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

Product Information

So why only three stars? Because I found the main character, Janice, pretty annoying and clueless. She is portrayed as a smart middle aged woman, but her actions are all on the contrary: she stays with her freeloading husband, she doesn't stand her ground with people that push her around, and miraculously, she is friends with many of her clients. Having said that - and if you are prepared to get past this - the stories are nice and the dialogues with the dog made me smile all the time. The cover is simply gorgeous. If they make all book covers so delightful, I’ll have a tough time stopping books from entering my TBR mountain. This book is an immersive experience that left me feeling uplifted by its message of hope and resilience. The Keeper Of Stories deftly weaves together ancient stories with modern-day life, creating a unique blend of fantasy and reality. Basically, this is a sweet book that means very well and has its moments of sunshine. But it could have been so much more had it been handled differently. I don’t know how I would have felt about this had I read it, but I know that the audiobook was certainly a wonderful way of getting to know this story.

Fictionophile’s OCTOBER 2023 Reading Wrap-Up #bookblogger #MonthlyWrapUp#Fictionophile October 31, 2023 In a Nutshell: The book tries hard to match up to the outstanding cover but after a point, it just bored me. I have a feeling that my rating would have been lower had I been actually reading this instead of listening to it. But it does have its good moments. In part, this book has been inspired by her own love of stationery, which started in her childhood. ‘I have particular memories of new crayons, pencil cases, and exercise books at the beginning of the school year. These gave me a huge amount of pleasure – as did playing Post Offices when I was little.’ The characters' journeys and struggles are both heartbreaking and inspiring, making it a truly moving read. We are introduced to our lead, Janice. A cleaner who goes about her days working within the houses for her regulars. Janice loves her regular clients; apart from one couple, “Mrs YeahYeahYeah” & “Mr NoNoNotNow”. Most of her regulars know nothing about her and Janice continues to listen & collect their stories. Never asking for more, never sharing her own. Her husband knows very little about her and is so self-absorbed that Janice feels she isn’t seen. Blending in, Janice likes it this way. Until one day, she doesn’t.Janice is a cleaner, she's married to Mike and they have a grown up son Simon. Janice spends her days catching buses, cleaning people’s houses, some of her customers are nice to her and others don’t consider she’s a human being and has feelings. She can't recall what started her collection. Maybe it was in a fragment of conversation overheard as she cleaned a sink? Before long (as she dusted a sitting room or defrosted a fridge) she noticed people were telling her their stories. Perhaps they always had done, but now it is different, now the stories are reaching out to her and she gathers them to her... Charlotte championed The Keeper of Stories and fought for it to be published,’ Sally tells me. ‘If she hadn’t, I’m not sure what would have happened.’

In my stories, and I do collect stories…” She feels a sense of relief at saying this out loud. “I love that normal people do the unexpected, that they are courageous, funny, kind … selfless. I know these people have faults - of course, that’s life.” The people she cleans for are mainly rich and some high profile. One new client is the brusque Mrs B, the mother of the one she refers to as “Mr No, No, Not Now” his wife “Mrs Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” the only saving grace is their dog a fox terrier called Decius. MY THOUGHTS: I love to sit in cafès listening to the conversations going on around me. Sometimes it's amazing what you overhear. That may be why this book really resonated with me. Janice and I have a lot in common. We both collect stories, although she is far better at it than I am. And my practice husband, as I like to refer to him, and her husband Mike, could be twins.Janice is a wonderful woman whose authenticity pulls you along...the breadth and originality of supporting characters makes this debut an immersive delight’ Dorset Magazine My thanks to HarperCollins UK Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of “The Keeper of Stories”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook. For some time now Janice has been collecting stories. She is a cleaner and she overhears lots of conversations because she is virtually invisible. It does not help that she has a husband of a thousand jobs. He is always coming up with hair-brained schemes as he eats into their savings mostly without even discussing it. He always refers to her as “just a cleaner” her job does not define her. With all these stories there is one story she neglects to think about is her own.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from One More Chapter/ HarperCollins UK via NetGalley at my request, for my own reading enjoyment and the writing of this review. To pass the time while she’s scrubbing a toilet, dusting or doing a task that the home owner despises she notices her clients talk and she puts together their stories. Janice’s head is full of her stories, she has been doing this for as longs as she can remember, some having meaning and others are floating around in her mind. Janice is a wonderful woman whose authenticity pulls you along…the breadth and originality of supporting characters makes this debut an immersive delight’ Dorset Magazine And the writing is pretty good, it is engaging and the flow is just perfect for this kind of book, which is way out of my comfort zone and therefor quite difficult to rate and review.This is a life-affirming book in which ordinary people each have their own story that will resonate with the reader. These ordinary stories are not usually heard but here they are told with such empathy and understanding that you feel you really know the characters and become absorbed in their lives and what happens to them. I have read this book three times now and I find new insights on each reading. I recommend this book highly and look forward to further books by this author. AnneH, 9 March 2022 Fiona ( and her son Adam)– Fiona is a recent widow. Her beloved husband John commit suicide and both Fiona and her twelve year old son are decimated by their grief. Janice cleans for them, and offers them friendship and wisdom when they sorely need it. Cleaner Janice knows that it is in people’s stories that you really get to know them. From recently-widowed Fiona and her son Adam; to opera-singing Geordie; and the awful Mrs ‘YeahYeahYeah’ and her fox terrier, Decius, Janice has a unique insight into the community around her. After studying history at university, Sally moved to London to work in advertising. In her spare time she studied floristry at night school and eventually opened her own flower shop. Sally came to appreciate that flower shops offer a unique window into people’s stories and she began to photograph and write about this floral life in a series of non-fiction books. Later, she continued her interest in writing when she founded her fountain pen company, Plooms.co.uk. The Keeper Of Stories is a captivating exploration of themes such as family and the power of storytelling.

I really enjoyed this book. 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! Everyone has a story to tell. But what if you don’t have a story? What then? If you are Janice, you become a collector of other people’s stories.’ This is a story that offers something quite different. It is about a very quiet woman who seems to be on the outskirts of society, but has more power than she realises. I enjoyed reading her monologue of the dog she walks and appreciated seeing Janice’s lioness emerging as she finds her voice. For instance, I’m not sure I could have tolerated Janice’s husband as much as she had! I fell in live with Janice almost straight away. This is a beautifully written book. Janice's life stories are gleaned from the clients that she cleans for. She cares about her clients and their stories but we don't know much about Janice, but she does have a deep dark secret that she's unwilling to share. This is a character driven story. This book wasn't quite what I was expecting, it was much better. The main theme of the book is that knowledge is power and that stories have the ability to connect us to our past and create new possibilities for our future. Max and Emilia come to understand this as they explore Deltora and meet various characters who possess incredible amounts of knowledge. They learn about the power of storytelling, about how stories can shape our lives and help us make sense of our world.Mrs. B wants Janice answer a question before she agrees to the help-“If you could only take one novel with you to a Desert Island, what would it be?” and when Janice responds “Vanity Fair” -Mrs. B agrees to hire her. The Keeper of Stories has many stories within the main story - that of a mouse of a woman who finds her inner lioness. And Janice's story is the most interesting of all because, although she believes herself to be 'just a cleaner,' she really is a brave, loving and resourceful woman, one whom I would be proud to have as a friend.