Scan barcode
motherjuggler's review
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, and Dementia
Minor: Death
pam2375's review
3.0
This was a very sweet book. The characters, even when they are trying to be 'not-so-sweet', are all sweet.
If you want a book to read to escape the reality that is happening around you at this crazy time, this is the book for you!
My thanks to Netgalley and William Morrow for this advanced readers copy. This book released July 2020.
If you want a book to read to escape the reality that is happening around you at this crazy time, this is the book for you!
My thanks to Netgalley and William Morrow for this advanced readers copy. This book released July 2020.
aileenmaria's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
bargainsleuth's review
4.0
For this and other book reviews, visit www.bargain-sleuth.com.
The Lost and Found Bookshop is a hot new release from Susan Wiggs. It just came out in July 2020, and my library is currently swamped with requests for it. I was lucky enough to listen to the audio narration of the book.
First, props to the author, who leads off quoting the Newbery honor book, Tuck Everlasting. It is one of my favorite books from childhood (even ahead of Nancy Drew!) so I immediately had hope that the book would be as good as all the reviews I’d read.
Natalie is reeling from the sudden death of her mother and boyfriend of one year in a plane crash. What makes it especially horrible is that she had been planning to dump Rick because she just didn’t see their relationship going any further; she like Rick well enough, he was a good man, but there was something missing. When she finds out that Rick was flying her mother to visit her and had an engagement ring on him, Natalie is stunned.
She returns home to the bookshop her mother ran, a place where she grew up, in the upstairs apartment. Not only does Natalie have to deal with the mounting debt of the bookshop, she has to take care of her Grandy, her 79-year old grandfather who is in the early stages of dementia and lives behind the bookshop. In fact, the shop had originally been his typewriter factory, and before that, a shop run by his father.
While running the store, Natalie meets a young girl named Dorothy (named after the L. Frank Baum heroine), who just loves the books of Trevor Dashwood. He’s an immensely successful author who happens to live in the San Francisco area. Dorothy’s father, Peach (Peter, but he grew up in Georgia and obtained the nickname when younger) Gallagher is hired as a handyman to make some needed repairs to the building before Natalie can sell it and move her grandfather into assisted living. Handyman Pete is a looker, of course, and finds Natalie attractive, but has a strict no dating clients rule.
There’s just one wrinkle to selling the building: Grandy owns it, not her mother, and refuses to sell. So Natalie and Handyman Peach set about to making the living space safer for her grandfather, moving him to the first floor, adding an alarm system, guard rails in the bathroom, etc. It is this time that Natalie decides to move back home full time, quit her job and run the bookstore.
But Natalie’s in for a big surprise. There’s a mountain of debt for the bookstore and building, and there seems to be no way out of foreclosure. She hopes to boost sales by having some author signings and increase online sales. Meanwhile, Grandy keeps mentioning that the building had a treasure that was lost long ago.
Throughout The Lost and Found Bookshop, we read both Grandy and Peach’s perspectives, which furthers the narrative. Added to that narrative is a journal of a young Irish woman, Colleen, found while doing repairs to the building. She was an incredible sketch artist. She mentions meeting a Hearst, as in the publishing Hearsts, and something about a first edition of Audobon sketch books, four oversized, hand painted volumes that were said to number only 200 when first published in the 1830s.
While repairing the plumbing, Peach discovers a metal box full of personal mementos and medals. Grandy insists that while they might be worth some money, they should go to the descendants of the original owner, whose information is inside the box. The same thing goes for the Chinese vase found while renovating. After finding out the history of the vase, and the fact that it could be worth millions of dollars, Grandy insists that the rightful owners reclaim the property, instead of using the monies to help save The Lost and Found Bookshop.
Meanwhile, as Natalie plans author visits, she encounters Trevor Dashwood, who says a young girl name Dorothy wrote and asked him to visit because the bookstore is in trouble. When Natalie confirms that this is true, Trevor offers to squeeze in a personal appearance within the month, and makes a date with her, too. Now there’s kind of sort of a love triangle with Natalie and Peach and Trevor.
The story progresses, and so does Natalie’s growth as a person. She finds herself again, after years of living in the corporate world. Her relationships with Peach and Trevor also progress, and she feels bad about feeling any desire so soon after losing Rick, even though she was going to break up with him.
The story has several obvious conclusions and a few surprises, too, which I won’t spoil you with here. If you’re interested in the story this far, you’ll probably want to pick up The Lost and Found Bookshop yourself.
The Lost and Found Bookshop is a hot new release from Susan Wiggs. It just came out in July 2020, and my library is currently swamped with requests for it. I was lucky enough to listen to the audio narration of the book.
First, props to the author, who leads off quoting the Newbery honor book, Tuck Everlasting. It is one of my favorite books from childhood (even ahead of Nancy Drew!) so I immediately had hope that the book would be as good as all the reviews I’d read.
