spoiler light: plot devices and structure, movie references, and style choice discussed
The NetGalley Frenzy
On Friday, March 27, 2026, romance readers rushed to NetGalley, a website for digital galley distribution and book marketing, in order to download Lost and Found by Tarah DeWitt, the third and final romance novel in the Spunes series. The volume of book downloads was so high, the entire NetGalley site down temporarily shut down.
Six Reflections on the Book
It’s been one week since the big NetGalley crash. I was lucky. Before the site broke down, I scored my own e-ARC of Lost of Found, which I read hungrily in less than three days. The novel has a lot of heavy themes and elements (grief, IVF, injury recovery, strained parental relationships), but I finally feel ready to write down a few lighthearted early thoughts.
1. Tarah DeWitt Continues The Spunes Series Tradition of Delivering Titles With Aplomb
Tarah Dewitt is acutely aware of the storytelling power of a title, when the title is deployed within the story (1) in just the right way and (2) at just the right moment. DeWitt’s eye for titles was clear to me after reading Savor It and Left of Forever (books 1 and 2 of the Spunes series, respectively). In those books, she held onto the titles like delicious secrets until the last possible moments. The reveals were wholesome and stunning.
The moment I started reading Lost and Found I began anticipating the title reveal and hoping for a title reveal with the same aplomb as Savor It and Left of Forever. Let me just say (spoiler free!) that Tarah Dewitt outdoes herself with Lost and Found’s title reveal. Not only is it a great reveal, but the title’s integration in the story and the series overall is gorgeously and surprisingly done.1
2. Dual POV Structure (As Expected) With Dual Timelines (New!)
Like the other Spunes novels, Lost and Found offers a dual first-person-POV reading experience inside the main characters’ minds. In Lost and Found, readers oscillate between the minds of Bea and Silas, just as we oscillated between their predecessors Sage and Fisher in Savor It and Wren and Ellis in Left of Forever.
The way Lost and Found differs significantly is with its two different timelines, one taking place (mostly) 8 years in the past and one occurring in the present day. The different timelines merge near the end just like the merging plot lines of Love Actually. For this very reason, I suspect that’s why Love Actually is directly referenced in Lost and Found.
3. Annotating Tip: Gold Is a Poetic Mini Motif
I highly recommend annotating mentions of the color gold as you read. Once I have a finished copy of Lost and Found, I plan to deep dive this color as a literary device in the book.
4. Annotating Tip: Interconnected Scenes Aplenty
Tarah DeWitt plants details in early scenes that come full circle in later scenes. It’s really fun to keep an eye out for repeating details (like dialogue) and to think about how and why those details are planted to tie different scenes together.
5. The Martian Movie Reference
In addition to Love Actually and several other movies for that matter. The Martian is referenced in Lost and Found, with repeated mentions. It’s by far the novel’s most important movie reference too.
To me, The Martian is such an apt reference. It’s funny too because it’s famously devoid of a romance plot. The only thing Matt Damon is in love with in the movie is science. Yet, despite the loveless plot, the movie has a romance-genre worthy HEA.
slight spoilers in next section
The movie reference is also wonderful because of the way it comes up. Silas recounts The Martian’s rescue mission to Bea to illustrate a point. He focuses on the way Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain wrap themselves together with a golden tether that connects them to the ship. This tether is umbilical imagery, and it’s part of the book’s aforementioned gold motif. I’d argue the movie’s golden tether is symbolically linked to Silas’ gold chain necklace too.
Other things to consider about this apt movie reference:
- The Martian‘s “lost and found” plot. Tarah DeWitt loves puns (Savor It is proof). I surmise that DeWitt chose The Martian as a movie reference (in part) because of wordplay element. The movie is a “lost and found” story of Matt Damon getting lost on Mars and then found.
- Red heads and golden boys. The Martian has a red-headed female lead (Jessica Chastain) as does Lost and Found (Bea). For male leads, Matt Damon and Silas are both golden-boys with scars, and they are both survivors of terrible accidents.
- Science. Lastly, the science of space travel in The Martian is used to shed light on the science and journey of IVF treatment in Lost and Found. It’s beautifully done.
6. Get This Book for People Who Like to Bake Sourdough Bread or Who Have Always Wanted to Start Baking It
As a sourdough bread baker at home, the sourdough bread elements in the novel were fun!
Lost and Found by Tarah DeWitt goes on sale on August 4, 2026. Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin Press for a e-ARC to read and review!
- One I have a finished copy of the novel, I’ll deep dive the title in a full blog post. ↩︎
Annotate With Sara 