This is a tough book to review, because when a book examines such a powerful subject, I always feel in some way as though I am diminishing said subject by not awarding 5 stars. Still with me?
This is a book that looks at the abuse of women. Emotional abuse, domestic abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse. It's all packed into these pages. I think for me as a reader this is why I haven't rated the book higher. It felt as though the book was a means to deliver a message, and the actual plot came low down the list. I also struggled with the pace of the book which was slow to the point of stultifying.

My thanks go to the publishers and Net Galley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

A really hard read at times as this deals with some really tough subjects of suicide, coercive control, stalking and domestic violence and not for the faint hearted.
When Katie is found dead all the signs are that she has taken her own life..... but her boss at a women’s refuge where she works suggests otherwise as do some of the women she’s supports. When the police discover there are no records of Katie in the name she goes by they look deeper into her bs ground as do we as the story jumps back in time to a few years earlier.....
Thought it was powerfully done.

This is a well-constructed, well-plotted, police procedural story, perhaps a little overwrought. Starting with a probable suicide, it focuses on abused women, including the victim (assuming it isn’t a suicide), their supposedly safe refuge, and the police investigation. I say overwrought on the procedural front because there isn’t really a good explanation for why DS Whitworth keeps probing the case (assuming there is a case). DC Brookes faithfully follows him around giving the impression of a bored lapdog. The verisimilitude of the women and their refuge I am not equipped to rule on although, at times, there is a feeling that the tale was constructed for socio-political reasons. As a puzzle to be resolved it does keep the reader questioning until the end and does turn on a device which I’ve come across before but which I didn’t spot.

I persevered with this book but after reading a third of it I realised that this one was not for me, The subject matter was both topical and very thought provoking - if often hard to read, In a fiction novel though it just did not hold my attention. There were quite of number of women in the refuge and it was tricky to separate and understand all of them. The police also seemed somewhat 2-dimensional

I really loved reading this book! I was engrossed straight away and kept my attention until the very last page.
The story was great and what a twist at the end!!! 😄
This author writes so well, I can't wait for more definitely!!!

I never repeat the blurb. I did persist with this, as I really liked the varying characters and personalities contained within, but I have to confess that I was disappointed in the ending of the story and the 'reveal'. Less a twist and more a let-down really. Won't put me off trying more of her work, but I did feel a sense of anticlimax at the end.

I thought this was a really good debut novel, tackling the trauma of domestic abuse, and highlighting how it comes in many forms. The story it came wrapped in was also well written, I liked the "then" and "now" format, and a good twist. I have only given 4 stars however as I did feel at times that the characters were stereotypes - Val the strident feminist, Whitworth the ageing copper struggling with modern mores, Jenny the junkie. I will be looking out for further books by this author though.

Thank you to netgalley and penguin books for an advance copy of this book.

Now it goes without saying that this covers a really important topic of domestic abuse & violence and the author covers it well BUT I found it overly transparent and predictable to be honest.

Split into the narrative of 'Now' & 'Then' it tells the story of the main character Katie with the added characters being the inhabitants of a womens refuge and their stories.

I can't hand on heart say I actually enjoyed the story and I'll admit I ended up skimming through alot of it, it just left me feeling a bit bored and deflated.

I wouldn't class this as a thriller at all, more of a domestic fiction. It carried zero suspense (in my opinion) and even though it had the detective aspect those characters were just crass and unlikeable.

As you can tell ot wasn't really one for me but I'm sure others will love it.

1.5* purely for the well written narratives of domestic abuse.

*SUICIDE/VIOLENCE/SEXUAL ABUSE REFERENCES *

Thanks to netgally and Penguin UK for the ARC.

Poignant, probing and beautifully written, The Keeper will remind us how we have a duty to protect and support the vulnerable and abused in our society. A police investigation thriller that reveals a range of colourful characters, their unique stories and the multiple perspectives people have on domestic abuse.

In two time frames, before and after the dead body of Katie Straw is recovered from a river, the story provides the events and life of Katie up to that point, and the police investigation following it. The obvious conclusion is that it was suicide and the police hope to close the case quickly, however, the women at the refuge centre, where Katie works, think otherwise and claim that she was murdered.

Katie was an abused woman in a relationship with Jamie. A relationship that started with romance and partnership, and gradually morphs into a life of terror leaving Katie void of psychological strength and frightened how Jamie will next manifest his dominance. The slide from romance to abuse is unfortunately common enough and Jessica Moor vividly builds this up with great care and attention to detail.

