The Story Keeper (US) / The Midnight Estate (UK/Australia)
Fiona Winslow has years of experience in conservation architecture, and her newest project needs her help badly. In 2010, she’s just purchased the ornate Victorian mansion called Wurimbirra, her beloved childhood home in New South Wales, from her cousin after a decade of neglect. The decrepit, cobweb-infested place is rumored to be haunted, but Fiona has only fond memories of growing up there with her Uncle Tad, a world-famous storyteller, and her more level-headed mother, who served as his assistant. Nobody understands why Fiona bought the place, and her mum’s angry when she hears the news, but Fiona’s determined to make a go of it after a painful divorce and career betrayal.
The questions come fast and furious in this involving book. Why did her mum and uncle argue viciously the night before he died, and why was restoration work on Wurimbirra forbidden in his will? What’s causing objects to fall off shelves late at night? After Fiona opens a dusty box with multiple copies of an obscure British novel called The Midnight Estate and begins reading, thus unfolds a tale about two people—an adventuresome American man in 1955 California and an abused housewife—whose lives unexpectedly converge.
In this compulsively entertaining “big house” novel, does it matter that readers will work out the connection between the past and contemporary narratives long before the end? Not at all; that’s deliberate. Rimmer finishes off the loose threads in a more than satisfactory way, and the book’s wrap-up makes it clear this is more than a traditional Gothic mystery. She also strikes a good balance between imagined ghostly horrors and all-too-corporeal ones. The character development is deep and layered as Rimmer explores the ramifications of years of secrets on families.
