Review By Kayleigh
The Story Keeper is a story within a story that analyzes family, grief and the narratives we tell ourselves.
Favourite Quote:
Uncle Tad was a storyteller by nature as well as profession and he loved to tell elaborate stories about the “ghosts” he supposedly shared Wurimbirra with. So many ghosts. Not a menacing one among the crowd of them, at least in the stories Tad told me. I was possibly the first child in history to grow up believing she lived in a haunted house and thrilled about the excitement of it. I used to hope and pray I’d see one of Tad’s ghosts.
Book Synopsis:
In the aftermath of a tumultuous year, Fiona Winslow finds solace in the decaying grandeur of Wurimbirra, the rambling family estate she once called home. Intent on restoring it, she discovers the keys to more than just the dilapidated mansion—beneath the crumbling plaster and dust are secrets that have been buried for a generation.
When a curious book, The Midnight Estate, catches her attention in her late uncle’s library, Fiona is plunged into a tale that mirrors her own—a story of love, loss and betrayal. But as the lines between fiction and reality blur, Fiona must ask herself: Is the true mystery the one hidden within the walls of her ancestral home, or is it within the pages of a book that chose her as much as she chose it?
Told in a dual narrative and set against the Gothic backdrop of Wurimbirra, Kelly Rimmer, bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say, weaves an intricate and compelling tale, inviting readers into the heart of a family’s deepest secrets with an absorbing book-within-a-book mystery.
Review:
The Story Keeper is a gorgeous and lush story set in the heart of Australia. We meet Fiona, a newly separated 50 year old woman who’s moving back to her hometown and has just purchased her family estate from her cousin who wants nothing to do with it. As an architect, she plans to bring the old mansion back to life, as she figures out her own life.
The house, owned by her eccentric uncle who was a famous author, has been vacant for ten years. Her mother, who she’s always had a fraught relationship with, is unhappy that she’s stirring up old ghosts. The locals in the town think that she is literally stirring up old ghosts as the house has been home to some very tragic tales.
Fiona thinks it’s all nonsense and just wants to feel like she belongs somewhere. Through her exploration, which is plagued by unexplainable noises and activities, she finds a box of books by an author she’s never heard of. She’s drawn into the story which the reader consumes alongside her. Eventually the two stories cross, and Fiona finds herself discovering just what her mother has been trying to keep hidden for decades.
I loved this storytelling and was sucked in by Fiona’s story instantly. The setting is so beautiful and haunting, and the history that is explored is fascinating. The story covers some of Australia’s fraught history with mining, exploration and the treatment of indigenous groups, while also diving into 1950’s California and the treatment of abuse and marriage at a time where “keep it private” was the ruling motto.
Fiona’s exploration into her identity as a woman had me cheering along her journey. She’s an emotional woman who has given her all to be a good wife, mother and head of her architecture firm. When her husband and best friend (who happen to be co-owners of her firm) cheat on her, it causes her to start anew. Fiona has a chance to build out the rest of her life with meaning and purpose.
This book is perfect for fans of Kate Morton’s storytelling.
Thank you, Harlequin Trade Publishing, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
