There were many elements in the description of this new novel by The Witch's Daughter author Paula Brackston that peaked my interest. A mother-daughter team, down on their luck, leave London for a fresh start and purchase an antique shop in the English countryside. Daughter Xanthe has a special magical gift. Certain objects that she comes in contact with will sing to her and reveal their history. A newly acquired silver chatelaine's past comes with a threatening ghost who insists she time-travel back into 1605 to save the life of her doomed daughter. Once there, Xanthe must blend into the household as a servant in attempt to solve the mysterious connection to the chantelaine, and then somehow, change history to save the girl, or she and her mother will die.

There is a nice combination of English history, magic and romance that help her on her journey. At times the pacing was slow and burdened with inner thoughts. Brackston is a skilled writer that would be better served with more showing and less telling in her prose. The characterization was bright, realistic and quite enjoyable.

The romance was slow to develop; the meet-cute of the heroine and her historical beaux does not happen until we are at the half-way point in the narrative. In addition, readers might see similarities to Diana Gabaldon's wildly popular time-travel novels in the Outlander series and want to compare them. Don't. That is too tall of an order to fill.

I can recommend this novel to those who like Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic series, the ultimate time-travel classic A Knight in Shinning Armor, by Jude Deveraux and to Anglophiles who would like to get lost in the English midlands, antiquing and finding romance.

The exciting thing about finding special items in a vintage shop is knowing that item has been around long before you found it and it has a past. We often must make up a past or imagine what travels the item has been on, but not so for Xanthe. She has a special gift that allows certain items to ‘speak’ to her. When she attends an estate sale with her mother, a silver chatelaine calls to her. While exploring the grounds of their new shop, she discovers a small shed like building towards the rear that fills her with the feeling of dread and despair. Crossing through the door, she is pulled into the past and witnesses the cries of a young girl being spirited away in a coach. Upon Xanthe’s return to the present, she is confronted by the ghost of Margaret Merton, mother to the young girl Xanthe has just seen. Margaret threatens Xanthe’s mother’s life if she doesn’t return to the past and help save her daughter. Carrying the chatelaine with her, she must go back to 1605 and figure out what led up to the arrest of Margaret’s daughter and discover a way to save her, to keep Margaret from harming her mother.
For fans of time travel fiction, this one even mixes in the theme of the ghost. Filled with adventure and romance, Brackston has managed to check many boxes in the fiction genre. I’m a huge fan of scouring vintage marketplaces for treasures and she even checked that box for me. This is a very satisfying book to escape into and I will gladly recommend it to teen readers as well as adult.
#LittleShopOfFoundThings #NetGalley

Xanthe has a special gift; she hears certain objects singing. What does this mean? It means that she can hear and feel the stories of the object's owner. Xanthe and her mother are starting a new life as owners of an antique shop. There is much to do before the grand opening and getting some antiques at a local auction is one of them. While browsing the items that will be auctioned, Xanthe hears an object singing; it a chatelaine. She must have it, even if it means that it will deplete their bank account.

The chatelaine comes with a very determined ghost. Xanthe soon finds herself forced to help a young maid in the 17th century accused of stealing pieces of the chatelaine which was owned by her employer. How can Xanthe help someone from the past? By going back in time. But time she does not have much of. To succeed in freeing Alice, she will need to act quickly. How will she do it? Who can help her along the way?

The Little Shop of Found Things by Paula Brackston is a light and lovely read. I love the language of the period and to read about how people lived in those times. The writing is beautiful and well-structured. The characters are well developed. This is the first book in this new series.

I want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this beautifully written ARC. The Little Shop of Found Things by Paula Brackston will be available at your favourite bookstore on October 2, 2018.

Well written and interesting. Captured my interest very early on and I read it fairly quick. Always good when you find a good book you like.

I'll be honest. I requested this book, not just for it's description, but for it's pretty cover and charming title. I was so happy that my instincts were on target with this book. This novel has it all: a great story, suspense, romance, and tons of historical details. Once I started it, I could not put it down!

What I Liked:

Historical Details:

The author must have done extensive research because the historical details of daily life in the seventeenth century are impressive. Everything from what people wore, to how one asked to use the restroom ("Where is the necessary room?") are a part of the story. These authentic details are what make me feel like the characters are really in that time, and are one of the pleasures of reading historical fiction.

