Published in 2024, The Museum of Second Chances is a contemporary fiction novel by British author Jo Leevers. Her third book, it follows the success of her debut, Tell Me How This Ends, which was a BBC Radio 2 Book Club selection. The novel centers on Evelyn Silver, the reclusive curator of a small museum of lost-and-found objects in a Cornish fishing village. For Evelyn, who was abandoned as a baby with only a scrap of lace, the museum is her only link to a past she has never known. When she and her neighbors receive an eviction notice, they launch a campaign to save the museum by connecting its artifacts to local family histories, a project that unearths long-buried secrets within the community.

The novel uses its collection of discarded objects as a catalyst to explore deep emotional and historical truths. It examines The Cost of Family Secrets, demonstrating how concealed histories and patriarchal control cause lasting generational trauma for Evelyn and other characters whose lives have been shaped by deception. Counterbalancing this is the theme of Forging Found Communities, as the effort to save the museum brings together a group of isolated individuals who form a supportive network that is a chosen family. The narrative also champions Reclaiming Female Autonomy, contrasting the historical powerlessness of women forced into secret adoptions with the contemporary characters’ difficult but ultimately successful journeys toward independence and self-determination.

This guide refers to the 2024 Lake Union Publishing edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of physical abuse, emotional abuse, and illness or death.

Plot Summary

Evelyn Silver is the quiet, solitary curator of the Portheast Museum of Maritime Curiosities, a ramshackle collection of discarded items she has run in a Cornish boat shed since 1988. Each day, she combs the beach for more items. Now in her early sixties, Evelyn’s life has been defined by her status as a foundling; she was abandoned as a baby with only a small fragment of handmade Cornish lace pinned to her blanket. Adopted by the scholarly Edwin and ethereal Elsbeth Silver, she has spent her life hoping someone will recognize the lace and reveal her origins. Eviction notices from the local council for her and her neighbor, Australian ice cream vendor Della Dayvon, disrupt her isolated routine. Their boat sheds are to be sold to celebrity chef Rufus Rowan for a new restaurant, giving them just two months to save their livelihoods and, for Evelyn, the one place she has a chance of learning more about her past.

Prompted by Della, Evelyn agrees to try and prove the museum’s relevance to the local community. After they successfully reunite a grieving elderly man, Leonard, with his deceased dog’s lost lead found on the beach, Della suggests a campaign to connect other locals with objects in the museum. Evelyn creates a poster inviting people to a meeting, featuring her drawings of four items: a cracked teacup with a golden lily design, an embroidered picture of a boat at sea, a small ship painting she suspects is an Alfred Wallis, and her own piece of lace. Jacob Warburn, the good-natured grandson of the once-powerful local landowner Sir Jasper Warburn, helps distribute the posters. 

A meeting at the museum draws a small but interested group, including Jacob; Sariah Carnie, the manager of the Warburn Spa hotel; Alison Blake, an administrator at the local sports center; and George Rook, a shady antiques dealer. The poster immediately stirs up long-buried secrets. Sariah recognizes the teacup as one she broke as a child, a painful memory tied to her difficult mother, Grace, and mysterious Aunt Rose. Alison realizes the embroidery was made by her grandfather but is dedicated to a secret lover with the initials “SW,” not her grandmother. George Rook identifies the “Wallis” painting as a forgery his father forced him to create as a child.

The group forms a “Save Our Museum” committee. Alison, who has a background in public relations, suggests gathering human-interest stories, while the tech-savvy Sariah builds a website to showcase the collection, though she deliberately omits the cracked teacup. The campaign gains momentum as locals come forward; RNLI volunteer Carl Brown shares the story of his watch, which stopped at the exact time of a dramatic sea rescue. As Alison and Jacob grow closer while gathering stories, Alison’s abusive partner, Roy Pinlow, becomes jealous and controlling, forcing her to withdraw from the group. Meanwhile, George privately tells Evelyn that the Wallis painting is fake and warns that the website could draw unwanted attention to other illicit “donations” hidden in the museum. Later, Sariah’s estranged mother, Grace, appears, demanding the teacup back for her sister, Rose, leading Sariah to reach out to Grace.

