Review: Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

Publisher: Kathy Dawson Books

Publication Date: August 8th, 2017

Rating: 4 Stars

Source: Emma @ Miss Print's ARC Adoption

Format: Physical ARC

Pages: 368

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Summary (from Goodreads):

If you’re not careful, you can spend your whole life looking for what you’ve lost.

One stormy summer in a small Irish town, things begin to disappear. It starts with trivial stuff—hair clips, house keys, socks—but soon it escalates to bigger things: a memory, a heart, a classmate.

Olive can tell that her best friend, Rose, is different all of a sudden. Rose isn’t talking, and Olive starts to worry she’s losing her. Then diary pages written by someone named Laurel begin to appear all over town. And Olive meets three mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel, and her twin brother, Rowan, secretly squatting in an abandoned housing development. The trio are wild and alluring, but they seem lost too—and like Rose, they’re holding tightly to painful secrets.

When a tattered handwritten spellbook falls into the lives of these six teenagers, it changes everything. The spellbook is full of charms to conjure back that which has been lost, and it lists a part for each of them to play in the calling. It might be their best chance to set everything back to rights, but only if they’re willing to pay the price.

Spellbook of the Lost and Found is a book that will be perfect for curling up with on a cool fall night. It's a book about things that are lost and what we'd give up to find them again. It has a bit of a mystery element to it and the twist at the end kind of surprised me.

This book is told from three points of view. We have Olive, Hazel, and Laurel. These three are the main characters, but this book really seems to surround eight characters and their experiences using a found Spellbook to call back lost things.

There are kind of a lot of characters in this book, but not to the point that it's hard to keep track of them. Olive and Rose are best friends living in a little Irish town. Hazel, Rowan, and Ivy are three teens that ran away from home and are squatting in an abandoned development. And Laurel, Holly, and Ash are three friends who used the Spellbook first.

There is romance in this book as hearts are things that can be lost. Olive and Rose both identify as bisexual. I think that Hazel is a lesbian? I am pretty sure that it didn't explicitly say that in the book or anything, but she only shows interest in girls as far as I remember.

There are two budding relationships in this book. One f/f and one m/f (with sexy times for both). I really liked both pairs. The romance isn't a huge part of this book so there really isn't a lot of emphasis on the relationships, I didn't think. I kind of wish there had been more.

I really liked the overall feel of this book. It has a kind of magical feel to it. I really liked the characters. I loved the friendships and the romances. I liked how everything fit together in the end and I like how everyone had tree names.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I am glad that I read it in Indiana at my mom's house because the area where she lives is kinda woodsy and parts of this book take place in the woods and it just felt right. If you are into books that have a bit of a mystery but are really not thrillers or everyday magic and spells, you might like this book. I would definitely recommend this book.

TW: Sexual Assault

Have you read Spellbook of the Lost and Found yet? What did you think of it?