I keep saying I don’t like fantasy but clearly I do. While I wasn’t overly thrilled with Meg Schaffer’s first book, I absolutely loved this one. It has everything you’d ever want in a fantasy novel, plus it pays homage to some of the great fantasy books of childhood.
When best friends Jeremy and Rafe were teenagers they were lost in the woods of West Virginia. Just as mysteriously as they disappeared, six months later they reappeared looking just as healthy and robust as the day they went missing. Rafe can’t remember anything from the night before he disappeared onward Jeremy refused to talk about it. 15 years later they are no longer friends and Jeremy is well known for his skill of finding missing girls and women. When he’s approached by Emilie, a young woman looking for her long lost sister, he knows it’s time to get Rafe and head back into the woods to help Emilie find her sister and Rafe to find his memories.
I loved everything about this. Ms. Shaffer has created a book so magical you can feel it through the pages as you’re reading. Her descriptions are so vivid and the story really came alive within my head. While it is categorized as Women’s Fiction I think teenagers who are fans of the fantasy genre will love it too.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for an advanced copy of this. The Lost Story hit the shelves on July 16th.

Thank you Random House Publishing Ballantine for the ARC opportunity in exchange for a review. The back and forth perspectives in the story was fun.
This story makes me want to pick up The Chronicles of Narnia again. I wish it was longer to expand some of the scenes or perspectives from other characters or other books, maybe in the future? :)

Utterly and indelibly enamored. This is the greatest love story ever told. I’m mad I didn’t read it sooner and I need more of this magical world immediately. What a gift.

I really, really liked The Wishing Game, which was Meg Shaffer’s bookish retelling of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In The Lost Story, she pays homage to the Narnia stories: Two boys disappear into the West Virginia woods, only to appear six months later seemingly unharmed, except one can’t remember where he’s been – or anything else about the past 6 months. Fast forward 15 years, and Jeremy, one of the boys, now makes a living off his uncanny knack for finding lost girls. He’s contacted by Emilie, whose sister disappeared 20 years ago from the very same woods where Jeremy and Rafe went missing. Emilie’s sister is alive, and Jeremy knows where to find her: Shanandoah, a magical hidden land. Jeremy, however, no longer knows how to return to Shanandoah, but Rafe does, even if he doesn’t actually remember the place itself.

I loved the setup of this – the mystery of where the boys had disappeared off to and why, and how Emilie and her sister are connected: The vibes of the West Virginia forest, that Emilie’s sister was kidnapped by a would-be rapist, the hints at the sinister reason Jeremey and Rafe disappeared - all stellar. I liked less what happens when Jeremy, Rafe and Emilie leave the real word and enter Shanandoah didn’t entirely live up to the premise. The magical land is clearly meant to have sprung from the imagination of a child, though some elements are appropriately dangerous and creepy, and if it had delved further the direction it was going, it would have been great. Instead, there’s a redemption arc I could have done without and a crisis that felt more contrived than an earned twist.

Still – anyone who grew up reading Narnia and dreamed they too might find themselves whisked off to a magical land will find something to enjoy here that’s more than just nostalgia.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️💫 3.5 stars rounded up

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing/Ballantine Books for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In this captivating novel inspired by C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia," we follow two childhood friends, Jeremy and Rafe, who vanished as boys into a mysterious forest and returned with secrets untold. Years later, Jeremy, now a famed investigator, is approached by Emilie, who seeks to find her missing sister in the same forest. As the trio delves back into the magical realm where Jeremy and Rafe once escaped reality, they confront their haunting pasts and unearth long-buried secrets. This fairy tale for adults blends magical realism with deep emotional exploration, making it a mesmerizing read. The story beautifully captures the essence of childhood wonder alongside the painful journey of coming to terms with one's past.

Title: The Lost Story
Author: Meg Shaffer
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 5 out of 5

As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.

Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.

I really enjoyed this read! I love The Chronicles of Narnia, and this story carried the same sense of magic and adventure waiting just around the corner. The characters were so much fun—in both worlds—and the hidden world was full of wonder and joy and magic. This was an excellent weekend escape to read!

Meg Shaffer is a bestselling author. The Lost Story is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Random House/Ballantine in exchange for an honest review.)

I thought/think the Wishing Game is the my favorite read this year. I was dying to read to The Lost Story and see if Shaffer could strike that magical lightening twice...SHE SO DID! Now it's a toss up as to which is my favorite read of the year. Shaffer's writing is magical. It transports me right along with the characters. She hits all the feels, laughing one minute and absolutely bawling the next! I am truly jealous for those who get to read this for the first time. I wish I could, again!

I enjoyed this story and the setting. Some of the ways it was executed I wasn't a huge fan of, like the inserting a narrator at sometimes odd places. But I loved the overall story and the idea of magic.

WOW, WOW, WOW! This book is true magic and I loved it so much. Meg Shaffer did a great job of telling a mind bending fairytale story with such heart. Every page was filled with such imagination and detail. I don't tend to like fairytales in the traditional sense but this fairytale had enough realism to make it an easy 5 star read for me. Go read it and see for yourself!

Whoever said this was like Narnia for adults, you weren't wrong. As a kid obsessed with the Narnia movies, I LOVED that this book exists. This was a love letter to fairy tales and that we should never stop believing. The queer romance and found family gave me all the warm and fuzzies. I can't stop thinking about this.

