A Keeper: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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Despite my reservations however A Keeper is engaging, well-written and wryly humorous and despite feeling Elizabeth’s character lacked depth I found it a very worthwhile read. I wasn't bored for one minute, I thought the story unfolded very well , with new snippets of information added all the time.

This compelling new novel confirms Graham Norton’s status as a fresh, literary voice, bringing his clear-eyed understanding of human nature and its darkest flaws. The book goes back and forward in time telling the story from both Elizabeth in present day and her mother Patricia in the past. Meanwhile she is told that she has also inherited another house, by the sea, which had belonged to her father whom she had never known. Her mother passed away and it is now up to Elizabeth to sort through her things and close up the house. It’s a sad and lovely book, brimful of tenderness and compassion, where the revelations of the past upturn the perceptions of the present.This is the 2nd novel I have read by Graham Norton and once again I am so impressed with his writing. For me it wasn't quite up to the mark of Holding which I loved but this nevertheless was read very quickly. That box, and an appointment with her mother’s solicitor, unravels everything Elizabeth believes to be true about herself and her family.

Elizabeth is left reeling as she delves in her mother's life, her unsettling romance with her father, Edward Foley, a farmer living in a remote area by the sea. While it took Margaret Mitchell 10 years to compose 'Gone With the Wind', and 12 years for Victor Hugo to finish 'Les Miserables', Graham Norton appears to have thrown this together over the course of a rainy Saturday afternoon and published it the following Monday without any further thought or attention.

What was supposed to be a bit of ordinary shuffle unravels into an emotional journey in time and some unexpected discoveries. She has very little there, unpleasant memories, items of small value, but all that changes when she finds a small stash of letters telling a story that she was never told. You will be surprised at many points, and you will carry on reading because you want to know what happened as much as Elizabeth does. In doing so she finds some letters, written from her father to her mother right at the start of their relationship. the TIMES'A compelling and moving story, expertly told, that will draw you in and keep you in its grip until the last page.