Characters:

I really liked the main character, Xanthe, who has seen her share of injustice. This helps her to identify so strongly with Alice who is wrongly accused of stealing back in the seventeenth century. In order to save her (and her own mother in modern times), Xanthe must use her ingenuity to solve the mystery of why Alice is accused, and what has become of the stolen items. Xanthe is both practical and impulsive, which I find endearing.

Xanthe's mother, Flora, also has many challenges. She is in the middle of a divorce, and is fighting to maintain her independence despite having a chronic illness. I loved Flora's determination and how she rooted for Xanthe.

In fact, the mother/daughter relationship in this book is one that I liked very much. There are very few depictions of healthy adult parent and child relationships in fiction. While Flora does depend on Xanthe's help, she never takes advantage of her daughter or guilts her into helping out. Their obvious mutual affection and respect are what I will strive for with my own children.

Time Travel:

Any book about time travel risks losing the reader due to it's implausibility. This book solves that by taking time to really map out the logic in this universe. How does this work? How can Xanthe realistically pull off going back in time without being found out (and risk being deemed a witch)? Won't people in her own time question where she has been? The author answers all these issues, and that keeps the reader in the story.

Story:

The novel itself is has several parallels between the story in the present day and in the past. In both, Xanthe is an outsider trying to make her way. Xanthe has been seriously ill-used by her modern-day boyfriend, and has trouble trusting men. She also must decide if she can trust Samuel in the past. Xanthe was wrongly accused of a crime in the present, and Alice faces the same thing in the past. Of course, the consequences of being branded a criminal in 1600 were far more severe than they are now. But the idea of losing control of one's own life to a nameless judicial system is the same.

Despite all the exposition, the story was fast-paced and I could not stop reading. I was constantly worried that Xanthe would be caught out in both time periods.

I also really appreciated that, even though this is the first book in a series, the story line was wrapped up in this book. It is one of my pet-peeves that series books stop mid-scene without any resolution to the main problem! Thankfully, this did not happen in this book.

Romance:

There are moments where I could not stop but to draw comparisons to the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. The romance between Xanthe and a man from the seventeenth century is believable and heart-wrenching. But I also wanted to know if there would possibly be some heat between Xanthe and a certain young man in the present. After such an epic romantic experience, will Xanthe be able to love anyone else? Is she destined to pine away for a man long dead? This may be answered in future novels, as I am happy to say that this is the first book in a series!

I really enjoyed this book. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC to review. It took a couple of chapters to get into the story., but once I did I was hooked. Time-travel and mystery to solve kept me reading. I’ll definitely read more I’d Paula Brackston’s work.

This was my first Paula Brackston novel. It has time-travel, magical objects and a cranky ghost -- all things I would normally love in a book -- but I don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. The story seemed to drag in some areas and be rushed in others. I think I liked Xanthe's present day story more -- starting over in a new town, her relationship with her mother, meeting the locals. The 1600s story felt more forced -- the romance that developed to quickly and the wrongly accused thief who didn't seem to care if someone helped her -- I just wasn't as engaged in it.

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley. This book had me from the very beginning. I love that it kept me engaged the entire time. I couldn't wait to see how it ended. I would highly recommend to all my fellow readers. Thank you for the chance to review this book!

I enjoyed this story. Though it started out slowly and at times I had thought that maybe I should move onto another book, I kept getting pulled back. By the end I was Googling the author to see if maybe another installment were in the works. Thankfully it appears that there will be.

First can we agree this is a beautiful cover? As for the genre, Historical Fiction/Fantasy/Science Fiction/Adult Fiction. Yes, that is a lot but I don't know what to call it when the setting is present day England but there is a ghost and some time travel involved. All rolled into this wonderful book that I did not stop reading once I started. 

Xanthe Westlake and her mother Flora have had a rough time of it in London and have invested their life savings in an antique shop in Marlborough. Determined to make a new life and leave the past behind. Hard to do in an antique shop. Especially as we find out our Xanthe has some pretty awesome gifts.

Sometimes when she touches things she can hear them. Telling the stories of where they have been and what they were. When Xanthe picks up a chatelaine at an estate sale, it is doing more than singing to her. She is having visions and feelings of danger.

When she finds an odd-shaped building in the back garden, exactly where two ley lines converge, she is transported to the 1600's. When she returns she finds a not so friendly ghost waiting who threatens her and her mothers safety. 

