Love the writing just like I did with Holding but I'm afraid I wasn't so keen on the storyline for this one. It all seemed a bit far fetched to me but maybe I don't really understand what it was like in Ireland during this era. A good story well told but left me feeling a little dissatisfied.

This is the 2nd book I have read by Graham Norton and I have loved them both - in fact Graham is my guilty little secret.... normally Im a serial killer/thriller kinda gal but Grahams books just hook me in and I cant put them down.

Once again Graham has created such real, likeable characters in the form of Elizabeth and her mother Patricia. Elizabath has returned home to Ireland from New York to sort out her mother, Patricias, affairs on her death. However Elizabeth soon discovers letters which lead her to discover not just more about her mother.... but also her father who she has never met.

The story is told in two timelines - Elizabeths in the present day as she tries to piece together her own story and heritage.... and Patricias as a young women describing her story with Elizabeths father.

I thoroughly recommend this book and cant wait for the Grahams next one!

A delightful read with intrigue , lies and deceit abounding. The story is cleverly told within 3 time frames and while that can be tedious in some novels this was clearly defined in chapters and integral to the story. Elizabeth returns to her native Ireland after her mother’s death to finally clear up her ties with the area but instead unearths a secret that her mother kept about her father and an horrific time in her life.

i loved Graham Norton’s first book so was delighted to get an early copy of his second. I was not one bit disappointed and loved A Keeper from the opening pages. It seems so obvious to say it’s just so Irish but it is and that makes it delightful. I love a book where I can actually “ hear” the accents whist I read and this was one.
The story is clever and interesting. Funny in places and heartbreaking in others. Graham Norton is a very talented story-teller.

I have to admit I read this novel out of curiosity more than anything else. ‘Fiction from Graham Norton?’ I thought- let’s see. Boy, was I glad I did! I was gripped throughout. The writing was well paced whilst the switching back and forward in time was really effective in bringing Patricia’s story alive. Sometimes I find this irritating in a novel but on this occasion it really worked. The secondary story of Elizabeth’s New York life was also great to break the story up and certainly something many parents of teens can identify with...
Definitely a book to recommend and if you’re in any doubt because of the author- don’t be!

Excellent book with a great storyline. Characters that are so well written. I would highly recommend this book to anyone!

When Elizabeth returns home to the Irish country town she grew up in after her mother's death, she ends up discovering facts about the father she was told died before she was born. Elizabeth ends up discovering who she really is, while also trying to stay grounded to help her wayward teenage son.

Graham Norton is honestly becoming a master at being able to capture the essence of Irish country life, and all the people you expect to see in such places. It's obvious he understands what it's like to live in such a place, and has a real respect for the Irish countryside, and its people, while still being able to capture the types of characters that can be deemed stereotypical.

I loved Elizabeth's journey in this book, and found myself completely sucked into the mystery of who she was and what happened to her mother before she was born. I had a nice chuckle at the Farmer's Journal letters - like Tinder before smart phones! Though this story definitely screams of stranger danger too. I read this book basically in one sitting, which goes to show how easy the writing is, and how engrossing the story becomes. I just couldn't put it down until I had all the details.

There were some times when dialogue became a bit awkward - normally conversations between women and men in a romantic sense, and I did cringe a bit at some of the more awkward questions and statements that I just can't imagine people actually saying or doing. I did find the side plot with Elizabeth's son a bit distracting, and for the most part I didn't care what was happening with him because I just wanted to get back to the past mystery storyline. Things did all tangle together in the end but I still could have done without the side plot.

I was really looking forward to reading Graham Nortons new book having absolutely loved his first book Holding .What a great story teller Graham is ,I loved the rural small town setting I almost felt I was there .The characters were very well drawn and believable ,I liked the seamless transition of the chapters "Then "and "Now" ,I feel this is a good way of telling a story as it gives the reader more information and intrigue .This is one of those books that you really enjoy reading and is very hard to put down it is sometimes dark very mysterious and thoroughly enjoyable .Can't wait to read Graham's next book .Many thanks to the Publisher ,the Author and NetGalley for my review copy in return for an honest review .

I was sent a copy of A Keeper by Graham Norton to read and review by NetGalley.
A beautiful book. This novel, to me personally, is written in true Irish style. It is tender and lyrical and is a tale of family, relationships and secrets. Written in chapters Then and Now the story tells of Elizabeth (now) and her mother Patricia (then) with Elizabeth uncovering unexpected secrets following her mother’s death. This novel rings so true and is so engaging I read it in one sitting! A little gem of a book.

