Little Shop of Found Things

By Paula Brackston

The exciting thing about finding special items in a vintage shop is knowing that item has been around long before you found it and it has a past.  We often must make up a past or imagine what travels the item has been on, but not so for Xanthe.  She has a special gift that allows certain items to ‘speak’ to her.  When she attends an estate sale with her mother, a silver chatelaine calls to her. While exploring the grounds of their new shop, she discovers a small shed like building towards the rear that fills her with the feeling of dread and despair.  Crossing through the door, she is pulled into the past and witnesses the cries of a young girl being spirited away in a coach.  Upon Xanthe’s return to the present, she is confronted by the ghost of Margaret Merton, mother to the young girl Xanthe has just seen.  Margaret threatens Xanthe’s mother’s life if she doesn’t return to the past and help save her daughter.  Carrying the chatelaine with her, she must go back to 1605 and figure out what led up to the arrest of Margaret’s daughter and discover a way to save her, to keep Margaret from harming her mother.

For fans of time travel fiction, this one even mixes in the theme of the ghost.  Filled with adventure and romance, Brackston has managed to check many boxes in the fiction genre. I’m a huge fan of scouring vintage marketplaces for treasures and she even checked that box for me.  This is a very satisfying book to escape into and I will gladly recommend it to teen readers as well as adult. 

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PUB:  St. Martin’s Press

PUB DATE:  October 2, 2018

ISBN:  9781250072436

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance