I thought this sounded wonderful- light but meaningful, soft but gripping.
Sadly, this was light and soft, but I struggled to stay invested in the characters and their stories, ironically.

Slow starter but once Janice meets Mrs B it picks up some and is easier to get through.

I get why Janice is the keeper of stories. It almost seems like she needs these people's stories to keep her mundane life going as much as they need to voice them.

I would have loved more of Geordie as he seems like he had many more stories to tell. Mrs Yeah Yeah Yeah and Mr No, Not Now are your token obnoxious rich couple with the funniest dog Decius. They point Janice in the direction Mrs B, who is Mr No, Not Now's elderly mother.
Mrs B is quirky and if her stories are to be believed, led an interesting life. She actually became my favorite character.

Fabulous read and Audiobook. A treasure of a book. Beautiful, emotional and heartfelt with a cornucopia of characters you’ll love spending time with. I listened to this as an audio book and felt the narrators really helped bring the story to life.

EXCERPT: 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…

ABOUT 'THE KEEPER OF STORIES': 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.

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. But Janice is clear: she is the keeper of stories, she doesn’t have a story to tell. At least, not one she can share.

Mrs B is no fool and knows there is more to Janice than meets the eye. What is she hiding? After all, doesn’t everyone have a story to tell?

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 suffers from a lack of confidence. After all, she's 'just a cleaner.' It doesn't matter that she is incredibly well read, resourceful and interesting, she is 'just a cleaner.' Janice is just one of many absolutely delightful characters in this book. There is a well travelled bus driver who looks like a geography teacher; a shrewd and at times shrewish ninety-two year old ex-spy who sees hidden depths in Janice; a widowed woman who is making a dolls house - of a funeral home; a young boy whose father committed suicide; and a pedigree fox terrier called Decius who swears like a trooper. And no, that isn't a misprint.

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.

There are a lot of literary references in The Keeper of Stories, and I have come to realise that I really need to reread Arabian Nights and Vanity Fair, neither of which I have revisited since high school.

There are so many wonderful stories in The Keeper of Stories that I really want to sit down and listen to this all over again.

Jessica Whittaker has a wonderful range of voice intonations and emotions and I will be looking for other books she has narrated.

Unreservedly recommended.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#TheKeeperofStories #NetGalley

I: @bysallypage @harpercollinsuk @onemorechapter

T: @SallyPageBooks @HarperCollinsUK @OneMoreChapter

#contemporaryfiction #domesticdram #mystery #romance #sliceoflife

THE AUTHOR: After studying history at university, I moved to London to work in advertising. However, in my spare time I studied floristry at night school and eventually opened my own flower shop. I soon came to appreciate that flower shops offer a unique window into people’s stories and eventually I began to photograph and write about this floral life in a series of non-fiction books. Later, I continued my interest in writing when I founded my fountain pen company, Plooms.co.uk.

In my debut novel, The Keeper of Stories, I combine my love of history and writing with my abiding interest in the stories people have to tell. I now live in Dorset. My eldest daughter, Alex, is studying to be a doctor and my youngest daughter is the author, Libby Page. (Amazon)

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harper Collins UK audio, One More Chapter via Netgalley for providing an audio ARC of The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

This title was archived before I was able to download it and listen. I will read and review at a later date.

"Monday has a very particular order: laughter to begin with; sadness towards the end of the day."
🗝🗒
Thank you @netgalley and @harpercollinsuk for the audiobook
The Keeper Of Stories published on the 28th of February! 🥳🎉 @bysallypage
🎧📘
🅃🄷🄴 🄺🄴🄴🄿🄴🅁 🄾🄵 🅂🅃🄾🅁🄸🄴🅂
*spoiler free*
This book will be a perfect book club choice. It's warm, funny, uplifting and emotional.
Janice is a cleaner but she collects stories, cares for her clients and is emotionally invested in their lives. She has an interesting clientele, my favourite being Mrs.B, a shrewd but insightful woman in her nineties. Mrs. B is the only one who sees through Janice and they form an unlikely companionship. I loved the fact that there so many literary references and now I am dying to read Vanity Fair.
I really enjoyed his Janice had these funny yet appropriate nicknames for some of her employers, namely Ms. YeahYeahYeahYeah who wasn't a very nice person. I did not like her husband one bit, he was rude, acted entitled and looked down on Janice.
The characters, plot and flow were not only likeable but very enjoyable. This is a beautifully written book and something totally unexpected.
If you are looking for something feel good, emotional yet heartfelt, look no further. Pick this one up right away!
I love the first line from the book and this being Monday, seemed so appropriate! ❤☕

I loved the narrator - the story is great about how we all have secrets and sometimes we need to know there is someone we can share with. Janice has secrets of her own that she doesn't want to share but being a cleaner means she often has the privilege of hearing others stories.

