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

Product Information

Janice has many voices in her head - Decius, the dog she walks for Mrs Yeahyeahyeah, Sister Bernadette, and the protagonists of all the stories she collects. She finally learns her value and her own story and can choose to create her own story as she wishes.

Not because she's unimportant but because that's the way she wants to be ,she wants to fade into the shadows and not bring attention to herself. When Janice starts cleaning for Mrs B – a shrewd and tricksy woman in her nineties – she finally meets someone who wants to hear her story. The Keeper Of Stories deftly weaves together ancient stories with modern-day life, creating a unique blend of fantasy and reality. She takes on one more - almost against her wishes but this client turns out to be a person to aids and abets a crucial and pivotal turning point in her life. When Mrs Yeahyeahyeah asks Janice to clean for her mother in law, she reluctantly agrees to at least visit , and it is a decision that will change her life.

When the wily Mrs B lures Janice into her world with a story of her own it’s just a matter of time before these two become as thick as thieves so that with Mrs B’s encouragement Janice eventually emerges from her shell a much happier woman. Sometimes that could be confusing, but in this case, each had their own little story which kept them all straight. The story of Mrs Yeahyeahyeah and her husband Mr Nononotnow and their dog Decius is untold until she meets his mother Mrs B who is quite a character. A lovely story of Janice the cleaner who collects other people’s stories, whilst keeping her own story hidden. Or, indeed, the pink and orange Me + Em jumpsuit she wore to The British Book Awards, when The Keeper of Stories was shortlisted for Book of the Year.

The fact that I actually read this at the beginning of December and I’m still thinking how very happy this book made me feel shows the powerful impact storytelling can have on a reader’s mood. I loved Janice - she is one of life’s observers- quiet and unassuming but watching and noticing everyone and everything. She loves hearing everyone else’s stories but doesn’t really feel she has one herself, Janice truly doesn’t realize her own worth and as the book progresses you will find yourself wanting to befriend Janice. It was the same feeling again as her book raced up the prestigious Sunday Times Bestseller List to number eight at Christmas, a deeply competitive time of year for book sales. Gathering up stories as she goes about her life, Janice has forgotten her own powerful and emotional story.Thank you to netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest views and opinions. This is a deceptively ‘gentle’ story that addresses complex issues with a light touch…I loved Janice…and was rooting for her throughout. Rude, obnoxious, well educated and well travelled and last but not least a damn good storyteller, it’s the friendship that develops between this cantankerous nonagenarian and the kind,caring, book loving Janice that eclipses everything else. Do you think this book presents an accurate representation of life for some people in our society today?

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! Lovely characters, a lot of sadness but with such hope for the future whatever damage has been done as a child.Janice is a cleaner, and a collector of stories, stories from the people she works for, from people she overhears on the bus as she travels between jobs, from anyone interesting she encounters in her day to day life. I was pleased with the way it all turned out in the end and found the whole book a gentle, heartwarming read.

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. 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.Through Mr NoNoNotNow (otherwise known as Tiberius, I kid you not) Janice meets, cleans and becomes way more to his mother Mrs B, who is quite simply utterly marvellous and who tells her own equally marvellous story of ‘Becky’. Could she be the one who finally convinces Janice, the keeper of stories, that she has a story of her one, and one that is worth sharing with the right people. Every man should leave a story better than he found it’ (Mary Augusta Ward)which is most certainly true of our storyteller Janice.