The Keeper of Stories: The most charming and uplifting novel you will read this year!

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It is important that we continue to promote these adverts as our local businesses need as much support as possible during these challenging times. Janice is such a wonderful character that is impossible not to root for her from the beginning and seeing her blossom and free herself from her husband and the past that held her back for so long was truly a joy. Modest Janice has few friends and does not recognise her own worth, or how highly she is thought of by many who know her. The meeting is not promising at first, but it is soon apparent that Mrs B can see there is more to Janice than meets the eye. She draws away from her husband and turns to her friends for support and each use the other for a type of confession.

The Keeper of Stories – HarperCollins Publishers UK

I was drawn in by the beautiful cover and the title; the blurb intrigued me enough to request the title and I was not at all disappointed!ABOUT 'THE KEEPER OF STORIES': Cleaner Janice knows that it is in people’s stories that you really get to know them. There’s Geordie Bowman, landlord and opera singer, grieving Fiona and her son Adam, Mrs YeahYeahYeah and her husband Mr NoNoNotNow whose few qualities are redeemed by their fantastic fox terrier Dacius who is a character in his own right and how! They are the subject of her stories, oh and the people on the bus too especially the driver who looks like a geography teacher.

The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page | Goodreads The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page | Goodreads

Though at times it was quite a sad narrative, there was a great use of humour in here and some uplifting moments that really balanced it out. She is a mother of an adult son, has a husband (meh) and quietly goes through life, working as a house cleaner. There are some wonderful characters but it would be remiss of me not to give a big shout out to Mrs B and Decius the swearing fox-terrier.Your quote from the book “She wants to ask if he’s having an affair, but doesn’t know how to say it without sounding hopeful. When Janice starts cleaning for Mrs B – a shrewd and tricky woman in her nineties – she finally meets someone who wants to hear her story. It’s a game changer and a turning point in life as Janice discovers she’s not only an exceptional cleaner but an exceptional woman too! W międzyczasie śledzimy opowieść o skomplikowanych meandrach ludzkiej natury, o poczuciu winy i o sile snucia opowieści.

The Keeper of Stories | Sally Page | 9780008453503 | NetGalley The Keeper of Stories | Sally Page | 9780008453503 | NetGalley

Yet, when Janice starts cleaning for Mrs B – a shrewd and tricksy woman in her nineties – she meets someone who wants to hear her story. Sally Page is so observant in her writing - the little details shared about her brilliant characters are fabulous and I loved the little insights given to their own stories - in particular Mrs B and Decius the swearing fox-terrier. There’s Fiona, a grieving widow, and her teenaged son Adam who is still learning to face life without his father.

Over the course of her cleaning visits they develop a friendship and Mrs B tells her the story of Becky in instalments. The writing, the way the story was told and how it flowed, reminded me greatly of the work of Fredrik Backman. Bo mało kto w tych czasach naprawdę potrafi to robić Jednak czy ona sama kiedyś opowie komuś swoją historię?

The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page Book Review The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page Book Review

Digging deeper you can see that topics such as suicide, our treatment of the elderly and alcoholism are sensitively handled with this book offering varying degrees of depth and sentiment but all up providing such truth through its tender writing. A lovely story of Janice the cleaner who collects other people’s stories, whilst keeping her own story hidden. The Keeper of Stories was a character-driven story with a storyline that took me on a lovely journey which I thoroughly enjoyed. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook).

The problem with the book style is the sentences were all good practice, in theory, but they did not flow, felt disconnected and refrained from describing anything. I don’t think I’ve read a story quite like it and particularly found the storyline of the main character, Janice, ‘collecting’ stories both different and appealing. It is definitely a novel about character personalities over everything else, and this reinforces the slower pace of the book. I hope to introduce new features during 2022 and join the Bookstagram community on Instagram properly, so come and follow me there too! Janice realised early on that it was not the job nor the boss nor the system which was at fault but most likely him – a man with no shame.