The Story Keeper

Every so often a book comes along that just touches your heart and The Story Keeper did just that for me.  I knew it would be a good read since Colleen Coble wrote a glowing endorsement.  It is one of those books I almost did not pick to review and so glad I changed my mind and picked it. 

The plot centers around Jen Gibbs who is a New York editor and just acquired a job at a top rate publishing house and wants to be the best editor there.  She is learning the ropes of the company and is told of a slush pile in the Presidents office.  This pile is old manuscripts that are 20 years old and kept for some reason.  A manuscript appears on her desk and she does not know who put it there and could get in trouble if it is found to be from the slush pile.  She decides to read a few pages and she finds herself reading about Sarra, a mixed race Melungeon girl trapped by dangerous men in Appalachia at the turn of the twentieth century. She wants to find out more about this story but it means heading to  the Blue Ridge Mountains and that would be bringing up painful memories.  She thinks she can find the author of this manuscript and hopefully persuade him to a blockbuster book deal.  This is all I will tease you with because there is so much more to this book that is hard to put on paper. I loved how the author went back to Sarra's time and then back to the present and how they both meshed so well together.  The narrative was superb and the characters were so real along with a captivating plot that just won my heart and it was a story I did not want to end.

This is my first story by Lisa Wingate but it will not be the last.  This book was storytelling at it's best.
I received this book from Tyndale Publishers free for my honest opinion.