Scan barcode
A review by nadia_g
The Story Keeper E/a/I by Anna Mazzola
5.0
A deliciously eerie mystery driven by Audrey's investigation of the disappearances of young girls in Kyleakin, a village on the Isle of Skye. Audrey is a researcher of folklore who realises as she listens to the tales she has come to collect that a number of strange goings on have been taking place among the community to which she has come to escape London, not least of which when she herself finds a dead girl.
Audrey is a young woman whose love of folktales comes from her mother. In 1857, writing as a job, for women, let alone collecting 'fairy tales' is laughable, and it looks like Audrey is fighting an impossible battle. But she hangs on and finds employment with Miss Buchanan to help her collect spoken tales, given partly in Gaelic in the book, such a strong and elegant tribute to Gaelic speaking communities.
For those who love the eerie, know that the eeriness here runs through all the layers of the story: it comes from Audrey's sense of dislocation and relocation - the geography and people are seen through her eyes as she herself tries to find her place. It is found within the stories of evil fairies (I know, evil ones!), said to snatch people. It also felt in the palpable reality of what impoverishment means when it is entirely created by landowners during the Clearances in Skye - a time in which land owners forced entire communities to move away so to that they could sell.
But for me, as a crime fiction super fan, it's Mazzola's construction of Audrey's investigation that I thoroughly enjoyed. For people around Audrey, the mystery is around young women being targeted by something, but for Audrey, the mystery soon becomes one of a specific type of girls targeted by someone.
Two currents push the story forward: the power of folklore, and the power of facts, both often seen as mutually exclusive, except to those who know how to listen and see them as complimentary, like Audrey.
The Story Keeper is easily one one of my top favourite reads of 2018.
Audrey is a young woman whose love of folktales comes from her mother. In 1857, writing as a job, for women, let alone collecting 'fairy tales' is laughable, and it looks like Audrey is fighting an impossible battle. But she hangs on and finds employment with Miss Buchanan to help her collect spoken tales, given partly in Gaelic in the book, such a strong and elegant tribute to Gaelic speaking communities.
For those who love the eerie, know that the eeriness here runs through all the layers of the story: it comes from Audrey's sense of dislocation and relocation - the geography and people are seen through her eyes as she herself tries to find her place. It is found within the stories of evil fairies (I know, evil ones!), said to snatch people. It also felt in the palpable reality of what impoverishment means when it is entirely created by landowners during the Clearances in Skye - a time in which land owners forced entire communities to move away so to that they could sell.
But for me, as a crime fiction super fan, it's Mazzola's construction of Audrey's investigation that I thoroughly enjoyed. For people around Audrey, the mystery is around young women being targeted by something, but for Audrey, the mystery soon becomes one of a specific type of girls targeted by someone.
Two currents push the story forward: the power of folklore, and the power of facts, both often seen as mutually exclusive, except to those who know how to listen and see them as complimentary, like Audrey.
The Story Keeper is easily one one of my top favourite reads of 2018.