Heartbreaking beautiful book. This book had me full of emotions. I really loved the writing, story line and characters! A must read

This book! This one is going to stick with me for a long time in all the best ways!
Jeremy and Rafe were best friends. They disappeared in the woods and came back six months later. It’s been 15 years and they need to go back. But they haven’t talked in those 15 years because Rafe remembers nothing and Jeremy remembers everything and won’t share any details.
This story is inspired by Narnia and the land of Oz, and both are referenced throughout the story, but it’s still unique and new and creative. But this book is all about relationships of all kinds. It’s about friendship and grief and acceptance and devotion. There’s a lot going on here because each character is so well flushed out and has their complex relationships to explore. Along with Jeremy and Rafe, we have Emilie and Skyla and their story is just as beautiful and important. I enjoyed The Wishing Game by Shaffer, but this is a whole new level. I’ll be buying a physical copy for my shelves to read again and again!

Rafe and Jeremy went missing as teens for 6 months in the Red Crow Forest of West Virginia. After they return seemingly unharmed and well, they go their separate ways for 15 years. Jeremy goes on to become a tracker of sorts, locating missing girls for their families. Emilie tracks Jeremy down to find her sister who also went missing in the Red Crow Forest many years ago.

Jeremy eventually agrees to assist Emilie, but only if Rafe will accompany them. What happens after that is a magical realism adventure that is nothing short of a fairy tail.

I throughly enjoyed this story, even though it leans a bit more towards fantasy than I usually prefer. It was a whimsical escape and a joy to read.

When I started this book I thought it was going to be amazing. It wasn’t terrible, but I do feel very let down. A narnia like retelling, a narrator pulling the strings, and a gay romance as the best plot point? But it was missing so much. There was so much potential for me that fell short. This could have been perfect and I just feel meh about it. The characters felt not very dimensional, the world didn’t really make sense, the names were very weak and unimaginative, and often I felt like I didn’t even care to guess what was happening.

As always thankful for the ARC team. This books out now!

What an amazing and unique story. I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this book and I look forward to more of this author’s work.

This novel, like The Wishing Game, read much younger than advertised. I feel like it falls firmly into YA yet features adult characters. The pacing is quick, but it feels like it is trying to cover too much ground in too little time. The dialogue is immature. Overall it just wasn't the book for me.

An exciting adventure in magical world, two boys work to discover where the people from their town go missing. Returning to the place they once visited to try and rescue those who were lost only puts them in more danger.

In a land not so far away in West Virginia.

A quaint town nestled beside a mysterious forest, two longtime friends, Jeremy Cox and Ralph Howell, vanished into the heart of a local state park. When they reappeared after six months, they were older, wiser and glowing with health. But everyone wondered: where the boys had been and what events had occurred during their disappearance? And where exactly does this fairy tale take us fifteen years down the line— starting out with a young girl, Emilie searching for her lost sister, a rat companion named Fritz, and a three-way adventure to the enchanted land of Shenandoah.

Shaffer is putting out one fantastical hit after another! This would make C.S. Lewis proud!

Anyone who has ever read a book like Narnia or The Wayward Children series knows the feeling of reading a novel that completely transports you. There is something immensely full of wonder about how the children of these stories find themselves in strange new worlds, worlds in which they irrevocably belong. The Lost Story attempts to capture that feeling, this time in an adult context.

We follow Emilie, who is searching for her lost sister, and ends up enlisting the help of former lost/missing boys Rafe and Jeremy. Rafe and Jeremy, in case you haven't guessed yet, weren't exactly lost or missing. They had, in fact, ended up in a world hidden within the woods of West Virginia.

I think Meg Shaffer is an incredibly talented author. Her debut novel, The Wishing Game, had a writing quality that struck me as being both wholly unique and magical. Her sophomore venture is no different: the writing still feels like a throwback to old childhood books, the storytelling so wholesome it hurts. And yet, the magic didn't quite click for me with this one. It felt a little too childish at times, with certain jokes feeling oddly misplaced in their attempts to add an adult sense of humor. While the characters made me laugh at times, and while I felt deeply for Rafe and his story in particular, I wasn't super connected to the characters, I genuinely doubt that I'll have many feelings for most of them by the end of the year.

I'm not sure if this book needed to be longer. All I know is that the worldbuilding and story never felt more than surface level to me, and so I found myself truly struggling to care. And that's not what you want from a book at all. However, I do think I'll be in the minority with this feeling, and I am excited to pick up whatever Shaffer writes in the future!

4.5 stars

The Wishing Game was one of my favorite books of 2023 so I was hopeful that The Lost Story would be another favorite read and it absolutely was. The story is woven mostly around three people: Emilie who is looking for her long-lost sister, Rafe who is struggling after he and his best friend Jeremy went missing as kids and Jeremy who spends his time finding other lost children. The three come together to look for Emilie's sister in West Virginia where the boys went missing so long ago.

To be honest while the fairy tale setting was fun and fascinating I was really more caught up in the lead up to the magic and learning the backstories of the three main characters. I wish we'd learned more about Skya too. While the story was engrossing, I just felt it dropped off a bit while in the magic lands.

Overall though it was an enchanting read! Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the eARC copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.