The Treasure Box

Isolating herself after a series of bitter losses, travel writer Vita Kirk stumbles across an antique chest in which she finds a puzzling link to her past, a discovery that prompts mysterious changes in her physical surroundings. Original.

An enchanted blue tin chest sets in motion a course of events that threatens to change the life of a bitter travel writer in Penelope Stokes's entertaining novel The Treasure Box. Vita Kirk won't let anyone get close to her: "Where most people had what psychologists call boundaries, Vita had always had fortresses." Even the charming Hap Reardon, owner of the Pastimes Antique Shoppe, can't penetrate Vita's tough veneer. But when Vita purchases and brings home a painted treasure box with the inscription "Love Is the Key That Unlocks Every Portal," strange things start to happen. Suddenly, her computer takes on a life of its own by showing Vita events from the past involving the blue antique. By the time the story of the treasure box disappears from Vita's computer, her life is turned upside down. Stokes, who delights in using special objects as a device to wind her plots around (a blue bottle in The Blue Bottle Club, a piece of jewelry in The Amethyst Heart), will continue to please her fans with this beautifully packaged tale. --Cindy Crosby