THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS by Ruth Hogan (Two Roads £16.99)

THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS

by Ruth Hogan (Two Roads £16.99) 

This is the first book I read in 2017 — and if another as good comes along in the next 12 months, I’ll eat my special gold reviewing spectacles.

Hogan’s touching, funny and romantic debut is that rare and precious thing: a real story with brilliant characters.

Laura is housekeeper in a beautiful villa belonging to writer Anthony, who copes with the loss of his spirited wife by collecting and treasuring things people have lost.

The thousands of items fill a whole room, but when he dies and leaves his house to Laura, the catch is that she must trace their owners and reunite them.

The task is daunting, but Laura is helped by adorable teenage savant Sunshine, and hunky gardener Freddy.

The subplot is hilarious, following the adventures of Bomber the publisher, his devoted friend Eunice and Bomber’s ghastly sister Portia. And The Gobstopper Phone.

GoGy Games – GoGy – Play Free Online Games Wonderful stuff and the perfect cure for the New Year blues. 

 

RELATED ARTICLES

Previous

1

Next

Perfect poems for when you find yourself on a desert island:… MUST READS 

Share this article

Share WHAT A WAY TO GO by Julia Forster (Atlantic Books £7.99)

WHAT A WAY TO GO

by Julia Forster (Atlantic Books £7.99) 

Recent years have seen a spate of what I think of as Spangles Lit — books packed with the pop culture and comestibles of the Seventies/Eighties. Panda Cola, Smash Hits, Glenn Medeiros: you get the picture.

This winning debut is in that vein, although it adds some welcome ingredients of its own to the mix.

A rich cast of offbeat characters is headed by narrator Harper, 12, her impoverished but glamorous mother and her mother’s boyfriend Kit, chocolate salesman and socialist whose breezy approach to life is tested by the news he has terminal cancer.

Harper’s wry take on her own teenage rites of passage touchingly contrasts with Kit’s blackly humorous view of his approaching death, but there’s an awful lot else going on in this tale with it’s Taste Of Honey overtones of single-parent child struggling to make sense of the world.

Funny, bleak and moving, with a poem at the end that reduced me to tears. 

 

THE SECRET LIVES OF THE AMIR SISTERS by Nadiya Hussain (HQ £12.99)

THE SECRET LIVES OF THE AMIR SISTERS

by Nadiya Hussain (HQ £12.99) 

Bake-Off star and royal birthday cake maker Nadiya has extended her brand into novel-writing, and with considerable success.

This timely and warm-hearted debut is a kind of updated, Asian Little Women; we follow the lives of four very different sisters as they cope with a family emergency.

Bubblee is a stormy London-based artist, Mae a social-media-fixated teenager, Farah a sadly childless wife and Fatima an over-eating homebody.

The events following Farah’s husband’s accident impose a new self-awareness on all, especially Fatima, whose journey to discover her roots in Bangladesh is the book’s best bit.

I also loved Amma and Abba Amir, the girls’ clucking, over-protective parents.

Breezy, funny and winning, with a wonderful bake-off twist at the end.