Safe Return Doubtful

British Literature – Dystopian/Science Fiction – Published 2025

Two elderly and frail sisters living in isolation together immediately conjures up images of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and indeed, disturbing they are, though this is set at an unspecified time in the future in an unnamed place. Further to the comparison with We Have Always Lived In The Castle the sisters live in a tumbledown house though it is only the kitchen which is described in any detail, leading one to think that the rest of the rooms are closed off.

Its a slow-burn / gradual reveal type of story. The house is surrounded by a stone wall beyond which, the sisters believe, is an unpopulated wilderness after some, barely mentioned, devastating world event. They subsist due to their garden, beehives, a spring-fed pond, and cured meat in the ice-house. It does all seem very suspicious, though Newman’s writing cannot match the sinister pen of the likes of Jackson. Newman previously has been a children’s fantasy writer.

They discover a boy huddled in rags, of indeterminate age, hiding behind the beehives. When captured and questioned he says he has escaped ‘the others’ on the opposite side of the wall. The sisters have different approaches to the boy, one is trusting and wants to make him work, the other just wants to kill him.

It was around this stage, perhaps a third of the way through, that I began not to suspect the narrative; a boy of indeterminate age, amywhere between 10 and 20? the mental capacity of the sisters must certainly be doubted, as well and the nature of the relationship with so much time spent together alone.

The plot has plenty of potential, though steers away the darkest places into which I was hoping it would go. I can’t help be reminded that Newman was, perhaps still is, a writer for children. There is plenty to enjoy here though, not least two elderly protagonists that the reader can’t quite get a handle on.

My GoodReads score 3 / 5