I really loved this book. I read Holding last year, and was pleasantly surprised by the absence of Graham Norton's TV persona in the narration. Don't get me wrong, I love TV Graham, but Graham the writer, a different character altogether, is someone who has more of a gentle and respectful approach to his flawed and often tragically sad characters.

This tale has a dual story line which transports us between 1970's rural Ireland, and the present day. In the 1970's, following the death of her mother (whom she nursed) Patricia Keane finds herself 'on the shelf.' She responds to a lonely hearts advert in a journal, and strikes up a correspondence with Edward Foley. This awkward almost-relationship leads her from her home in Buncarragh on the Laois/Kilkenny border to a god-forsaken windswept farm in Muirinish, West Cork. Here, strange things happen.

In the present day, Elizabeth Keane finds herself back in Buncarragh following the death of her mother, Patricia Keane. She has temporarily left her home in New York to sort through her mother's affairs. Here, amidst the ghosts of the past, she comes across some correspondence between her mother and Edward, her father, whom she had never met as he had died when she was very young. Elizabeth, too, finds herself retracing her mother's footsteps to Muirinish to visit a house she has been left in a codicil to her mother's will. As Elizabeth struggles with her own problems with her son and estranged husband, along with the interference of well-meaning family, she makes some unsettling discoveries about her own and her mother's past.

Graham Norton has created a cast of very ordinary and often lonely characters, people with tragic backstories. Never did I get the impression that he was judgemental, he simply allowed the cast be, to make mistakes and try to deal with them.

Recently, Graham Norton was interviewed in The Guardian about his writing and this book, and he explained that he bases his novels in West Cork because it is what he knows...the people are his people, and he feels he can write about them. I am also from Cork, and really did feel that his writing transported me back to Ireland, and to Cork.

It's a book I would recommend to anyone who likes a family mystery...and let's face it - who doesn't!

Thanks to #Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Graham Norton’s second novel is another well written story. We alternate between modern day and the past, when Elizabeth, the main character, finds letters in her mother’s things after she dies.

Graham is a fantastic storyteller, and his characters are well developed and interesting. I was intrigued to find out more about Elizabeth’s father, just as she was.

A great book, again highlighting Graham’s Irish roots.

This was a really good, well-written, engaging gothic family drama (if there is such a genre!) I had been disappointed by Graham Norton's first novel, Holding, which was good but lacked his biting wit and felt, to me, a little pedestrian. So I suppose I came to this book with low expectations, but I found myself gripped by the story & so it was one of those books that was hard to put down & I read very quickly - something worth noting when reading time, for me, is at a premium.
I won't go over the story again as you can all read the blurb well enough yourselves! Again, there isn't any of that caustic wit - but I was ready for that this time. What you get instead is a bunch of really well-drawn characters, with real voices that lure you into the story. There's a more gentle humour behind it, and a darkness too, so that the contemporary story often provides a lightness to counter the bleakness within the story from the past.
I felt the 2 timelines worked well, and although I was trying to guess at what on earth was going on, I couldn't pull everything together so I liked the intrigue there too.
I saw one reader had compared this to Maeve Binchy, which seems an odd comparison initially but actually I've warmed to somewhat since I always did really enjoy Binchy's books too, loving the small town Irish family life, and the ups & downs of families & relationships. I think this had a darker edge to it than Binchy, but still, I'd be quick to pick up another book by Graham now, in the same way that I worked my way through the whole shelf of Binchy's in the Library many years ago.

A Keeper by Graham Norton

Divorced academic Elizabeth Keane lives in New York with her teenage son, Zach, her ex-husband lives in California.
She returns to Ireland after the death of her mother, to sort out her affairs, and to try to discover something about her father.
Her mother, Patricia, would never talk about him, she went away, married, and returned a few months later with Elizabeth and no husband, so the family was a source of speculation in the small town of Buncarragh.
The story is told in the voices of Elizabeth, and Margaret, and another character, Edward, who is part of their story.
While Elizabeth is discovering her past, she is also coping with a bombshell dropped by Zach, that will alter both their lives.
I enjoyed the book as an engaging, easy, thought-provoking read, about relationships, and the damage parents can (sometimes unwittingly) do to children.
My only minor reservation was the lack of attention to detail around birth certificates, wills etc, could the things that happened in the book really happen?

Thanks to Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the opportunity to read this book.