“She learns to name the demon. To understand that, just as cities can fall without a shot being fired, a woman can relinquish herself, piece by piece.”

The characterisations are excellent and our emotions are pulled towards and driven away from Katie and Jamie as we would want them to be.

The police investigation into Katie’s death exposes many real issues facing abused women, refuge centre staff and the resourcing pressures to continue providing these essential services. The narrative to the plight and range of domestic abuse is powerful and wonderfully observant. Jessica Moor was very clever in her characters and establishing DS Whitworth as someone who doesn’t really want to deal with this issue and who can sweep it away as quickly as possible, gives us the laissez-faire attitude that impairs real action being taken to address this devastating social disease. DS Whitworth along with DC Brook seem out of place as two disconnected men responsible for investigating the death of Katie and being sympathetic towards the horrors faced by many of their female witnesses.

While this is a genuinely tough story, with a crucial moral and social message, Jessica Moor has encapsulated the theme in a drama with wonderful dialogue between fascinating characters and a plot that offers surprises. Described as a literary thriller - yes absolutely!

I would highly recommend this book and I’d like to thank Viking, Penguin Book UK and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Extremely hard topic to write about and kudos to the author for doing so, but I didn't end up liking the book.
I wasn't invested in any of the characters. Katie wasn't likeable and she didn't make a lot of sense to me. Detective Whitworth was just an old pretentious man, who should have retired years ago.
The writing was strange in places and I couldn't wrap my head around some of the passages like "this group of friends made far more sense in the context of ibuprofen in school bags, borrowed class notes, a seemingly endless sense of imprisonment."
What does this even mean? Did the author just want to write in a flowery metaphorical way and it came out wrong or is this just a rubbish sentence?
This kind of writing doesn't appeal to me at all.

Katie is found dead and the police are investigating whether it was murder or suicide. I so wanted to like this book, as domestic violence is such an important subject and I hoped that it would be an education.

However, having worked for a women‘s charity, I found the depiction of the refuge to be inaccurate and the manager was a caricature of a militant feminist. The policeman was also caricatured as a near-retirement ‘dinosaur‘ and there were many superfluous characters, mainly those in the refuge, as if to say ‘look at all the different kinds of domestic violence there are‘. I felt that some aspects were portrayed well, the coercive control and ‘gaslighting‘ of the MC, but all of the other factors distracted from what could have been an important story.

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC copy of this fantastic debut.

When Katie Straw's body is pulled from the river the police think it is nothing more than a poor girl committing suicide. But is it?

Katie works at a women's refuge and may not be all that she seems. Is the mysterious figure hanging around,the odd goings on and the internet threats anything to do with her or one of the other women? Did Katie really commit suicide or as the women fear, was she murdered?

This book deals with the uncomfortable issue of domestic abuse, in all its forms, and how it affects the women portrayed. As the story unravels each woman's story unfolds and we begin to understand what each of them have been through, including Katie.

I only gave 4 stars for this as, as much as I enjoyed it I found it a bit slow. Although I never saw the twist at the end and it was a definite oh wow moment for me.

Still highly recommended.

This is an incredibly dark book. When Katie Straw’s body is pulled from the water it looks like an open and shut case and another sad suicide. However, things are not as they seem and Whitworth and Brookes – the investigating officers – seem to find more questions than answers at every turn.

At Widringham women’s refuge where Katie worked, each woman has a heart-breaking story of her own. Each story is centred around domestic violence so if this is a trigger for you then it’s best to sit this one out. This is a pain that seems to be echoed in Katie’s past too. Set in the present during the investigation and in a past that Katie ran from, this is a dark story filled with torment.

Keeper has flawed characters at every turn and although some are kept a little two dimensional, there was enough going on to keep you interested. I found the shelter manager annoying and the views / opinions / language of the police frustrating at times and thought this characterisation by Moor to be very clever. The social dialogue around the views on domestic violence are both sad and unsurprising.

Keeper is not a light read to say the least. It is wonderfully written though with real sensitivity paid to the women’s stories. There is no neat end to this book but then sadly life rarely has a nice neat ending either. Gripping from start to finish, Keeper is a page turner which is worth the read.

This one wasn't for me, I'm afraid. Despite the interesting - if often hard to read - topic, it just didn't hold my attention. There were a lot of characters and it was tricky to invest in all of them.

