The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate

[therhinofam]

The Story Keeper was an elegant tale about family and our own willingness to bravely confront our pasts. Jen Gibbs has long left behind her backwoods family and life, to start fresh in New York City. She is a well respected book editor and recently started with a new publisher, when an over twenty year old manuscript surfaces on her desk. Jen immediately begins reading The Story Keeper and is quickly drawn into the life of Sarra and Rand, who are trying to survive in Appalachia at the turn of the twentieth century. Jen feels this is a story that must be told and begins the task of tracking down the author of this manuscript, only to find that the road may lead right back to the place she left so long ago. Just outside the town of Jen's childhood lives a reclusive author, Evan Hall, who has an avid distain for the publishing world. Getting this story published will require Jen to deal with her past and bring it into her present life, which may end up being more dramatic than the story of Sarra and Rand.

The story did start a bit slow for me and it was not until I was about a third of the way through that I really became absorbed. I did find the author's theme of family and relationships to be quite thought-provoking. I made immediate judgements about certain characters, deeming them either right or wrong but Lisa Wingate develops the idea that perhaps it is not a matter of right/wrong rather just differences. If we can accept each others differences within the confines of healthy boundaries and not look to "fix" one another, we just may find the relationships we are looking for.