Once a celebrated author of short stories now in his twilight years, Anthony Peardew has spent half his life collecting lost objects, trying to atone for a promise broken many years before.

Realising he is running out of time, he leaves his house and all its lost treasures to his assistant Laura, the one person he can trust to fulfil his legacy and reunite the thousands of objects with their rightful owners.

But the final wishes of the 'Keeper of Lost Things' have unforeseen repercussions which trigger a most serendipitous series of encounters...

I read this for my virtual bookclub. It is not really the sort of thing I would choose to read but always happy to try something different.

Reviews describe it as ‘charming’, ‘heart warming, ‘sweet and old fashioned’.
Overall I found it a bit twee and sentimental and perhaps trying to tick too many ‘best seller boxes; romance, ghost story, magical realism, mystery, comedy, two different time periods etc. The characters either too 'nice' or pantomime villains. The most interesting ones, like Eunice and Bomber, were not given enough depth or detail and the most dull,mainly Laura, had too much time spent on them without development. The character of Sunshine, though original, made me feel uncomfortable, a young woman with Down’s Syndrome offering comic relief. I know the portrayal was sympathetic, but seemed patronising to me.

It has its moments. The opening paragraph is fabulous and intriguing, there is some good writing and witty dialogue and some poignant insight into the psychology of grief and loss over time. The style offers a lot of little ‘vignettes’, in particular the stories of the lost objects, which mark the writer out as someone used to writing short stories.

The house ‘Padua’ is my favourite character, I’d love to live there.