Now Read This: “The Keeper of Lost Things” by Ruth Hogan

Betty Martin is director of the Cape Girardeau Public Library.

Fred Lynch ~ Southeast Missourian

Anthony Peardew has been collecting lost things for 40 years, ever since he lost the St. Teresa medal his wife-to-be gave him right before she died. Every day he goes for a walk and picks up lost items, brings them back to his study and labels them.

As the story begins, he has found what appears to be someone’s ashes in a cookie tin. When he returns home, he labels it and places it on a shelf with the other things he has found over the years, including a hair toggle and a blue button. He’s an author, so he writes stories about the lost things he collects.

He hires Laura as his assistant. She is such a faithful employee that, after he dies, he leaves his house to her with instructions to find a way to return some of the lost items to their owners. He also instructs her to befriend Sunshine, a local 19-year-old girl with Down Syndrome. Sunshine has a wonderful outlook on life and is hyper-tuned to feelings, both from people and those emanating from the lost items.

There are some supernatural aspects to the story: the clock in the dead fiancé’s bedroom stops at the time of her death — 11:42 — each day, there is always a smell of roses in her room even with the windows shut, music plays by itself and items are found in strange places.

Some of the chapters follow another woman who works for a publisher. The reader gets to know her employer, her parents and her crazy sister. The story’s characters are connected, but the reader doesn’t know how until the very end.

I love the idea of writing stories based on seemingly insignificant lost items. As one reviewer stated, this book — which is Ruth Hogan’s first novel — is “old-fashioned storytelling with a sprinkling of magic.”

NoveList lists some read-alikes: “A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman (one of my favorites), “Two From the Heart” by James Patterson and “The Weekenders” by Mary Kay Andrews. The library owns copies of all of these titles in both hard copies and e-book format.

You can gain access to NoveList on the library’s website by hovering over “Digital Branch,” clicking on “More Resources” and scrolling down the page. Your library card gives you access from home.

Happy Readings!