Familiar but welcome

The Keeper of Lost Things is a book we’ve all read before. It’s the story of lost souls coming together for a bigger goal and finding themselves in the process. It’s like a Hallmark movie in terms of the warm fuzzies you get while reading, but also in that you sort of forget it happened the moment it ends.

For my virtual quarantine book club, we wanted to read books with a more uplifting and easy storyline compared to our normal choices. Thus, The Keeper of Lost Things entered our realm. A friend of mine best described this book as something she has read 100 times before, but it wasn’t unwelcome. It’s the kind of book I need to read right now. Something that reminds us as people that we’re all connected and a small bit of kindness being extended to someone could change a life.

Anthony Peardew keeps lost things. Decades ago he lost something from his fiancee who died the same day. Ever since then, he wanders around collecting things people have forgotten or were left behind in the hopes that he can one day reuinte owner with thing, and thus absolve him of sin and perhaps find his own lost item.

Anthony has an assistant, Laura, who is a woman lost in her life. Post divorce, Laura finds herself with no prospects in both romance and the workforce, and her marriage left her at home without learning any skills. Anthony hires her to help write his letters and manage his house, which he then leaves for her upon his death under the condition that she tries to reuinte the items with their owners in honor of him. Helping her on her quest is her neighbor with down syndrome, Sunshine, and Freddie, the gardener. The trio does their best to figure out how to let people know about the items they have in this current society while also being minimally haunted by the ghost of Theresa, Anthony’s dead fiancee.

Other characters pop in and out throughout the book as side characters whose lost items draw them toward Laura. Boomer and Eunice were my two favorites, and the author does a good job of connecting the lost items mentioned in the story with the characters we actually care about.

It’s a simple book. Very readable; I knocked it out in a day. It’s a quick read and everything you expect to happen does. Normally that’s not something I’m into but considering the world is on fire, it’s nice to read something like this right now.

Title: The Keeper of Lost Things
Author: Ruth Hogan
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9780062473530

Three Descriptors: Likeable, Quirky, Leisurely paced

Read Alikes:
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
The place on Dalhousie by Melina Marchetta