The Keeper by Graham Norton

 First Published: 2018

RATING: GOOD

SPOILERS!!!

This novel seesaws between present and past. In present Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother dies. She has been living in New York for many years where she has her son, Elliot. What she needs to do is clear away the house. Elizabeth's mother, Patricia, never told her about her father, and from the little she was told, Elizabeth knows that her motehr married her father suddenly, and a year later she returned to her hometown with her in tow after her father passed away. It is while staying in the house that Elizabeth finds the letters that her father wrote to her mother. It is in the parts of the past that we learn that Elizabeth posted an advertisement, looking for a farmer as a likely love interest, and some weeks later she got a reply from Edward Foley, and she decided to go and meet him.

Edward was very shy and when Patricia met him, she was not impressed, but when she read her letters, she thought he was a good man, so she decided to give him another opportunity, and she even met his mother. Then in one of the visits Patricia discovered that Edward had deceived him and he couldn't read or write, so she realised that her mother had written those letters, and she felt cheated. Patricia had every intention to go home, but then Mrs Foley locked her in the room, and she was there for weeks. It was clear that Catherine Foley was insane, and even though she begged Edward to help her, he didn't dare to stand up to his mother. Then Patricia discovered a baby girl, who was Elizabeth, and Edward told her that the baby is his. He married his late brother's former girlfriend, and she died in childbirth. That is why his mother wanted to find him a girlfriend on account of the baby. Edward finally helps Patricia leave, and we discover that he killed his mother.

Elizabeth finds out that she has been left the farmer which was her father's, and a neighbour tells her that Edward Foley is not dead. So she goes to see him, but he has dementia, but she finds some photographs, one of which is of Edward's wedding. After inquiring in the village she discovers that her mother was not Patricia, but Mary Foley. With the truth she returns home in the United States.

While in Ireland Elizabeth has had to face other problems. Her son Elliot, who was supposed to travel to San Francisco to be with his father, goes missing, and when he makes contact, he announces that he lied to go and see his girlfriend. The girl turns out to be the private maths teacher Elizabeth hired to teach him at home, and she is in her early thirties, and she is pregnant. The woman, Michelle, doesn't want to involve Elliot, who is only seventeen. Then when Elizabeth is back home, Michelle goes into labour, and she and Ellito go to the hospital. Then the doctor tells them that there were complications during labour, and Michelle has died. So in the end Elizabeth and Elliot decide to take charge of the baby. 

I liked the book, but the part about Patricia being kidnapped was too farfetched from my point of view.