This story was told in a dual timeline between Sarah in 2011 and the diary of Anne in 1911. Sarah is recovering from a loss and detours her trip home to see her parents. She flies to Ireland after reading an intriguing article about a tree and Irish folklore. In Ireland Sarah discovers a diary written by a young girl named Anne in 1911. Anne was assisting an American to collect and record local folklore.
In my opinion the novel lacked the anticipated magic one expects with Irish folklore, the narrative just fell flat. The book was a slow start and didn’t pull out of its stagnant state until the last 1/3 of the book, then it was great.
The tense of the journal was off and seemed out of sync with something written first person in a diary. I was waiting for a connection between Sarah and Anne through the diary but it never showed up. While some of the imagery was beautiful, I expected so much more. I would have liked more description and interaction in the back stories of the story collector. Overall the story was somewhat disjointed and hard to connect with the characters.
I did enjoy the last 1/3 of the book, and how the author wrapped things up, even though it seemed rushed.

I would like to thank NetGalley for the opportunity to review the book as an ARC. These opinions are my own.
I give it 2.5/5 stars.

Unhappy wife gets drunk at the airport. Hearing a story about a fairie tree, she swaps ticket to Boston for one to Shannon and wakes up in Ireland with a hangover.

Her story parallels one told in a diary she discovers shortly after arrival. Written in the early 20th Century, the diary author is a young Irish girl hired to escort an American collector of fairie stories.

The experiences the people interviewed share are magical and mystical. Evie Woods' writing is especially grand in the diary.

A very enjoyable read.

I loved the author's previous book, The Lost Bookshop, so I knew I had to read this latest book! Going back and forth from present day, to the diary that tells Anna's story, it is an interesting look at the culture of Ireland before their civil war for independence, and how superstitions still played a part of their life, and how some of those have remained to present day. In the present day, Sarah doesn't know why she is called to Ireland, to a mysterious town of Thornwood, far off the beaten track, but once she gets there she feels at home, and realizes she was called their for a reason- not to find Anna's diary, but to heal herself, and in doing so, help heal others in Thornwood. It's a book that will have you entranced and ready to head to Ireland, so it's perfect for late summer reading!

I really enjoyed this book. The characters, setting, magical realism and the magic of books all gave off such a cozy vibe.

For me it was not my cup of tea. I found the story hard to get into and I was not interested in the characters.

This book was so charming. I loved the setting and the alternating time line. I preferred the timeline from 100 years prior. As a lover of books and stories I enjoyed the idea of the idea of preserving history, stories, beliefs through writing and art. I wish there would have been more to the historical story line in the end. I feel like it abruptly cut off and the resolution was a bit short. All in all a good read.

Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”.
This book was the equivalent to a cup of warm soup on a cold day. It had just the right amount of whimsy and amazing story telling that it just warmed my soul right up.
When Sarah, newly separated, finds herself at the airport planning on going back to Boston to be with her family she decides on a whim to go instead to Ireland. There she ends up meeting a cast of characters that helps her to heal her heart. She also finds a diary of Anna, a woman who lived in the town early 1900’s that became an assistant to a man researching fairies.

I loved the dual time line and was invested in both Anna and Sarah’s stories. This book was a joy to read and I thank Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read an advanced copy.

4 Irish charm stars

This was the perfect one to read while I was on vacation in Ireland. Folk stories, fairies, magic, and great characters filled this one and made for an atmospheric read.

With a dual storyline, I was pulled right into this one. The contemporary storyline features Sarah, an American who has fled to Ireland after trauma at home. She lands in a quiet western Irish village and begins a healing process. She discovers a hidden diary and that’s the perfect segue to the other storyline.

The earlier storyline (by about 100 years) features another young woman, Anna, who helps an American academic research fairy stories. She’s an insider and can get the local Irish to open up to Harold with their stories. As you can intuit from the title, Harold is the story collector.

Harold and Anna talk with various people in the community and spend some time at the local manor. Some of the stories were charming, and some were horrifying as people try to make sense of their world and sometimes believe that magic is to blame for their problems.

I loved the descriptions of the countryside, and I searched for my own fairy Hawthorn tree!

I enjoyed this book, albeit not as much as The Lost Bookshop. It is well written but has unmined potential. I like the premise, although I am not a fan of dual or multi timeline stories, inasmuch as they usually are a bit disruptive to the story. This was not, which is a plus. I always knew who was the focus and in which era. However, I feel as if the character and plot development were a bit superficial and I wanted more and deeper.
3.5 stars

What a lovely story! The dual time storytelling works beautifully here as we follow Sarah and Oran in the present learning about Anna and Harold in the past. There’s some suspension of disbelief needed here as we follow Sarah’s unexpected journey from NYC to Ireland and her discovery of Anna’s diary. However, every good story requires that suspension and it’s not hard to do here. Woods spins a gentle but gripping tale of past small village intrigue with a modern tale of a woman examining her life and wondering how she got so off track. This will appeal to fans of Susanna Kearsley and those who enjoy dual time stories.

Recommended

I received a temporary digital copy of The Story Collector by Evie Woods from NetGalley, One More Chapter and the author in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Sarah Harper finds herself in a small Irish village after a few too many beverages in an airport bound for Boston. While exploring, she finds a diary of a young girl named Anna who assisted an American in collecting stories on fairies. Through the land, time and Anna's story, Sarah begins to heal from a recent experience that landed her in Ireland in the first place.

The Story Collector was a good read on Irish traditions and their folklore. I enjoyed Anna's story much more than Sarah's, but both characters were interesting.

I really enjoyed reading this story. Sarah had gone through a divorce and was supposed to be flying to Boston to stay with her sister. She reads a news story and impulsively decides to fly to Ireland. She does not have any lodging or plans. The story unfolds and she ends up getting the things she needs to end up where she is supposed to be.

She stays in a little cottage and finds a diary. The diary is written by someone who lived 100 years before. This book alternates between the two story lines. It is a great read with just a little hint of fantasy.

What a magical and unexpected read! This book had so many elements that I love: historical fiction, romance, and a touch of the mystical. I loved the interweaving of this cast of characters and the FMC’s journey through grief toward self-discovery.

This book was truly magical and the characters were well written! Thank you to Evie Woods and One More Chapter for this ARC via NetGalley!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this book, Ireland, fairies, history, etc. was really intriguing and I had high hopes for this book. It was a good read and the author did a great job slowly revealing information about the present main chat and the past main character without giving you too much. But, it took a long time for me to get into this book. It didn’t hold my attention as much as I’d hoped. It was a slow read but a good story.

This was a delightfully unexpected gem of a story! I love anything set in Scotland, dual storylines and time lines, and folklore. Both Anna and Sarah's storylines were captivating and endearing. This story was beautifully rendered from the beginning to the end. The perfect light and fun story for the summer!

The story starts at the breakup of Sarah’s marriage when she’s on her way to stay with her sister to get her life back together. At the airport she overdoes the alcohol while she waits for her plane. On a lark, she visits a Celtic gift shop and buys an Irish newspaper. Her eye is caught by a story about protests causing a road to be repositioned to avoid a “fairy tree.” When she opens her eyes next she is in Ireland, apparently changing her plans in her drunken state. She lands in a village and the story takes shape when she finds a hundred year old diary deep in a tree. The story then jumps back and forth between her story and the story written by the diarist. It’s an interesting women’s story that keeps one’s interest.

This is a dual-timeline story that alternates between the two timelines. The book begins with Sarah Harper leaving her husband on Christmas after their marriage implodes. Her plan is to hop on a plane to her sister's house, but she gets drunk at the airport waiting for her plane, changes plans because of an article she read in a newspaper, and wakes up in Ireland, completely bumfuzzled as to how she got there. Her sister is mad at her because she spent the day getting everything ready for her, and her husband has been waiting at the airport for her. Everyone thinks she is having a breakdown, but she assures them she just needs some time away to regroup and think. She decides to do just that and she rests a cottage for a few weeks. At the cottage she discovers a diary from 1910, belonging to someone named Anna. This is where the second timeline comes in at. The diary tells about how Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor, Harold Griffin-Krauss, translate 'fairy stories' from Irish to English. They travel around Thornwood Village together, collecting personal accounts of interactions and sightings of the fae. Sarah becomes fascinated by all of the folklore and superstition and decides to start sketching pictures of the fairies in the stories she is reading about.

I love this author's books. She never fails to draw me in and keep me captivated. I loved all of the stories about the fae, and enjoyed the dual timeline and the way the two tied together. When Sarah finally broke down and confessed what had happened to break up her marriage with her husband, I will admit I shed a tear or two for her. Whether you are a fan of fantasy fiction or just love fiction, I think you will love this book regardless. I highly recommend it!

Evie Woods is a phenomenal writer and I loved how this novel was set in two time periods while the story intertwined. A story of dreams, magic and the fairies that hide in the hills of Western Ireland.
Thank you NG for this ARC!

The Story Collector is an interesting dual-timeline novel, with one modern story (set in 2010/2011) and one historical (1910/11). Woods does a good job balancing the two storylines, making sure that each has good supporting characters and enough plot to keep them going. However, the tricky part of dual-storyline novels is that both characters/stories HAVE to be compelling enough you don't mind leaving one for the other, and this is where the Story Collector did not work for me. While the modern story, with Sarah, has an interesting narrative voice and a solid supporting cast (except poor Fee, who is just there for Sarah to trauma-dump on her. Gag.), is painful to get through. I found Sarah as a character whiny and pretentious, and would honestly skim those chapters to get back to Anna's story. I don't want to spoil Sarah's story and why she leaves the US for Ireland, because Woods seems to think it was a climactic reveal, but I can see many women connecting with her story and struggles. I also found her "I have Irish BLOOD and so I'm CONNECTED to the island" such American, pandering crap. The fact that anyone in the story entertains this made me roll my eyes.

All that said, I enjoyed the 1911 storyline with Anna SO much. Her story and thinking were more interesting and richly layered; I wanted to spend more time getting to know turn-of-the-century Ireland, because Woods described it so well and so delightfully. She was really able to capture the nauances of the period and the characters. (which made her writing choices in the other timeline so baffling. Honestly. She's a great writer! Sarah was just not the character for me.) My biggest complaint is that Anna's ending, while realistic and probably more true to the period, does this fantastic character so dirty; she didn't deserve it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper 360 for the ebook ARC. All opinions are mine alone.