Now Xanthe must return to try to save the ghost's daughter from the gallows. Along the way she meets a gorgeous architect and tries to save Alice and her mother.

The rest you will have to read yourself. I absolutely loved this book and am so glad there will be more of them.

Well Done!

Netgalley/October 2nd 2018 by Thomas Dunne Books

A captivating read

I received this copy through Netgalley.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Normally I don’t read time travel books, but I just clicked with the opening pages and really liked the characters and the setting and quite honestly couldn’t put the book down.
Xanthe and her mother Flora have just purchased a dusty old antique shop in Marlborough, a lovely historic town in Wiltshire, England. Purchasing stock for the shop, Xanthe comes across an old chatelaine that she is mysteriously drawn to. Back in the shop she encounters a ghost. The ghost has been waiting centuries for someone to save her daughter. She pretty much blackmails Xanthe to go back in time to save her daughter, or she will harm Flora, Xanthe’s mother. The chatelaine is the link to the time travel. This book is the first in a new series that I look forward to reading.
This book could be for young adult as well as general adult. There is romance, adventure, suspense. No offensive language. .

The Little Shop of Found Things is a charming and magical read that I immensely enjoyed. While it is a story based on time travel, it is not at all sci-fi. Some have compared it to Outlander and while I never read the books and only saw a little of the TV series, I can assure you that The Little Shop of Found Things does not contain the muskets, guns and sexual violence found I’m Outlander but does have the romance.

This book drew me right in with the opening sentence and held my attention until the last page:

It is a commonly held belief that the most likely place to find a ghost is beneath a shadowy moon, among the ruins of a castle, or perhaps in an abandoned house where the living have fled leaving only spirits to drift from room to room.

Xanthe Westlake has a special talent— the ability to touch an object and learn about a person or event. As such, she is in the perfect business — she and her mother Flora have just bought a quaint antique shop that they plan to rejuvenate and restore. What they didn’t know is that their purchase included a ghost who is determined that her daughter’s wrongful death in the seventeenth century, be averted by changing history. It is up to Xanthe, by using an antique silver chatelaine, which allows her to travel back in time, to right this wrong or else, as the ghost informs her, harm will come to her mother Flora.

I enjoyed reading this book and found Xanthe to be a genuine and likable protagonist. I particularly relished her adventures in the seventeenth century because the descriptions of the places as well as the explanations of the norms and etiquette were fascinating. Due to Brackston’s writing skills, I really felt as if I had been transported back in time along with Xanthe. The adventure and mystery element kept me turning page after page, unable to put the book down.

The writing is excellent and the pacing is perfect — I never felt bored. The language spoken in the seventeenth century is markedly different from present day and the reader will find it authentic. Brackston has a talent for clever writing and winsome analogies.

Willis was a man of few words, and not given to taking them out for an airing often, but they passed the miles companionably enough.

She held hope to her breast like a tiny bird which must be grasped tightly yet with such care, lest one crush it to nothing through fear of losing it. Hope was all she had.

I am very excited that there will be another book in the series but worry how I will wait because I want to read it now! I would really like to see Xanthe returning to the same time period but could understand if a new adventure takes her elsewhere. This is the first book I have read by Paula Brackston and because I loved it so much, I plan to read more of her books as soon as possible.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and the author for allowing me early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

To enjoy this book, you really have to suspend rational thought and just go with the story. Xanthe and her mother buy a run-down antique store, so they can start a new life after they both have life altering events. Xanthe has the ability to touch objects and connect with those who owned the object, called psychometry. After finding a chatelaine at an auction Xanthe has a very strong reaction and ends up traveling back to the 1600’s in an effort to stop the hanging of an innocent young woman.

The time travel story was well written and was informative about life in England in 1605. But this is much more than time travel and historical fiction, it is a love story with multiple players; Xanthe and Liam, Xanthe and Samuel and most importantly Xanthe and her mother. Oh, and a little ghost story thrown in.

You really cannot think too hard about how Xanthe is able to accomplish her task or how she is received and treated in 1605. You just have to enjoy the book as a good little story and appreciate that Xanthe and her mother are both strong women who persevere even when faced with great challenges.

I would definitely explore other books by this author and there are many to choose from. I recommend this to readers who enjoy books like; Deborah Harkness “All Souls Trilogy”, Alice Hoffman especially “Practical Magic”, or Sarah Addison Allen’s’ “Garden Spells”.

Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas Dunne Books for the ARC. This was absolutely whimsical, like a dream. I would highly recommend this refreshing narrative.

Xanthe has moved with her mother, Flora, from London to Marlborough to open an antique shop. Both are leaving a painful past behind and they hope the small town will be a new start. Flora loves antiques, but it is Xanthe who has a special connection to objects - the ability to hear them and listed to their stories. It is this ability that leads her to a special piece and a troubling history. Xanthe must travel back in time to correct the wrongdoing attached to the antique in order to keep her mother from harm.

I enjoyed Paula Brackston's time-travelling tale. Past and present were woven together to make a compelling story driven by the love between mother and daughter. I look forward to reading more about Xanthe and her intriguing gift.

Posted on Goodreads. Through the courtesy of NetGalley I was able to enjoy reading this ebook. Psychometry and time travel merge to take our heroine, Xanthe, back to the time of King James I to help a young woman accused of theft. In the present, Flora and her daughter Xanthe are opening an antiques shop in Marlborough. Flora has a true passion for antiques, but some of the items "sing" to Xanthe to let her know their history. One such item, a chatelaine found at auction, reveals its ties to a small "blind house" or gaol building in back of the antique shop and to the ghost of Mistress Merton, mother of the accused girl, Alice. Mistress Merton threatens to hurt Flora if Xanthe doesn't go back in time to help Alice. Xanthe holds the chatelaine, steps into the "blind house" and ends up in the past. She poses as a traveling minstrel singer to gain entry into Great Chalfield Manor where Alice was accused of stealing parts of the chatelaine from the lady of the house. Attempting to prove Alice innocent is an almost impossible task for Xanthe, but the threat to her mother pushes her to try. Along with working as a kitchen servant and entertaining the wealthy family by singing, she also assists Samuel Appleby, an architect, with a project. The two of them work together to help Alice, but their burgeoning feelings for each other are an impossibility of time and place. Can Xanthe ever return to Samuel in the past or can he travel to her in his future? It seems a second book is in order.
True Sci-Fi devotes will scoff at anachronisms and timelines, but those readers who willingly suspend disbelief will enjoy this time jaunt with a touch of romance.

Xanthe Westlake, and her Mother, Flora, have fallen on hard times recently. They go in together and purchase an old Antique Shop in hopes of getting their lives and finances back in good order. Shortly after arriving in their new home they attend a sale at a nearby Manor House, searching for merchandise for the shop. Xanthe, who has a gift of having some items "talk" to her, finds an old chatelaine that she just cannot help but purchasing, even though it is more money than she can afford to tie up in one item. This chatelaine will lead Xanthe on a journey that crosses centuries and possibly to love.

A very engaging tale, well written and enjoyable.

Thank you to the publisher and author for giving me this digital ARC via netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I have read one other book by Paula Brackston, The Winter Witch, that I found to just be ok and read through it quickly to be done with it. I didn't recognize her name on netgalley, but was drawn in by the beautiful cover for The Little Shop of Found Things. I am so glad that the pretty cover attracted me to this title and that I was granted an ARC of it to give the author a second try. I really liked this book! It has so much to appeal to me- likable narrator opening an antique shop in a small English town with her mom, time travel and magical elements, great local characters (past and present), and an interesting, intriguing storyline. I loved the narrators backstory to explain her personality and feelings- I felt it did a good job helping you identify with her. I loved her "talent" of listening to certain objects and the stories they tell. I was so drawn in by the one piece that strongly spoke to her and caused her to time travel. Great plot, great writing. I would highly recommend this title.

I could not put it down! One of my favorite 2018 reads!

Xanthe has a gift--she can tell the history of an object whenever she touches it. After she takes over an antique store, she touches an object and ends up traveling back in time. She becomes embroiled in a mystery and a desperate effort to save a young girls life.

If you enjoy cozy mysteries, this is the book for you.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I've been a devoted fan of Paula Brackston's books ever since I read "The Witch's Daughter" and I knew that her latest novel would be wonderful. I'm happy to say I was right! "The Little Shop of Found Things" is inventive and beautifully written. Brackston vividly depicts the main characters in her hallmark way so that they come to life. She masterfully creates historical periods most readers will be unfamiliar with and her attention to detail makes the book an utterly compelling read. I loved "The Little Shop of Found Things" from start to finish. You will too! I now eagerly await the sequel!