There’s a little bit of everything in this book: romance, mystery, comedy, drama. It’s a book about books and a book about movies. It’s a collection of short stories. It has diverse characters who will warm your heart and make you cry. It’s above love and second chances. It’s about loss and the flow on effects of those losses And it’s a keeper.

Firstly, I’d like to talk about the author, Ruth Hogan. This was her debut, written whilst she was receiving treatment for cancer and this sounds like an interesting story in itself. She writes so beautifully, you’ll want to read some passages over and over. If I started quoting gorgeously written lines, I’d end up almost quoting the whole book.

There are two main stories told throughout the book. In the first we meet Anthony, a writer, who passes away and bequeaths all his worldly possessions to his housekeeper cum personal assistant, Laura. Laura learns that Anthony has been collecting and cataloguing ‘lost things’ for years. Some of these have, in fact, become the basis of his short stories. She also finds out that he wants her to try and find as many owners of the lost things as possible, a daunting task.

Helping Laura is the gardener, Freddy, and the young neighbour, Sunshine, who has ‘dancing drome’ (Down’s Syndrome).

Of all the character in the book, Sunshine, in particular, shines (to use an obvious turn of phrase). She continually made me smile. Although sweet and innocent, she was never written as stupid, despite her hilarious grammatical errors. It was obviously a fine line Hogan had to walk to get the right balance, and I think she nailed it.

The second main story told through the book is of Eunice and Bomber. These two best friends connect instantly due to their shared passion for movies and dogs. In this section we also meet Bomber’s parents and his sad sister, Portia. You'll definitely need a tissue when reading about their lost things.

Bomber and Eunice run a publishing house, and thus their lives interconnect with Anthony’s when he submits a manuscript.

I read this as a challenge book. I needed something which featured magic and the blurb told me this book fit the bill. For once, the blurb was telling the truth, as there was magic, literally and figuratively. Again, Hogan kept on the straight and narrow path of believability here, where she could have easily toppled over into ridiculous territory.

The short stories about the lost things are interspersed amongst the book and are all wonderful. They’re poignant and polished, despite their brevity and I would actually read an entire book from Hogan just of short stories.

If I had to give one thing I didn’t like about the book, it would be its size. At 288 pages, I flew through it so fast, I was left wanting more. I will definitely be picking up Hogan’s other books.
Highly recommend.

5 out of 5

This was a charming and whimsical novel that kept me late up at night reading. Thank you to the Publisher for review copy!

When he had started gathering lost things all those years ago, he hadn’t really had a plan. He just wanted to keep them safe in case one day they could be reunited with the people who had lost them.

Sometimes a rare book comes along that moves you in so many ways. This is one such book - it is absolutely delightful. The imagination and creativity that, right from the outset, lures you in and will not let you go until you turn the final page. You will laugh, you will cry, you will pause and ponder and you will walk away richer from reading this book. I adored it.

Laura could see that these were so much more than things; much more than random artefacts arranged on shelves for decoration. They were important. They really mattered.

This is a book with many tales (something I usually don’t go for) but Hogan does it so well. The expertise with which she weaves not only the two stories running parallel to each other (you will impatiently await for when the paths will cross), but also interweaves the most amazing array of back stories to the ‘lost things’, is awe inspiring. Gosh this book has it all! Romance, magic, ghosts, family, relationships, heartbreak, illness and loss. That’s quite a lineup, yet the respect with which each is given, creates such a genuine understanding for just about every character presented.

A hush is a dangerous thing. Silence is solid and dependable, but a hush is expectant, like a pregnant pause; it invites mischief, like a loose thread begging to be pulled.

This book is full of charm and spilling over with wisdom. It is beautifully written and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I know it is likely that most of the things are worthless, and no one will want them back. But if you can make just one person happy, mend one broken heart by restoring to them what they have lost, then it will have all been worthwhile.


This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release

This was generally an easy read, with some gorgeous writing, especially in the stories about the missing objects. I liked the characters, and the concepts in general, but I did feel like the relationships lacked a real tension that would give good emotional payoff at the end.

