The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate

The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate– 438 pages

Book Blurb:

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.

My Review: 3.5

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Lisa Wingate is the consummate storyteller. This book is a beautifully woven tapestry with two parallel story threads about books, our histories, secrets, race, sisters, families and faith.

The main protagonist, Jen, is a likeable character that you want to root on. She is emotionally scarred from her oppressive thinking family in the Appalachian territory of North Carolina. In order to succeed at her new job, she has to revisit her past while she simultaneously is trying to uncover answers to a mysterious manuscript. The manuscript in question, as well as the story lines of the people of Appalachia, all add good dimension to the book.

The author definitely shows, in many circumstances throughout the book, that it just takes one person to help another, and in effect, make remarkable changes to their lives.

Quotes I liked:

She’d noticed immediately that I understood the lure of a good story. Sometimes a world that doesn’t exist is the only escape from the one that does.”

-“Our stories are powerful. They teach, they speak, they inspire. They bring about change. But they are also fragile. Their threads are so easily broken by time, by lack of interest, by failure to understand the value that comes of knowing where we have been and who we have been. In this speed-of-light culture, our histories are fading more quickly than ever. Yet when we lose our stories, we lose ourselves…”