Writer Anthony Peardew carelessly lost a keepsake from his fiancée on the very day that she died. For 40 years, Peardew makes it his life’s work to collect the items people lose, catalogue them, and create stories around them. Jane Collingwood offers a strong, believable performance as Laura, who answers Peardew’s ad for an assistant. When Peardew dies, he leaves Laura his villa, Padua, and his collection, with the proviso that she locate the owners and return their lost things. Flashback to the ‘70s and Eunice, who answers a similar ad. Sandra Duncan gives Eunice a warm, mature timbre. As Eunice’s life nears its end, fascinating connections are revealed. Collingwood and Duncan make Ruth Hogan’s imaginative, sometimes magical debut novel a listening joy. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

From the attention-grabbing opening paragraph, to the joyful conclusion, Ruth Hogan has stirred together a charming fairytale in which the people may be more lost than the things; and generosity and compassion may be the key to finding a way home. Also there are dogs. Delightful.” — Helen Simonson, author of The Summer Before the War and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

“A beautiful story of love, loss, and the redemptive power of friendship.” — Catherine Hall, author of The Proof of Love

“Hogan’s writing has the soothing warmth of the cups of cocoa and tea her characters regularly dispense…old-fashioned storytelling with a sprinkling of magic.” — Kirkus

“Hogan’s first novel reveals how even discarded items have significance and seemingly random objects, people, and places are all interconnected.” — Booklist

Hogan’s first novel reveals how even discarded items have significance and seemingly random objects, people, and places are all interconnected.

From the attention-grabbing opening paragraph, to the joyful conclusion, Ruth Hogan has stirred together a charming fairytale in which the people may be more lost than the things; and generosity and compassion may be the key to finding a way home. Also there are dogs. Delightful.

A beautiful story of love, loss, and the redemptive power of friendship.

Hogan’s first novel reveals how even discarded items have significance and seemingly random objects, people, and places are all interconnected.

02/15/2017
Interlacing plots join this cozy, clever, contemporary English story, unveiling the layers of four lives brought together by the discovery of a biscuit tin full of human ashes found on a train. Laura, an unhappy 35-year-old divorcée, answers an ad for a writer's assistant. Years earlier, Eunice responds to a similar advertisement for a publisher's assistant. Enter Anthony Peardew, the writer, and Bomber, the publisher, who both have their own complicated romantic and family histories. The story involves Anthony's collection of lost items he catalogs and stores in the locked study at Padua, the Victorian villa where he lives and writes. He acquires items he finds in gutters, parks, and trains: jigsaw puzzle pieces, hair ribbons, umbrellas, etc. The novel includes short tales with the narratives behind each lost item. Laura decides to create a website to find the owners of the artifacts, including the human ashes. VERDICT Hogan's debut pulls in readers with each crafty chapter. Memorable minor characters add to the plot in this excellent selection for discussion groups.—Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL

Writer Anthony Peardew carelessly lost a keepsake from his fiancée on the very day that she died. For 40 years, Peardew makes it his life’s work to collect the items people lose, catalogue them, and create stories around them. Jane Collingwood offers a strong, believable performance as Laura, who answers Peardew’s ad for an assistant. When Peardew dies, he leaves Laura his villa, Padua, and his collection, with the proviso that she locate the owners and return their lost things. Flashback to the ‘70s and Eunice, who answers a similar ad. Sandra Duncan gives Eunice a warm, mature timbre. As Eunice’s life nears its end, fascinating connections are revealed. Collingwood and Duncan make Ruth Hogan’s imaginative, sometimes magical debut novel a listening joy. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

2017-01-23
Hogan's whimsical first novel weaves together the stories of two British assistants, one of whom works for a publisher in the 1970s and the other who, in the present day, works for an unusual elderly gentleman who has dedicated himself to assembling a room full of "a sad salmagundi" of 40 years' worth of detritus lost or abandoned by its owners.In the '70s, imaginative young Eunice escapes from a dull life into a job with the charming Bomber, who runs an old-school publishing house where he picks only books of which he is personally fond while trying to avoid the manuscripts sent to him by his shrewish sister, Portia. Forty years later, Laura, awash in Prozac and alcohol after dumping her caddish husband, lands at the door of Anthony, the titular "keeper of lost things." Soon after she's hired, Anthony dies, leaving her the house and the responsibility of uniting the lost things with their former owners. She finds herself involved not only with the project, but with the estate's appealing gardener; a mysterious young woman with Down syndrome and psychic abilities; and a peevish ghost. The two storylines entwine with the short stories Anthony has written about the former owners of his objects, most of which turn out to be surprisingly on target and all of which add a welcome dash of sorrow and disappointment to what otherwise starts to turn into a rather conventional romance. While the villainous Portia, who writes novels with plots plagiarized from Jane Austen and J.K. Rowling, quickly grows wearisome, the other characters have spunk and wit to spare, and if the plot requires considerable suspension of disbelief, Hogan's writing has the soothing warmth of the cups of cocoa and tea her characters regularly dispense. Readers looking for some undemanding, old-fashioned storytelling with a sprinkling of magic will find it here.