The latest from author Evie Woods after the popular historical The Last Bookshop now comes THE STORY COLLECTOR. It is set in a small county in Ireland with dual timelines separated by 100 years but in the same location. The stories have parallels in both the stories and the characters live lives similar to each other separated by time.
In the present 2011, Christmas Eve, we meet Sarah who's headed to Boston to her sister's place after her marriage ends. A chance sighting of an Irish trinket shop at the airport and one too many drinks changes Sarah's destination. She wakes up in the airplane soon landing at the Shannon airport in Ireland and not Boston. From there, Sarah starts her Ireland journey and discovers Anna and Harold's story while processing her own grief.
While Sarah acquaints herself with her new surroundings she comes across Anna's diary. We go back and forth as Sarah reads Anna's diary, pulled out of an old tree trunk. Sarah soon realises she is living in what was Anna's family cottage a century back.
Sarah also meets her neighbours, the property owners, and the places mentioned in Anna's diary. She is introduced to the local lore and legends of fairies, the rituals, popular myths and personal experiences of most people she meets.
THE STORY COLLECTOR is a love story both happy and sad as we have 2 couples. Anna and Harold in 1911 and Sarah Oran in 2011. It is a story filled with magic and fear inspired by the fairy's presence in Ireland.
I was more invested and rooted in the historical part of this story, for Anna, Harold and what they went through. Their time together was complicated yet fascinating with all the stories they collected together.
Sarah may be the one whose presence is with Anna's story and tells her own too; I feel the story collector is essentially Anna and Harold's story. And what a tragic love story they had. Their love is expressed only after they part ways and all hope is lost for them. To say it was emotional is just a part of what I felt.
The world of the story collector was one I was immersed in and couldn't help but lose myself in. That's always a wonderful experience when one is reading.
If you like fae/fairy and love reading how we and the unexplained other world live hand in hand do pick up THE STORY COLLECTOR, visit the magical Irish setting and read about a love lost story.
In a quiet village in Ireland, a mysterious local myth is about to change everything…
One hundred years ago, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate fairy stories from Irish to English. But all is not as it seems and Anna soon finds herself at the heart of a mystery that threatens her very way of life.
In New York in the present day, Sarah Harper boards a plane bound for the West Coast of Ireland. But once there, she finds she has unearthed dark secrets – secrets that tread the line between the everyday and the otherworldly, the seen and the unseen.
With a taste for the magical in everyday life, Evie Woods's latest novel is full of ordinary characters with extraordinary tales to tell.
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