This was a delightful audiobook, brilliantly narrated by Jessica Whittaker. I adored Janice and the other characters; it was a lovely story although sometimes involved a bit too much unnecessary detail (when Adam went missing for example). A very well written book overall though and I look forward to reading more books by Sally Page.
Highly recommended especially if you loved Eleanor Oliphant and books by authors such as Beth Morrey, Nita Prose and Hazel Prior.
With grateful thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollins Audio, One More Chapter and Sally Page for my audiobook copy.

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.

Story:
“Everyone has a story to tell. But if you don't have one, you become a collector of other people's stories.”
Thus begins the narrative, effectively capturing the personality of lead character Janice, a woman in her late 40s who works as a cleaner in other people’s homes. Janice relishes other people's stories and has a fondness for collecting them, not for gossip but to feel like she's part of their stories and gets to know them better. When she gets a new job cleaning for Mrs. B, a shrewd and formidable lady in her 90s, Janice finally meets someone who wants to know her (Janice’s) story and what she’s hiding beneath that effective cleaner façade. Will Janice share the story that she has kept buried for so long?
The story is written in a limited omniscient point of view.


Where the book worked for me:
😍 There are some really interesting characters in the book, almost all of whom are Janice’s clients or their family members. There’s Fiona, a grieving widow, and her teenaged son Adam who is still learning to face life without his father. There’s Geordie Bowman, a rich and famous opera singer with a generous heart. There’s Mrs. YeahYeahYeah and her husband Mr. NoNoNotNow, thus named by Janice for their catchphrase. But no character is as wonderful as their fox terrier Decius. The way the author has brought Decius to life is so brilliant, you won’t help but fall in love with him and his f-bombs. (Oh yeah, a dog who cusses! 😂) Janice herself is pretty well-sketched, what with her love for books and her constant worries about things both great and small. She comes across as a really interesting character.
😍 As Janice is a “collector of stories”, there are many mini-stories that you’ll find in this book. All of these are part of Janice’s repertoire, and most of them are heartfelt and memorable stories in their own right. I enjoyed all of these little nuggets from Janice’s collection.
😍 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.
😍 There are some really beautiful lines in the book, the most memorable being the ones related to stories. Sample this: “Every man should leave a story better than he found it.”

Where the book could have worked better for me:
😕 The book is something of a slowburn. It starts off fabulously, with a brief insight in Janice and a quick flit across a few of her clients and their stories. After a while, you realise that you are ready to move on but the book is still flitting across characters. It gets repetitive after some time. As mine was an audiobook, I found myself zoning out time and again. But even when my mind jolted back to reality and the book, I found that the story had hardly moved ahead. The start is good and the end is worthwhile. It’s the rest that will really demand your concentration.
😕 There is one story-within-a-story in the book which is not part of Janice’s collection but is narrated by Mrs. B to Janice about a character called Becky, supposedly inspired by the Becky from Vanity Fair though I didn’t see many similarities. Becky’s story starts off well but soon dragged tremendously. I didn’t understand the point of this narration; it just seemed like a way of lengthening the book. You could easily cut this story out of the text and the original plot won’t be affected at all.
😕 The editing needed to be tighter and better. Some of the plot developments are too abrupt, almost entirely dictated by character and not by requirements of the story. The plot feels very cluttered and has a lot of convenient settlements at the end.

The audiobook experience:
The audiobook clocks at 10 hrs 15 minutes and is narrated by the fantastic Jessica Whittaker. It’s not easy to narrate a book with so many characters but she does her job brilliantly. Most of what I enjoyed of the book is because of her, and if I didn’t DNF this book, it is all thanks to her.

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.

3.25 stars.

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.

Janice is a house cleaner and excellent at her job. Her husband is a man who can't stay with one job long and demeans Janice and her cleaner job.
Janice works for a variety of people. Some nice and some not.
Janice loves stories (and books) and collects other peoples stories in her head. She does, however, keep her own story a secret.
I loved the premise of this book. I did struggle getting into the story for a while, but ended up liking it. I really wanted to know what Janice's own story was. Mrs. B. is a fun character. I couldn't wait to see what she would do/say next. All in all a good read.

I also listened to the audio version of this book and enjoyed it very much.

Thanks to netgalley and Harper Collins UK audio for the advance copy

Wow, wow, wow!!! I absolutely adored this book! This wasn't a story that shouts about the drama instead it slowly draws you into the characters and their stories, making you fall in love with them. Janice was an absolute treasure and the mystery surrounding her childhood had me hooked from the beginning. I adored the relationship between Janice and Mrs B, they were the perfect pair and offered so much to each other. By the end I was crying tears of joy at how heart warming and lovely this story was.

I loved this audiobook by Sally Page and thought the narrator did an excellent job of bringing all of the characters to life

The Keeper of Stories - Sally Page

Everyone has a story to tell and everyone assumes an identity.

If only every dog was as honest as that one! Gotta love him. 😂

The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page

I received an advance review copy for free thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK and I am leaving this review voluntarily

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…

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.

