The Scent Keeper: A Novel

Emmeline has lived in a cabin on an island with her father for many years. Scent plays several parts in this story and it really captured my imagination. What do we remember most in life? A smell can stir our memories. Wonderful book. I highly recommend.

Interesting story line, good character development. Nice read but not engrossing, didn't stay up late to read.

FINISHED! This book was a GREAT read! Thank you @reesesbookclubThe Scent Keeper“Erica Bauermeister, the author of the February Reese's Book Club pick The Scent Keeper, presents a moving and evocative novel about childhood stories, families lost and found, and how a fragrance conjures memories capable of shaping the course of our lives.”This book follows the story of Emmeline, who was raised on a remote island with her father. At a young age she was taught to use her nose and learn everything about scents she could. She enjoyed her life on the island very much, but as she aged, she had more questions about how they ended up there. Her father uses a special machine to save scents in bottles on paper and he becomes increasingly obsessed with his work. Emmeline decides to throw the scents away one at a time to try and get her father back. She realizes this was the wrong thing to do.The rest of the story follows Emmeline through the next stages in her life. When she leaves The Island and meets Henry and Colette at The Cove. She lives with them for many years and becomes part of their family. She also starts to research about her father and her mother and what brought her to the island. On the way, she makes a friend, Fisher who becomes a staple in her life. Fisher is dealing with abuse from his father and Emmeline becomes his escape.Fisher leaves for the city and Emmeline decided to locate him. During this time, she meets her mother and spends time with her in her fancy apartment. Due to her scent knowledge, she starts to work at her mothers business creating scents. She realized she is amazing at this job and she feels at home. Things begin to add up and she learns secrets about her mom and how she treated her father.Once she has discovered her true self, Emmeline and Fisher head back to the Cove with Henry and Colette where she always felt the most at home.Emmeline was a very bright individual. She had a passion for scents of the world and scents bringing you back to specific memories. It made me realize I have been taken scents for granted. I will be looking at scents in a whole new light now thanks to this gem. At the end of the book Emmeline gives a great quote, “Base notes can come from dark places, but they can create beauty all the same. They are reminders of what we will do to live, and what we can give each other. My parents taught me that.” I highly recommend this book!!!!!

I wasn’t sure about the book when I first started reading it. My book club chose it. The story seemed so confusing at the start, a little girl living alone on an island with her father. No one else around. Scent papers kept in bottles, a machine that produced smells that were special to the girl and her father. Subsistence lifestyle.Then things go wrong, father dies, girl leaves island. Is taken in by nice childless couple. Bullied at school, she falls in love with a boy who is equall a loner, the only one who treats her nicely. Girl ultimately loses boy to big city, goes to find him and the mother she has never known. And the story goes on, with notes of the kinds of novels that Judith Krafts used to write in the 1970s (Scruples came to mind for some reason.)There were parts of the book that I really liked because the writing was at times very good, lyrical and poetic. At the end though, I felt that it was indeed a lot like the old Judith Krantz novels of “girl moves from ordinary life to rich life and realizes ordinary is better.” I wish I could feel it rose higher than that, and maybe I missed a deeper meaning but I just don’t feel it.

Erica is an amazing author, introduced to me by one of her college friends. I love “No Two Persons” so i read this lovely book. A little bit of magical realism but maybe not so magical as I thought. Scents are memories and this book illustrates that, and illustrates the importance of memories. I can’t wait to read another book by Erica.

fascinating and beautiful story about love and the complexity of scent.

Me encanta el ritmo y los detalles de la historia. Te mantiene interesada de principio a fin.

Right from the start this book was interesting enough. Then it turned a little into too much of the same and I started wondering what to do, put the book down or not. However I kept on reading and the book got better, especially as of part 2 (there are 3 parts).For me the book feels like something in between the lush habitat of Where the Crawdads Sing and the mysteries similar to the books by Glendy Vanderah. In one word: interesting and intriguing. Beautifully and well written.It was the first time I read a book by Erica B. and it will certainly not be the last!It's one of those books you don't want to end.

Nice read…

I read this in one sitting, I needed to understand how Emmeline's life changed. I loved the description and how the story grew, it has made me nostalgic for scents of my childhood.