Table of Contents: The Department of Lost and Found

Author: Allison Winn Scotch
Publisher: Harper Collins
Year: 2007
Synopsis: Some side-effects of cancer treatment are pretty fabulous in magazine writer Scotch's debut novel. Natalie Miller, a driven 30-year-old senior aideto a woman senator from New York, is having a rough time: just days after she's diagnosed with breast cancer, her cheating live-in boyfriend ditches her. She's feeling gloomy, then, when she begins chemo. (Her hunky and sweet gynecologist, Zach, is a mitigating factor.) Though the election is six weeks away, Natalie is ordered to stay home, where she writes in her diary (excerpts appear throughout) and becomes addicted to The Price Is Right while an ambitious junior aide takes over her job. Natalie battles through rounds of chemo and a mastectomy until, out of the blue, an old love, up-and-coming rocker Jake, comes back to take care of her. He seems intent on making things work, but Natalie's long-simmering (and seemingly requited) attraction to Zach only intensifies. Meanwhile, Natalie's journalist friend Sally lands her first big story: an exposé of Natalie's boss. Her loyalties on the line and her cancer on the wane, Natalie makes some tough choices about the postcancer person she wants to be. [From Publisher's Weekly]

What Others Have to Say:

Publisher's Weekly
"“A bonbon of a book.”

Tampa Bay Tribune
"...Natalie's story is that rare thing: a serious comedy that shines light into the darkness."

Booklist
"The changes and realizations that the characters make are profound and moving....An impressive debut."

Extras:
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