Review: The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate

The Story Keeper

by Lisa Wingate

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers

Pages: 448

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  When successful New York editor Jen Gibbs discovers a decaying slush-pile manuscript on her desk, she has no idea that the story of Sarra, a young mixed-race woman trapped in Appalachia at the turn of the twentieth century, will both take her on a journey and change her forever. Happy with her life in the city, and at the top of her career with a new job at Vida House Publishing, Jen has left her Appalachian past and twisted family ties far behind. But the search for the rest of the manuscript, and Jen's suspicions about the identity of its unnamed author, will draw her into a mystery that leads back to the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains . . . and quite possibly through the doors she thought she had closed forever.


Kritters Thoughts:  A book within a book that is also about the publishing industry - this one was right up my alley!  It also helped that I am already a Lisa Wingate fan, so when offered this book I immediately said yes!  

Jen Gibbs is in the publishing industry and has just started a job at a publishing house and a mysterious parts of a manuscript end up on her desk.  Not only does she fall in love with it and want to find the rest of it along with the author, but it takes place in her hometown, so she packs it up in pursuit of the author and the rest of it.  I loved how much she has tried to escape this backwoods small town Appalachian hometown, but as soon as returns she is swept up into the drama and roles from her past.  

The added benefit of a mysterious author who she is trying to track down gave the book even more of a story.  This part of the story weaved into the family drama stated above so seamlessly.  It was so interesting to see Jen Gibbs react one way to someone else's family drama and then to her own - I loved it.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is already a book lover and who also loves a little historical wrapped into their contemporary stories.


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row


Ebook 2014 Challenge: 51 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from JKS Communications.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.