The Secret of Lost Things

The Secret of Lost Things is the story of Rosemary, an 18 year old orphan who comes to New York City after the death of her mother; she grew up in Tasmania, in a little apartment over her mother's hat shop. She never knew her father. Her mother's dearest friend Chaps buys her a ticket and gives her some money, and Rosemary is off on her great adventure.

Rosemary arrives in New York in the rain, with her few possessions. She finds a room in a shabby hotel and soon finds a job at a very unusual secondhand bookstore called the Arcade; owned by the eccentric Mr. Pike and managed by Walter Geist (an albino), the Arcade is filled with used books of all sorts, and has a Rare book room. As Rosemary settles in, she develops a friendship with Pearl, the cashier,and a crush on Oscar, who is in charge of Nonfiction. As the story progresses, Rosemary stumbles onto a mystery when Walter Geist, who is growing blinder by the day, asks her to read him a letter about a lost manuscript by Herman Melville--and an offer by an unknown party to sell the manuscript to the Arcade.

Sheridan Hay has a wonderful writing style: richly descriptive, she captures not only the feel of a large city like New York, an eccentric cast of characters and a variety of settings, but she also gives the reader a sense of what it would feel like to lose a parent and set off on a journey and huild a life for oneself. The power of friendship, the betrayal of passion, and the enduring love of family (including those friends who become family, like Chaps and Pearl) all make this a satisfying read. Literature lovers will be fascinated by the inclusion of actual correspondence between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

You can find The Secret of Lost Things in the WPL Adult Fiction section.

c Waterloo Public Library 2008