronged story along with a spare conciseness that has you flipping pages manically” —Metro, UK