This blog is for those 18 and older.

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

The Key by Kathryn Hughes

So many loves stories and they start at a mental asylum.  That’s what they used to call such places where families sent what they construed as a misfit or a person the family has no use for.  Didn’t matter the person could be throw behind locked doors for any and all reasons without psychiatric or medical doctor reports.

Sarah has an undying interest in the long closed and dilapidated Ambergate Lunatic Asylum in London.  Snooping around the battered rooms to find details of the lives of those left to endure an unsympathetic existence, not only does Sarah find a friend, a pile of leftover suitcases with clues, her father’s past as a doctor, and the man she will fall in love with.The Key

Most suitcases held miscellaneous personal items, never returned to the inmates, yet the key to a certain piece of luggage opened Sarah’s curiosity about a yellowed wedding dress and a painting.

Sarah enlisted a fellow librarian, Matt, to help her dig up the history of the asylum patients.  She eventually enjoyed the time she spent with him to do her project, his wit and helpfulness, his caring ways.  

So many lives changed because of the what Sarah uncovered.  Sarah’s father had been a doctor at the asylum.  He had a connection with the woman and the faded wedding dress.  A vagrant who lived in the rundown building needed to find his way home, and the lives of many of the patients turned toward love and friendship when Sarah revealed the secrets held in the dreary walls of the asylum, ready for demolition and a fresh start.

 A poignant story based on the early lack of knowledge of those who aren’t like everyone else.  Love heals a lot.

Happy reading,

Dawn

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