A Keeper: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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the story of Elizabeth coming back to ireland and discovering truths about her own past and family gripped me tight. Maybe because she had been away for so long, but there's no mention of her having an accent or how her relatives sound, etc.

I was determined to finish it, although was proud of myself to see it out till the bitter end which,although sad, ended on a positive note. I've not yet read Norton's first novel but it got good reviews, so when I was given the chance to read this as an ARC, I went for it. Compelling, well-written with a great eye for human foibles it is undoubtedly highly readable but for me lacked substance and there isn’t much more to the novel than what becomes pretty obvious early on. It is here that the story gets a firmer foothole and we, as readers, will come to see what Graham Norton has in mind for us.

Her mother has been dead for five months, and Patricia still finds herself setting the table for two. That things take a far darker turn is obvious but just how far-fetched they become was a disappointment. We then begin to discover something of the life of Patricia, Elizabeth’s mother, partly through a bunch of letters but also as a witness to incidents in Patricia’s life. As for Elizabeth, “back in New York, she had felt guilty for not missing her mother more, but in this house she felt her absence like a physical ache”.

The two treads of the story, current and historical , presented in parallel are an easy read and except for one element the plot is totally acceptable: where are Mary's relatives? The plot is quite far-fetched to begin with, but there are some sizeable holes in it, such as when characters do something completely out of character, or when information is revealed that makes something from earlier stop making sense, and then it's never explained (did we ever find out why Patricia owned the house, despite Edward still being alive? I read Graham Norton's first novel mostly out of curiosity but found the writing very good, now after reading this book I will look out for his novels for the entertaining emotive writing.

This is a hugely compelling family drama, of mothers whose children are everything, and of the darkness, heartbreak, intrigue, mental health issues and secrets that bubble within the facade of families, past and present. Born in Clondalkin, a suburb of Dublin, Norton's first big TV appearance was as Father Noel Furlong on Channel 4's Father Ted in the early 1990s.I did feel hatred for Edwards mother, yes he was a mummy's boy but why did she have a hold over him? No spoilers here, but the plot is intriguing, and the truth revealed proves that life sometimes prepares for us most extraordinary surprises, just like for Elizabeth. The sense of Patricia’s isolation as a single parent in 1970s rural Ireland is sensitively handled, while in both the present and past sections, the politics of small-town communities are captured with insight and precision.