The Lost Hours…4.09.09

“When Piper Mills was twelve, she helped her grandfather bury a box that belonged to her grandmother in the backyard. For twelve years, it remained untouched.

Now a near fatal riding accident has shattered Piper’s dreams of Olympic glory. After her grandfather’s death, she inherits the house and all its secrets, including a key to a room that doesn’t exist—or does it? And after her grandmother is sent away to a nursing home, she remembers the box buried in the backyard. In it are torn pages from a scrapbook, a charm necklace—and a newspaper article from 1939 about the body of an infant found floating in the Savannah River. The necklace’s charms tell the story of three friends during the 1930s— each charm added during the three months each friend had the necklace and recorded her life in the scrapbook. Piper always dismissed her grandmother as not having had a story to tell. And now, too late, Piper finds she might have been wrong.” - Karen White

FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS…White’s The Lost Hours had me engaged right from the beginning.  The life and setting she created within The Lost Hours made you feel like you were there and among the others.  I doubt there was really a character I did not enjoy reading about.  It took me longer to read and soak in what was really happening because like Piper I was impatient and wanted to jump ahead.  I was surprised with the twist in the ending but I still couldn’t quite understand why one of the deceased characters killed herself after discovering the past (and no I’m not saying anymore or I’ll ruin it for you).  This is definitely one of those mother/daughter/sister/best friend reads that will have you looking into your own relationship and past.  In fact my mom’s reading it as soon as I get it to her.

After reading The Lost Hours I even wanted to start digging more into my own family’s past.  It makes one wonder if discovering the family’s skeleton’s in the closet is worth bringing back the pain just to understand.  How hard it is to look back into a past one wants to forget but how free one could feel once the release from the burden of keeping it locked up might be.  So the next time you wonder why a person acts the way they do remember that there probably is something much more to them and their past.

I find it interesting that this book came across my path at this time.  It was not too long ago that my own mother said that now that I’m in my 30s it was time she told me “her story” no matter how painful just so that I could understand her.

For more info on this book, please click here (pdf)
Check out Karen White’s Guest Post at The Book Faery Reviews here.