As Corin, Corinna has been able to trade her time and chores for skills and spells. This was essential to her plans, for only as a boy could she become educated and only with education could she become a Folk Keeper. At a young age Corinna learnt that only through power over others could she obtain what she wanted and what she wanted was the cold and dark place where she belonged.

For years Corinna kept her secrets; her secret knowledge, her magic abilities, her convictions that kept her through the tough times. Everything that made Corinna who she is was hidden behind the façade of Corin. But then one day a Lady arrived at the orphanage to fetch her and take her to a new home, here the hard and disciplined Corin is stripped away and only the vulnerable and stubborn Corinna is left behind.

The Folk Keeper is a beautifully unique story of a girl searching for her place in the world. Written with poetic language and a descriptive style, this complex story is full of vivid characters, mystery, charm and charms. A tale of transformation, homecoming and murderous plots; this story is just another reason why Franny Billingsley is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. ( )

It's more of a novella than a novel, but it's lovely and creepy and wickedly inventive. The twists are predictable, but the strange world the novel inhabits is both wondrous and terrifying. Corinna is a wonderful protagonist: spiteful, mean, misanthropic, and utterly dedicated to her task as Folk Keeper. She would get along with Merricat from Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. ( )

Not as fabulous as Chime, but still a charming story from the point of view of a strange girl with goals... ( )

In this fun and charming retelling of the age-old legend of the seal maiden/selkie, the human world is protected from fierce creatures beneath the earth's surface by "folk keepers." Corinna is one such keeper, who keeps The Folk beneath the Marblehaugh Park estate at bay and from destroying crops and livestock only by plying them with massive quantities of food.

This was one of those books where I was torn between slowly savoring the beauty of the story and prose on each page and feverishly wanting to learn what happened next, and then feeling inexplicably disappointed when the story had ended. ( )

Quite charming little book about a selkie girl who doesn't know that's what she is. She's not particularly sympathetic to begin with, but she improves with self-knowledge. And she's certainly no pushover. ( )