First published July 30, 2025
DESCRIPTION:
When a curious book, The Midnight Estate, catches her attention in her late uncle’s library, Fiona is plunged into a tale that mirrors her own—a story of love, loss and betrayal. But as the lines between fiction and reality blur, Fiona must ask herself: Is the true mystery the one hidden within the walls of her ancestral home, or is it within the pages of a book that chose her as much as she chose it?
Told in a dual narrative and set against the Gothic backdrop of Wurimbirra, Kelly Rimmer, bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say, weaves an intricate and compelling tale, inviting readers into the heart of a family’s deepest secrets with an absorbing book-within-a-book mystery.
Fiona Winslow is reeling from the heartbreak of divorce when she returns home to Wurimbirra, Australia. She’s dismayed to find that the family estate, which has stood for generations, has fallen into disrepair. Fiona is a strong woman. So, instead of despairing, Fiona finds purpose. She decides she’s going to restore it and reclaim it as her home.
While making her way through her late uncle’s library, she stumbles on a mysterious box. It’s postmarked November 1999, sent from a UK publisher, and inside are twelve identical copies of a novel called The Midnight Estate by Charity Wilkie. As Fiona settles in to read, she’s flooded with warm memories of her aunt and uncle. Her uncle was an eccentric and popular author as well as a voracious reader who loved nothing more than gifting books to the people he cared about. But twelve copies of the same unfamiliar title? Fiona can’t help but wonder who they were really meant for.
This is where The Story Keeper really comes alive, unfolding as a gorgeous story-within-a-story. The novel Fiona is reading turns out to be steeped in family secrets, loss, betrayal, and a desperate search for truth. The deeper she gets, the more it starts to bleed into her own buried childhood memories, in ways that are honestly a little haunting.
Along with Fiona, I was completely swept up in the story of Maeve, a woman trapped in a devastating, abusive relationship. Her chapters really hit hard. This is a beautifully, hauntingly written gothic novel, and I could not put it down!
Since 2022, Kelly has owned and operated Collins Booksellers Orange, the last remaining bookstore in the small regional city she calls home. Her next novel, The Midnight Estate, will be released in Australia, New Zealand and the UK in July 2025.
