Introduction

From London to Corsica to Paris--as a young woman pursues the truth about her late mother, two captivating love stories unfurl.

Kate Darling's enigmatic mother--a once-famous ballerina--has passed away, leaving Kate bereft. When her grandmother falls ill and bequeaths to Kate a small portrait of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Kate's mother, Kate uncovers a mystery that may upend everything she thought she knew.

Kate's journey to find the true identity of the woman in the portrait takes her to some of the world's most iconic and indulgent locales, revealing a love story that began in the wild 1920s and was disrupted by war and could now spark new love for Kate. Alternating between Kate's present-day hunt and voices from the past, THE BOOK OF LOST AND FOUND casts light on family secrets and love-both lost and found.

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Excerpt

A woman approaches. “Have you a light, darling?” Her accent is regally, glassily precise, the very apotheosis of Englishness, though her outfit of ballooning silk pantaloons and tight fuchsia jerkin is pure Scheherazade. An imp’s face — not pretty, too pinched about the eyes, the front teeth too long — but interesting, all the same. An androgynous sparrow’s body and hair, shingled below the ears, of an unfeasibly lurid apricot hue. Then suddenly he recognizes her. He doesn’t read the

Mail as a rule, but you’d have to be a hermit not to know of this particular Bright Young Person. Babe Makepeace: “twenty-one and lives for fun.” Lives, if the rumors are true, on a pitiful allowance begrudgingly bestowed by her disapproving old pa. Subsists, apparently, on a diet of nuts and Prairie Oysters, to keep that boy’s body so fashionably slender in a flapper’s shift.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his lighter. She lifts the cigarette to her lips, pinching her funny little face together in a deep inhalation.

“You’re a jewel.” She gives him a playful knock on the arm. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Thomas. Thomas Stafford.”

“Well, Thomas . . . Tommie . . . will you join me for a dance?” She peers up at him expectantly through the jeweled loops of her headdress.

“That would be lovely . . . but perhaps later? I’m not much of a dancer.”

“Suit yourself, Tommie.” Before either of them can say another word she is grasped about the waist by some hearty and hauled off into the throng on the dance floor. Tom doesn’t much mind. He’s perfectly happy, in fact, to stand back and take in the exotic strangeness of the scene before him. Down on the lake, a small boat has left the bank. In it are three figures, two men, sitting, and a woman who stands between them, laughing and dribbling champagne into their open mouths straight from the bottle. One of the men pulls her down into his lap. She shrieks and the small craft rocks crazily upon the dark water. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1) The Book of Lost and Found takes place in several appealing locations — Corsica, Paris, New York, and London — and during iconic moments in world history, like the Roaring Twenties. Was there a particular moment or place you loved reading about and looking forward to circling back to?

2) How do the decisions made by both Kate and Alice reflect their respective eras? Did you empathize with one woman more than the other?

3) At one point while living in France, Alice says to Sophie: “The problem is, Sophie, I’m so far now from the person I was before that none of it seems real. It would be like telling a fairy tale,” to which Sophie responds: “I disagree. I think we carry all of our past selves with us, in tight layers. Somewhere within you is that girl, however many other, new selves you may have grown in the years since. She’s what holds you together, at the very center” (page 351). Do you agree or disagree with Sophie?

4) At one point, Tom says, “I have a theory . . . that the most precious memories can be damaged with too much handling” (page 146). Do you have any memories like that — ones that are almost too precious to share with others? Discuss the ways that sharing a memory can change or affect that memory, and the ways that time can distort our memory of people and events.

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