The Keeper of Stories

by Sally Page (£8.99,

PB, HarperCollins)

Shy and unassuming, Janice is one of life’s invisible observers, collecting people’s stories in the same way she hoovers up dust in her job as a cleaner. Her marriage to a man who takes her for granted, and can’t keep a job, is on the brink of collapse. But she finds a kindred spirit in the shrewd and headstrong Mrs B, who knows just how to overcome Janice’s reluctance to tell her own dark, unspoken story. A book about friendship and second chances, the characters are handled with warmth and sensitive realism.