Natalie Harper experiences a double tragedy that upends her life. As a result, she must now figure out how to manage The Lost and Found Bookshop in San Francisco, her mother's business. This task includes doing her best to get the store out of severe debt and making sure the old building doesn't fall down around her.

Natalie must also figure out how to best care for Grandy, her grandfather, Andrew Harper, who is in his 70s and is beginning to have memory and other health issues. Her sudden burden is indeed a multi-faceted and heavy one.

She's fortunate enough to have the help of Peter "Peach" Gallagher, a "Hammer for Hire" handyman supreme. He's finding and fixing many of the problems in the building. His young daughter Dorothy is an utter delight and is an avid visitor to the bookstore. We readers have to wonder whether or not Natalie's head and heart will ever fully turn in Peach's direction. Or, if those two vital organs are indeed up for grabs, will they respond instead to the advances of bestselling children's author Trevor Dashwood? He lives in the area and just shows up out of the blue one day.

Natalie and Grandy are also interested in local history, especially as it applies to their ancestors and to the bookstore building. Family folklore says that some kind of treasure was deliberately left behind. Is this story true? Or has the concept of "treasure" been misinterpreted over the years?

As the story moves forward, readers begin to understand the myriad challenges that Natalie faces. They also know which direction they want or expect her life to go. Here, the trouble in the telling is that it seems to take forever to get there.

I listened to the CD set of this novel, as narrated/performed by Emily Rankin. Emily is terrific at creating separate "voices" for every character in the book, both male and female. But the story seems to go over the same territory, again and again. Yes, Natalie is still grieving her losses. No, she doesn't know exactly how to proceed or how to fix everything. But she had also just come from a corporate job with a high level of responsibility. A certain inner strength should have kicked in, sooner rather than later. Her agonizing goes on for far too long. As a result, her character is portrayed as a worrier, and as a lost one at that.

The printed book is 355 pages long. I think a few dozen pages of repeated worrying could have been cut in order to make this a more enjoyable reading experience all around. The plots, the setting and the characters are otherwise solid. We wish for success for the bookstore and for all of the people related to it.

Susan Wiggs is a well-seasoned novelist, and she is the author of dozens of books. She knows how to put characters into sticky situations and how to get them back out again. This is the first novel of hers that I have ever read or listened to. Yet, even established writers need editors with critical eyes. I don't recommend the need for further editing lightly. I enjoyed the book eventually, after it finally made its way to its multiple conclusions. I endured listening through some tedious sections, though. Get on with it, I thought.

I just checked out a copy of Susan Wiggs' 2023 novel, Welcome to Beach Town. It tallies in at 319 pages. There you go. I expect that this one will move in a more reasonable fashion.