Eighteen years old and completely alone, Rosemary arrives in New York from Tasmania with little other than her love of books and an eagerness to explore the city. Taking a job at a vast, chaotic emporium of used and rare books called the Arcade, she knows she has found a home. But when Rosemary reads a letter from someone seeking to “place” a lost manuscript by Herman Melville, the bookstore erupts with simmering ambitions and rivalries. Including actual correspondence by Melville, The Secret of Lost Things is at once a literary adventure and evocative portrait of a young woman making a life for herself in the city.
Sheridan Hay was born in Sydney, Australia and moved permanently to New York at the age of 27. Sheridan worked for many years in the publishing industry and is now a full time writer and teacher of literature. She is married with two children.
The Secret of Lost Things is Sheridan's first novel and was a Booksense Pick, A Barnes and Noble Discover selection and was shortlisted for the Border's Original Voices Fiction Prize. The novel was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, A New York Times Editor's Choice and rights to the novel have been sold to thirteen countries. Sheridan is at work on her next book.
