About the book

Simone Steenbeeck’s greatest wish was to become a mother. A family to care for. When a pregnancy began to look unlikely, however, she and her husband Richard chose another path. They became the proud foster parents of Daniel and Nina, two children from Brazil. Shortly thereafter, Simone became pregnant after all, and her daughter Veerle completed the family.

Now, almost twenty years later, the family Steenbeeck lives in an idyllic village. Simone runs a patisserie in town, Richard is a teacher in nearby city and the children…that’s where the perfect picture crumbles. In the warm, safe nest that Simone wants to offer her family holes slowly begin to form as they unwittingly slide towards the edge of a cliff.

The Evil Inside Us was inspired by the Dutch Bonnie and Clyde, who left a string of victims in their wake in Twente in 2014. The male half of duo was a Brazilian adopted by Dutch parents as a child. Hartman, herself an adopted child, transforms this fact into a stunning family drama