Natalie is reeling from the sudden death of her mother and boyfriend of one year in a plane crash. What makes it especially horrible is that she had been planning to dump Rick because she just didn’t see their relationship going any further; she like Rick well enough, he was a good man, but there was something missing. When she finds out that Rick was flying her mother to visit her and had an engagement ring on him, Natalie is stunned.
She returns home to the bookshop her mother ran, a place where she grew up, in the upstairs apartment. Not only does Natalie have to deal with the mounting debt of the bookshop, she has to take care of her Grandy, her 79-year old grandfather who is in the early stages of dementia and lives behind the bookshop. In fact, the shop had originally been his typewriter factory, and before that, a shop run by his father.
While running the store, Natalie meets a young girl named Dorothy (named after the L. Frank Baum heroine), who just loves the books of Trevor Dashwood. He’s an immensely successful author who happens to live in the San Francisco area. Dorothy’s father, Peach (Peter, but he grew up in Georgia and obtained the nickname when younger) Gallagher is hired as a handyman to make some needed repairs to the building before Natalie can sell it and move her grandfather into assisted living. Handyman Pete is a looker, of course, and finds Natalie attractive, but has a strict no dating clients rule.
There’s just one wrinkle to selling the building: Grandy owns it, not her mother, and refuses to sell. So Natalie and Handyman Peach set about to making the living space safer for her grandfather, moving him to the first floor, adding an alarm system, guard rails in the bathroom, etc. It is this time that Natalie decides to move back home full time, quit her job and run the bookstore.
But Natalie’s in for a big surprise. There’s a mountain of debt for the bookstore and building, and there seems to be no way out of foreclosure. She hopes to boost sales by having some author signings and increase online sales. Meanwhile, Grandy keeps mentioning that the building had a treasure that was lost long ago.
Throughout The Lost and Found Bookshop, we read both Grandy and Peach’s perspectives, which furthers the narrative. Added to that narrative is a journal of a young Irish woman, Colleen, found while doing repairs to the building. She was an incredible sketch artist. She mentions meeting a Hearst, as in the publishing Hearsts, and something about a first edition of Audobon sketch books, four oversized, hand painted volumes that were said to number only 200 when first published in the 1830s.
While repairing the plumbing, Peach discovers a metal box full of personal mementos and medals. Grandy insists that while they might be worth some money, they should go to the descendants of the original owner, whose information is inside the box. The same thing goes for the Chinese vase found while renovating. After finding out the history of the vase, and the fact that it could be worth millions of dollars, Grandy insists that the rightful owners reclaim the property, instead of using the monies to help save The Lost and Found Bookshop.
Meanwhile, as Natalie plans author visits, she encounters Trevor Dashwood, who says a young girl name Dorothy wrote and asked him to visit because the bookstore is in trouble. When Natalie confirms that this is true, Trevor offers to squeeze in a personal appearance within the month, and makes a date with her, too. Now there’s kind of sort of a love triangle with Natalie and Peach and Trevor.
The story progresses, and so does Natalie’s growth as a person. She finds herself again, after years of living in the corporate world. Her relationships with Peach and Trevor also progress, and she feels bad about feeling any desire so soon after losing Rick, even though she was going to break up with him.
The story has several obvious conclusions and a few surprises, too, which I won’t spoil you with here. If you’re interested in the story this far, you’ll probably want to pick up The Lost and Found Bookshop yourself.
laurajunejockisch's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
3.5
deanab's review
5.0
Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishing for this ARC. This was my first Susan Wiggins book and what a treat. I absolutely loved the premise of this story as a true dream of mine would be to own a small bookshop. The author did a great job of developing the characters. I fell in love with Dorothy and Grandy and genuinely liked the others as well. This book had romance, intrigue, and family history. Beautifully written. I will be adding more Susan Wiggins’ books to my TBR while definitely recommending this one.
alissa417's review
4.0
Soon after moving to Salisbury NC and purchasing South Main Book Company, I felt compelled to start plotting out a Hallmark movie script detailing life in my idyllic bookstore. As I am not a professional author, I was extremely grateful to find Susan Wiggs effortlessly telling a similar tale far better than I could within her novel THE LOST AND FOUND BOOKSHOP (368 pp, William Morrow). Set in San Francisco, Wigg’s protagonist (Natalie Harper) comes home from a lucrative, but deeply unsatisfying, career in California’s wine country to care for her grandfather, who suffers from bouts of dementia, which he keeps somewhat at bay by living in the store his family has owned for over a century. Faced with difficult financial decisions, Natalie and her grandfather uncover family heirlooms and historic artifacts in the walls of their bookstore with the help of handsome handyman, Peach Gallagher. This book could not be more delightful, will undoubtedly warm your heart, and *might* inspire you to become a bookseller - arguably the greatest job on earth.
abs99's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0