REVIEWS: 'The End of Temperance Dare,' by Wendy Webb, and 'The Keeper of Lost Things,' by Ruth Hogan

By Wendy Webb. (Lake Union Publishing, 360 pages, $15.95.)

This tantalizing Gothic-style novel opens with a flashback to 1952. A young girl has been dropped off at a tuberculosis sanatorium on the jagged shore of Lake Superior. Abandoned by her wealthy father and essentially left to die, she tries to make friends with other patients in the children's ward. She soon realizes that they are indeed very sick — and she is not.

So begins the haunting story of the Dare family, philanthropists who run a TB clinic on the scale of Glensheen Mansion overlooking the dark and gloomy lake. (Be sure to read the author's notes; evidently there was such a sanatorium in Bayfield, Wis., which gave author Webb a trove of lore to draw from.) As the patients either died or were cured, and as modern medicine caught up to the consumptive plague, the sanatorium lost its purpose. Its benefactor, Chester Dare, turned it into Cliffside Manor, an artists' recluse, and after much sanitizing, remodeling and remarketing, the manor became a refuge where distinguished fellows could spend weeks on creative sabbatical.

Years pass, and Eleanor Harper has been hand-picked to take over for the retiring benefactress, Penelope Dare. What follows could well be played on a Clue game board, with macabre crimes, inexplicable disappearances and enough eerie suspense to drive one mad.

As in any good Gothic romance, the shy and fearful Eleanor finds her perfect match — in fact, two men catch her fancy and they fancy her right back. Trouble is, only one is flesh and blood.

Ghosts, demons and sinister plots thrive in a haunted Lake Superior setting. Reviewers have dubbed Webb, a Minnesota Book Award winner who lives in Minneapolis, Queen of the Northern Gothic. You'll see why.

Wendy Webb will be at Literature Lovers' Night Out, 7 p.m. July 13, Southshore Center, 5735 Country Club Road, Shorewood. Tickets $10, available at Excelsior Bay Books.

GINNY GREENE

"The Keeper of Lost Things" mixes loss, romance and magic, pacing the narrative via an entertaining structure. This gentle, charming story focuses on Laura, the housekeeper and assistant to an aging Anthony Peardew, who is the keeper of lost things. Each of those things has its own story, told briefly in italic in the course of the tale as Laura tries to find each item's owner.

Reading the book is a little like watching the average Hallmark Channel movie: People face their troubles, but without troubling violence or insurmountable problems.

This story about love and vintage objects would be a lovely summer read, easily put down but easily picked up again, for those who like mysteries and romance.

BECKY WELTER