The Story Collector

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

‘Maybe,’ she thought, ‘this is what following your heart feels like.’

The Story Collector was a story of finding your way after you've lost it, with tales of fairies and loads of charm. The story opens with some tension as Sarah and her husband have obviously decided to split and it's time to have that first Christmas now apart. Sarah's at the airport when a ceramic sheep and newspaper article about locals saving a fairy tree about to be cut down, all lead to Sarah changing her ticket from home to Boston, to Ireland. There, what could be considered little puckish intervenes, lead to Sarah staying in Thornwood village, where she'll heal, find herself again, and maybe find love again.

Her mother and her sister Meghan were the practical ones, but Sarah and her father were the dreamers. Or at least she used to be. All of the magic seemed to seep out of her after The Big Bad Thing. Maybe Ireland was the place to find it again?

It's obvious that something traumatic happened to snap Sarah out of the routine of slowing losing herself in her marriage over the five years they were together (it gets revealed later in the story what this was, but it's fairly obvious it was a miscarriage). Sarah's dealing with grief and a bit fogged from it when she arrives in Ireland but gets led to Thornwood. There, she ends up staying in a cottage and finding a diary of a young girl named Anna that lived there in 1910. The diary tells the story of an American coming to Thornwood and Anna becoming his assistant as she leads him around the village to listen and record people's stories of “The Good People”. The story then alternates between Sarah's timeline and Anna's and we get fairy stories with Anna and the American and Sarah learning to heal and meeting the owner of the cottage she's staying at.

Even a broken heart still feels.

Grief and loss, along with good and evil stories of fairies are throughout the book but they're never explicitly dived down into, more touched on to keep a lighter tone to the story. The first meeting between Sarah and the cottage owner where she's picking flowers in a field and he's the tall conservation officer who reprimands her for picking the flowers, he has his own grief tied into he doesn't want her picking the flowers, will have a little zing hit you, as you feel the promised magic between them (especially when his little yappy dog clues Sarah into what a softie he is). There was also a little building romance in Anna's timeline as her and the American slowly grow to know one another, but like the grief and frightening tales of fairies, the romance is more touched on, than delved into.

I greatly enjoyed the charm of this one but thought for the taking it's measured time pace for most of the story, the ending felt very rushed. Anna's story has some ending drama and a wrap-up that may leave some left wanting and while Sarah's story has her healing and becoming herself again, her happily ever after came abruptly in a way that I didn't feel I got to sit and enjoy the ending ride, it went too fast. Regardless of the rushed ending though, this story will have you feeling the magic and I recommend if you're wanting something that acknowledges the struggles of grief but doesn't completely darken the tone, tells tales of the fairy folk, and will overall charm you.