The Little Shop of Found Things
A Novel
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4.3 • 186 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
New York Times bestselling author of The Witch's Daughter Paula Brackston returns to her trademark blend of magic and romance guaranteed to enchant in The Little Shop of Found Things, the first book in a new continuing series.
An antique shop haunted by a ghost.
A silver treasure with an injustice in its story.
An adventure to the past she’ll never forget.
Xanthe and her mother Flora leave London behind for a fresh start, taking over an antique shop in the historic town of Marlborough. Xanthe has always had an affinity with some of the antiques she finds. When she touches them, she can sense something of the past they come from and the stories they hold. When she has an intense connection to a beautiful silver chatelaine she has to know more.
It is while she’s examining the chatelaine that she’s transported back to the seventeenth century where it has its origins. She discovers there is an injustice in its history. The spirit that inhabits her new home confronts her and charges her with saving her daughter’s life, threatening to take Flora’s if she fails.
While Xanthe fights to save the girl amid the turbulent days of 1605, she meets architect Samuel Appleby. He may be the person who can help her succeed. He may also be the reason she can’t bring herself to leave.
The story continues in October 2019 with book two in the Found Things series, Secrets of the Chocolate House.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This first in a series from Brackston (The Witch's Daughter) is a magnetic time-travelling adventure following a woman who travels back to 17th-century England at the request of a ghost. Xanthe Westlake and her mother, Flora, new owners of a small antique shop in Marlborough, England, attend an antique sale where she wins a bid for a chatelaine, an antique clip usually worn by the lady of the house. Xanthe has a talent for psychometry she can discern details about who owned an item and she feels this particular chatelaine speaking to her. At the demand of Margaret Merton, a ghost at the antique shop, Xanthe uses the chatelaine to travel back in time to the 17th century to save Alice, a maid and Margaret's daughter, who has been arrested for stealing part of the chatelaine from her employer, Mistress Lovewell. Margaret threatens to harm Flora if Xanthe doesn't help prove Alice's innocence, so Xanthe works tirelessly in 1605 England to find the missing pieces of the chatelaine and exonerate Alice. Xanthe gains entry into the Lovewell household and attracts the attention of talented builder Samuel Appleby, a brooding man who helps Xanthe in her quest to free Alice. Brackston wonderfully blends history with the time-travel elements and a touch of romance. This series debut is a page-turner that will no doubt leave readers eager for future series installments.
Customer Reviews
Little Shop of Found Things
HAVE TO READ THE SEQUEL. That said.....even though the story was great. There was way too much description and thought processes. I think I sped through half the book.
Good story, nice characters, badly edited.
I struggled with this book. I like Xanthe, really liked her mum. But the editing issues threw me out of the story over and over and preventing me from sinking into the story. I will not be continuing with this series.
(For the publisher:
The man’s name is Harley, not “Harvey.”
One goes back and forth, not “back and fore.”
One burns a hole in a pocket, not a “whole”
A peson lies awake, not “lays” awake.
A waiver is an exception -the word you meant was waver. )
A page turner and only book in the series that works
I had this book in my TBR pile for a while given that I read that it would be an epic time-traveling romance in the vein of Outlander. Another Jamie and Clarie? Yes, please. From the beginning, it was very disorienting to be going back and forth in time. I found myself reading the present as fast as I could so that we could get back to the past, and it became really annoying when the heroine would get thwarted by this annoying guy named Liam who doesn't understand when a woman isn't interested in him. "I can't help you unless you have a cuppa first" and there she goes doing his bidding. Not to mention the fact that she doesn't take care to choose a decent outfit to travel to the past, everything is very fanfic writing level which is a shame because the plot is there for an amazing novel.
About a third into the book we meet our hero who is of course everything we want. Their interactions are sizzling and I BECOME INVESTED. Our hero helps our heroine love again even if they are in different times. I keep reading to have more of these two and thus become really irritated when she travels back to the present with her annoying neighbor Liam. Mind you I am expecting this epic romance to happen. I should've known better than to trust marketing schemes. But I keep reading because I have read the premise of the next book, SAMUEL AND XANTHE.