A superb and engrossing read.

The body of a young woman, Katie, is dragged from a river and an investigation is set in place to determine whether this was a tragic suicide or murder. The victim worked at a women's refuge but it soon becomes clear that she had secrets of her own.

Events flit between Then and Now as we explore the lives of women who have been controlled, abused and assaulted by men. Reading this in a week when a surge in UK domestic violence has been reported added an extra tension to the read. The story deals very well with how women drift into such relationships and the difficulties, emotional, pychologial and financial, women find in exiting such relationships.

The women in the story do not have the lives they deserve and the views of abusive men and those who excuse their behaviour are prominent in the book. The one weakness in the story is the demonisation of the woman who founded and maintains the refuge despite the hate mail and local service cuts. Her portrayal as a rabid and uncompromising feminist is rather stereotypical and veers the perspective towards the dominnt male view within the novel, particularly that of the lead detective on the case.

A late twist comes completley out of the blue and shocks as well as dixturbing the reader's understanding of events. This is no easy read and the death suggests there will be no happy ending. But will Katie and the other victims of violent men receive justice?

I didn't finish this at 35% in. I really tried, but I just couldn't do it anymore. The premise for The Keeper is really intriguing, but the execution was very dull and uneventful. I didn't care for the characters, of which there are many, and I ended up not caring about what happened to Katie at all. It had some good moments, but the writing isn't interesting. The story doesn't move fast enough and lots of the action and dialogue felt like filler. I really admire the author, Jessica Moor, for writing a narrative that highlights domestic abuse and underfunded resources, but I just couldn't connect with the characters or the story.

First things first, this book centers around a domestic abuse refuge and I think that needs to be more clear in the description. If you have any wish to avoid reading stories about abuse, sit this one out. There are many characters who we meet in this book who all have their own struggles and are abused in different ways which is heartbreaking and honest and perhaps too difficult for some people to read.

If this is the sort of thing you can handle, read this book. it's uncomfortable but the twist is takes are some LIKE I ACTUALLY GASPED IN REAL LIFE twists so it pays off. I'd like to read it again now that I know the ending to see if I can pick out points in the story where it was hinted at and I completely missed, I'm sure there are many. It's very well written.

I really enjoy books that write in two timelines, especially when both are so separate that it is easy to follow. I enjoyed the small spiral the 'then' timeline followed, until it was too late and the 'now' timeline made me hate and question every character, I was so suspicious of them all at different points, but that is what I enjoy.

I'm not always a fan of open-ended choose your own sort of endings, which this one has, it lets us read between the lines and sometimes I just want it clearly written out for me. That's my only real criticism but on a whole I would recommend this book to people who enjoy thrillers.

This is an uncomfortable book to read as it’s about such a difficult subject however the different viewpoints telling the story and the now and then narration works extremely well. It’s not easy to like any of the characters in the book, you can feel sympathetic to some but they all have awkward ways which make it - thankfully in some cases - difficult to relate to. The twist was a real sting in the tale and left you wanting to yell at some characters well after finishing reading. This is a much needed contemporary tale and worth the challenging read.

Intriguing, twisty thriller dealing with domestic violence and abuse. Really enjoyed it but did guess the major twist although not too long before the end. Also got a little confused with the back story- not everything seemed to check out but maybe that was me. Also felt some of the characters were not developed properly. Bit one-dimensional. Overall a really thought-provoking, interesting story that gave good insight on psychological abuse.

Loved the premise of the book and really got into it, particularly the first third, but I slowly fell out of love with it. The story is set around some uncomfortable truths about our world, namely, male violence towards women, funding cuts for women's shelters, and social support for survivors of violence. It also features a twist that I never saw coming, even though by then I'd fallen out of intrigue with the story.

Beyond the first third of the book, I started to lose patience. For one, there were numerous characters that were ultimately superfluous to the story. For another, the dual timeline seemed to be going around in circles at one point, more like fillers than moving the story forward. Finally, I found the dismissal of feminism and the disdain of the shelter's manager disturbing. The police detectives are portrayed as apologists for partner abuse by men; they persist in using Mrs instead of Ms for the shelter manager, which was particularly galling. This is probably reality, but it didn't work for me in this case, making me wonder if the book had been written by a man.

Finally, I don't think I quite understood what happened in the end. The books starts out as a thriller and goes on to become literary fiction, which is probably why the ending went over my head!

(Review copy from NetGalley)