This is a beautifully written book - I was instantly drawn in by the stories that Janice gets from the clients she cleans for. Whilst we learn about her clients, Janice has a secret that she is unwilling to share. From the blurb I had a feeling that I would enjoy this book, but it was much better than I expected.

Rating 4/5

I really struggled with a star rating for this book, I really did enjoy the story however I didn’t fully get into it. I felt like it wasn’t really for me, but I wanted to find out the ending.

This really is a charming collection of stories which are seamlessly brought together by a compelling story itself. This book is so comforting to read; it's like a cup of hot chocolate on a snowy day, and the audio version of the book, which was excellently narrated, provides the extra marshmallows and sprinkles on top. There really isn't anything I did not like about this book - the writing is superb, bringing the characters vividly to life, with even the Fox terrier Dacius being a character in his own right. The relationships are truly heartwarming and the book left me with a feeling of deep satisfaction.

I love a good story and this book has a plethora of them. - it's a real treasure and I am extremely grateful to NetGallery and HarperCollins UK Audio for allowing me to get a copy of this - it will certainly be a worthy read for anybody who is looking for a feel good, emotional and heartfelt story when it is published on 28th February.

This didn’t download properly to any device for me to listen to audio unfortunately but I do and have read the physical version of the book and it’s a beautiful story

Oh what a gem of a book! I am so pleased to have found The Keeper of Stories and leading lady Janice now sits firmly in my hall of favourite characters. Couple that with a fiesty little fox terrier and this one is an absolute winner for me!

Janice, a cleaner in Cambridge, is a sweet and selfless woman, who’s there for anyone and everyone who needs her. Quiet and unassuming, she is unappreciated by her pompous and undeserving husband Mike who jumps from job to job before being fired again. Janice holds everything together and keeps her family afloat financially, while Mike does as he pleases. At her clients’ houses, Janice keeps everything spotless and provides an ear for their worries, building friendships and collecting stories along the way. Janice is an excellent listener and loves hearing the tales that people have to tell. Because everyone has a story right? Everyone except Janice she thinks, but all that is about to change when she’s instructed to start cleaning for a particularly demanding client’s formidable mother-in-law. Janice is hesitant at first, Mrs B is rude and does not want her there, but she is a story keeper after all and Mrs B is most intriguing..

I loved everything about this book! The varied cast of characters kept me interested and the ‘heroes and villains’ if you will are equally well drawn. You really feel for Janice throughout but you also admire her strength and resilience. She’s the sort of character you’d love to sit down for a coffee with and the friend/family member you wish you’d had. I loved her story arc and I enjoyed hearing all the different tales she shared with others throughout the book. Mrs B and Euan are wonderful characters too, though Mrs B is a great example of the dark and the light in a person. And of course Decius, the lovely fox terrier featured on the cover 😍 as a fox terrier mum myself of course I fell in love with him! Sally Page has nailed the descriptions of him, they really do walk along on tippy toes like little ballerinas, they are super protective, and mine would absolutely swear like a trooper if he could! 😆

On top of the fab characters this is a wonderful story that moves along at a nice pace that’s easy to follow, but also keeps you hooked from the start. I was immediately drawn in and I kept reading on thinking ‘just one more chapter’ until it was midnight and I had to sleep! I had to know what would happen to Janice, to Mrs B, to Fiona and Adam, and to Decius, and I had to find out how Becky’s story would end too! I’m still a little unsure at to Mrs B’s connection to Becky but I *think* I have it? I’d love to know others thoughts if you’ve read it too though!

As an audiobook I found it enjoyable although the narrator did remind me a little of a newsreader at times! I sped it up a bit though and thought she did an excellent job with the different voices and accents, I never confused the characters and I especially liked her portrayal of Mrs B. It was very entertaining and a great way to access the story.

Overall The Keeper of Stories is an easy read that’s charming but also thought-provoking too. It feels like a cosy hug in a book but it’ll also make you think about your own life and what you would like your story to be. Ultimately we are all the authors of our own stories to a certain extent and, while we may not get to choose our beginnings and there may be plot twists thrown, it’s still up to us whether we let that define us and we can still choose different paths for ourselves. It made me think that there’s always the potential for a happy ending and that was a lovely feeling to come away with. I highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟(especially to my fellow fox terrier fans!)

Huge thanks to author Sally Page and One More Chapter for providing me with a digital copy and for allowing me to take part in your readalong - I loved it!

This is a clever idea for a story and has a host of fascinating characters that are woven together through the story. I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook which was engaging and the narrator was pleasant to listen to. The different stories, initially, seem to be separate and not linked and gradually you find yourself immersed in the stories of the book and building images to go along with the different characters. I would recommend this book and personally would enjoy reading it again, having listened to the audiobook.

So today I came to the end of this story and feel a bit bereft that the book has ended to be honest. This is a beautiful story about love, friendships and stories and ultimately how one woman finally finds the strength to tell her own story. I loved it so much and I’m going to read more on “Becky’s” story as that’s fascinating. Don’t miss this book. This is beautifully narrated as well.