by Eleanor Ray
This story is about a young woman who has become a hoarder. She holds down a job in an office but only feels comfortable in her home which is stuffed with treasures she has found, little bird ornaments, cook books, cups, lighters (she doesn't smoke), wine bottles etc. Amy has been devastated because her best friend and her boyfriend disappeared 11 years before. She cannot accept that they would treat her like that.
One neighbour is concerned about her hoarding and has reported her to the local council. Officials visit asking to check her house but she refuses to let them in.
New neighbours move in next door, a couple with two small boys. The man and boys seem to take a liking to Amy but the woman doesn't like Amy nor her "step-sons". While the boys are playing in Amy's back yard they break some pots she has stacked there. She finds a ring in the debris, a ring she had shown to her boyfriend. She wonders how it got there, did he buy it? They why did he abandon her. She also finds a waterlogged letter which appears to have been written by her best friend.
All this gets Amy on the hunt again to find out where her boyfriend and girlfriend are. She talks to a band-mate of her boyfriend and a policeman who was the boyfriend of her best friend. Then one day Amy is devastated that all her garden pots in her front yard have been smashed, no other neighbour has suffered vandalism. Amy decides to resume contact with her girlfriend's mother. While this is going on she being pursued romantically by a man in her office. She finds out from her boss that he is supposedly married. He claims he is separated,
Finally one day Amy's former girlfriend shows up at her door. The woman had been contacted by her mother and told that Amy was still trying to find her. Amy's girlfriend tells her that she was a victim of abuse by her cop boyfriend and that he killed Amy's boyfriend after seeing the friend and the boyfriend together in a park. The boyfriend had been showing Amy's bestie a gift (the ring) he planned to give her for an engagement ring.
The policeman shows up at the same time as Amy's girlfriend is visiting. He hits Amy and threatens her girlfriend. Amy tips a box of her precious possessions on him. He is injured not killed and the girlfriend tells what he did to Amy's boyfriend. She is believed. A picture that the girlfriend had sent to Amy is a clue to where the boyfriend is located. The park is dug up, his body is found and the cop is arrested.
The book ends with Amy, with the help of her neighbours, included the man next door who has now lost his partner, trying to declutter her place. She makes slow progress. The book ends with her and the neighbour kissing. He will likely help her empty her place and heal her heart.
This was an okay story, I would call it a summer read.
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