The mysterious “SW,” the lover of Alison’s grandfather, reaches out to Evelyn with a story about the embroidery in advance of an exhibition at the museum. As Alison is increasingly isolated from any friends by Roy, the committee carries on advertising the exhibition, which draws a crowd of visitors and journalists. There, Jacob confronts Roy about Alison, and Roy assaults him before being escorted out. Alison’s father, Keith, sees the letter from SW and leaves, humiliated by the revelation of his father’s infidelity. The story reveals that Keith’s father was privately homosexual, and he and SW were in love. George also argues with a journalist at the exhibition, embarrassing Evelyn. Finally, Evelyn’s own search for answers intensifies after a humiliating encounter at the exhibition with a representative of Rufus Rowan, who cruelly pretends to recognize her lace. 

This prompts her to re-examine the incident that ended her career in 1987, when she had a brief curatorial position in London that her father arranged for her. After witnessing her father having an affair with her London landlady, British Museum curator Frances Parfait, a drunken and distraught Evelyn broke several priceless Egyptian artifacts. She returned home ashamed, leaving her then-boyfriend and career behind. She realizes her father gaslit her about the affair and his own deceptions. Suspecting Frances could be her mother, she travels to London and finds her terminally ill. Frances confirms Edwin’s affair, as well as how he was actually a failed academic who used Evelyn’s position in London to rob uncatalogued artifacts from the museum. Frances denies being Evelyn’s mother, recalling only that Edwin mentioned the birth mother’s name might be “Agnes.”

The committee attends a meeting with the council, where Della presents a dramatic video expressing an intent to combine her and Evelyn’s businesses for more tourist appeal. The council extends their decision timeline. After, Sariah and Jacob go to Alison’s home, as she’s supposedly been sick. She missed the exhibition, and nobody’s seen her for two weeks. Alison hides from them, but as they wait outside her home, she decides to take her son and leave Roy, going to stay with her father. Meanwhile, Evelyn begins asking local, older residents about her parentage, though everyone is secretive and uncomfortable. 

She meets George at a pub and recalls as past romantic encounter with him. He decides to explain how both of their fathers worked together to sell art forgeries and stolen artifacts through Evelyn’s museum. Disappointed, she enlists his help in clearing out the backlog of stolen items left when her father passed. In this mixture of Edwin’s and her mother Elsbeth’s belongings, she finds a genuine Peter Lanyon painting, which George sells to a mysterious buyer for six figures. Evelyn also asks for Frances’s help in returning the stolen artifacts to London, so Frances agrees to make an anonymous, posthumous donation to keep Evelyn’s identity hidden; she dies shortly after, and the items are safely donated.

Sariah’s mother contacts her to apologize and explain that Aunt Rose was sent to a mother and baby home after becoming pregnant at 15. Sariah realizes she is Rose’s baby and Grace’s niece, not her daughter. She requests Grace invite Rose to town, where the three tentatively bond with each other. After hearing of this, Evelyn connects this to a former mother and baby home in the Cornish village of St Agnes, realizing Frances may have misheard Edwin speaking about a place and not a woman named Agnes. However, a visit there yields no records. In the following days, Roy burns Jacob’s car for his involvement with Alison. Evelyn has George intimidate Roy and his brothers to leave the two alone.

Despondent, she returns to Portheast, where a local, Bob Larkwood, finally approaches her and reveals himself as her half-brother. He says that their mother, Cora-May, was her birth mother. As a teenager in service at Warburn Hall, Cora-May became pregnant by the young Sir Jasper Warburn, Jacob’s grandfather. The powerful Warburn family sent her to the home in St Agnes and arranged for the Silvers to adopt the baby to avoid scandal, telling everyone she was a foundling. Evelyn is devastated to learn Cora-May died. However, Jacob immediately embraces her as family. Discovering a piece of wood from a wrecked ship that, she learns, was named by Jasper after her mother, she decides to plan another exhibition at the museum called “Horizons.”

At the exhibition opening, the council representative, Mr. Palmer, announces the leases will be renewed, but only if they can pay an exorbitant five years’ rent upfront. To everyone’s astonishment, Evelyn agrees, using the profits from the sale of the painting to pay for her and Della’s shacks. Later, Jacob receives a package from his estranged father, Simon Warburn, containing letters from Jasper to Cora-May that detail their tragic love story and the forced adoption. The cover letter reveals that Simon was the anonymous buyer of the Lanyon, his way of making financial amends for his father’s sins, though he refuses to meet his half-sister Evelyn.

With the museum and Della’s new venture, The Cake Shed, secure, Evelyn announces she is stepping down. She appoints Jacob as the new curator and Alison as the head of publicity, and their professional partnership blossoms into a romance. She funds a museum boat to be skippered by her brother, Bob, creating a new life for him. Sariah, having quit her hotel job, partners with Della. Evelyn, finally at peace with her past and in a new relationship with George, prepares to travel the world.