The Scent Keeper

A fairy tale or a myth with deep, evocative scenes through scent. If 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer' is too intense, the dark base note in this tale is balanced by hopeful and bright top notes.

This book had many things going for it: the emphasis on scents in relation to memories, interesting characters, and a search for truth that isn’t cloying. However, the relationship between Emmeline and Fisher is meant to pull at the heart strings, but the author never took the time needed to flesh out their connection for it to seem natural. You can’t will such feelings into being without giving your readers something tangible to cling on to; simply spending time together isn’t sufficient. Overall, the book was entertaining, and I found myself looking forward to each new chapter, but the characters were never more than two dimensional. If I had been given a reason to believe in and care for the characters, my response would have been much less middling.