The character of Sunshine was somewhat problematic for me. She's gorgeously written (I really love the way she speaks, especially her description of herself as being "dancing drome" instead of Down syndrome), but at times she skated very close to the uncomfortable trope of being a disabled character with magical abilities who literally comes alone to provide answers when no one else has them. The fact that the rest of her life basically doesn't seem to exist on the page is what highlights this (her family are off screen, for example, for most of the time). Many readers likely won't have an issue with this, but for me, as a reader who is chronically ill and involved with disability rights, I am more aware (and possibly more sensitive) to these issues.

The main storyline of The Keeper of Lost Things follows Laura who attempts to reunite lost things with their owners. Originally collected by her deceased employer, Anthony Peardew, the challenge the lost things poses for Laura leads to her discovering more about herself and the life she wants. Running alongside Laura’s story is that of Eunice and Bomber’s friendship which begins in the 1970s. Short stories written about the original owners of some of the lost things, and how they were lost, are interspersed with both of these timelines.

I was a little put off by the switches back and forth between characters and times, but I gradually became accustomed to them, and by the half way point I barely noticed them at all. I did wonder how all the stories would come together, and tried to pick up on all the hints and clues thrown along the way.

A good book is one that makes you care about the characters and I certainly did in this case. Each of the main characters was given enough complexity to feel real, and the secondary characters supported the storylines brilliantly. I became annoyed with Laura at times, even though she was a main character, and felt that Freddy’s relationship with her was understated. I especially liked Sunshine and Eunice, and laughed a lot at Bomber’s sister, Portia.

The Keeper of Lost Things is a beautifully written story about love and friendship, loss and redemption, with a little of the supernatural thrown in for good measure. It feels a little slow to get going in the beginning, but quickly builds up momentum. I wish I’d thought to keep a box of tissues handy – I never expected the ending to move me as much as it did.

Highly recommended for anyone wanting to read something a little different.

My thanks to Hachette Australia and Netgalley for an advanced reader’s copy of The Keeper of Lost Things.

**3.5 stars**
Anthony Peardew has dreams that are always the same, searching for something and never finding the thing that would bring him peace. Forty years ago he lost a treasured medallion that the love of his life Therese had given him, it was the same day that she died.

Since then, Anthony has only been existing and to make amends he finds lost items, labelling them and making up stories about them. This has led him to being a successful published author of short stories. But he is now growing old and his time is drawing near, he is now most troubled by a biscuit tin of ashes that he found abandoned on a train and he wants 'them' reunited with their loved ones. Having no family he leaves his house and possessions to his housekeeper of six years Laura. She is lost herself after leaving a disastrous marriage and she looked to Anthony as a good friend and someone to look up to. But he has a clause in his will that she is to try and reunite all the lost items with the people who loved them. Aided by the gardener Freddy and a young neighbour called Sunshine, they gradually find closure.

There are two stories running through this book, one of Anthony, Laura, Freddy and Sunshine and another starting in the 1980's of Eunice and Bomber, which finishes in the present time. Bomber runs a small publishing house with Eunice as his assistant, we as readers are aware that the stories are intertwined but we don't know how. I actually loved Eunice and Bomber's time and thought their relationship was very special.

There is some magical realism, with a resident ghost of Therese in Anthony's (now Laura's) house and Sunshine being able to interpret stories of the lost items. While I really enjoyed this aspect, I did have a little trouble with Laura and her relationship with Freddy, I didn't really feel any chemistry between them and felt we where just told what their relationship was. Still that aside, I really did enjoy this novel, especially as I have recently read some quite emotional ones recently. This was a gentle moving story about love, acceptance and closure.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy to read and review.

Beautiful, delightful and enchanting. I am not one to use those words easily but this book was all 3 of those. I found myself engrossed in the how the various threads of stories twisted together and the story moved on.

This is the kind of book you could read and recommend to those older and younger than you. It reminds me, in a good way, of Sunday night TV.