New Yorker Elizabeth returns to Buncarragh, the small Irish town she grew up in to tidy up her late mother’s affairs. She discovers a cache of old love letters that raise questions about the father she never knew and everything she thought she knew about her family begins to unravel leaving disquieting blanks. Norton deftly weaves the strands of their lives together and shows the past can throw long shadows. Utterly gripping and darkly atmospheric, this is a stay-up-till-dawn kind of book!

The Keeper is the story of two women, Patricia and her daughter Elizabeth. Patricia told Elizabeth that her father, Edward, died when she was too young to remember him but upon Patricia's own death Elizabeth discovers her mother has kept a lifetime of secrets from her. Elizabeth is a divorced woman living in New York and the main premise is a good one. However the secondary plot involving her son was rather contrived I felt.

The novel is told in two timelines: when Patricia was a young woman herself and in the present , when Elizabeth visits a deserted house on a farm which has been left to her. Set in Ireland the story sounds as if it may be based on a true life event and is an easy read. It could have done with more editing e.g one section tells the back story of a secondary, unimportant character which leads the reader nowhere, but perhaps as a celebrity has written this, editing is not as much a priority as it is for unknown writers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to read and review The Keeper.

I shamelessly enjoyed this second book by Graham Norton. I really was enthralled by his first book Holding and couldn't wait to read this instalment. I read A Keeper in less than two days. I flew through it. I had just read a very slow book which took me a month to read, ugh. This was a life saver. Made my weekend very pleasant indeed! Go get a copy! Thanks to Netgalley for the chance of reading this in advance.

I read Graham’s last book and enjoyed it. This book surpasses it by a lot. I loved that the story was very original and a little different. It kept me interested and turning the pages.
I liked the fact there was about 3 different stories running through the story that all interlink well and whilst all the characters are very different they have lots on common.
Graham Norton is a wonderful storyteller. Can’t wait to read another by him.
Highly recommend, loved it.

This is an accomplished piece of writing; the author weaves a fabulous tale!

Elizabeth Keane returns to her Irish roots on the death of her mother with the sole intention of clearing the house left to her then putting it up for sale, but events are never that easy and she gets much more than she bargained for. Coming across a box never seen before, Elizabeth finds herself finally on the verge of finding out about her missing father. This leads her into a bit of a mini-adventure into the Irish countryside and coast where, by way of a split story - present and past - we find out all about her mother's younger days as well as Elizabeth's life now.

This is an attention grabbing read; one of secrets and lies. Having enjoyed the author's first novel, I can honestly say that I consider the calibre of writing in this second one to be far superior - obviously the result of experience. The result is a skilfully crafted and deeply perceptive tale set in rural Ireland which transports you there and really makes you care about each and every character. Along with the darker moments - and there are quite a few - there are flashes of humour added in which made me giggle. This is a complex story which unravels and reveals itself piece by piece, and it's a rewarding read. By the time I got to the final page, all the questions were answered and the future wrapped up tightly. A truly interesting read, and one which I enjoyed from beginning to end. Absolutely recommended!

My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for my copy via NetGalley. This is my honest, original and unbiased review.

This is the first novel I have read by BBC TV presenter Graham Norton and it didn't disappoint!

Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland following the death of her mother, to clear the house and put it on the market for sale. She quickly finds some old letters and gradually a story unfolds about both her mother's and her own past. At the same time she discovers that her teenage son is not with his father in San Francisco, but in fact is staying with his much older girlfriend.

This is one of those books with two storylines, one in the past and one in the present, which unfold together. Cleverly written and engaging throughout. Definitely worth a read.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an early copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

When Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland following her Mother’s death, it is only to clear the house, and only then from a sense of duty. There is no real feeling behind her journey.

A letter found amongst her Mothers possessions gives Elizabeth a differing aspect of her childhood, and for the first time in her adult life, she wonders who her Mother really was.

Then: Patricia, Elizabeth's Mother was a lonely young woman, 40 years previously, and took a path down a road that would lead her in a very different direction to the one her life was originally headed.

Now: Elizabeth reluctantly starts looking into her Mothers past as she discovers that she has been left a property mysteriously. One she knows nothing about. One that she doesn't much care about. She only wants to get home to her own family.

But as Elizabeth delves into her Mothers past, she begins to realise that her Mother was a very different woman than the one she grew up with, and perhaps there is history worth exploring after all.

A Keeper is a beautifully written novel, detailing family secrets, love, loss and betrayal.

Graham Norton is such a fantastic story teller and his novels are really something to treasure. I look forward to his next offering, for I am sure that there must be one planned!