I loved and adored The Wishing Game. It was my favorite book of 2023. You really need to read it if you’ haven’t read it yet! So I had very high expectations for this book. I enjoyed it. I’m still thinking about it several days later. I enjoyed Emilie, Rafe, and Jeremy a lot. The magical realism was a lot of fun. It was very different from The Wishing Game. And I’m still a bit unsure about it, to be honest. What’s really going on here? Is Shanandoah real? I suggest you read it for yourself and see what you think.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

A beautiful modern fairytale, The Lost Story is both quiet and heartfelt, with love and sadness and everything that makes us human tucked right in the center of it.

I would say more about this book but my words wouldn't do it justice. It is absolutely beautiful and I will be buying and rereading it once the book is out.

What fun--a fairy tale for grown-ups. The whole concept is just delightful: I really enjoyed the storytelling style and how it unfolded. If you loved Narnia as a child, you're sure to enjoy this journey into fantasy too. And hey, there's even a recipe for Golden Apple Christmas Cake included for big fans of both Christmas and cake, like me. I recommend listening to Ludovico Einaudi's Primavera while you read and maybe a little Stevie Nicks too to get in the right mood.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with an arc of this charming new novel via NetGallery. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

An enchanting adult fairy tale, I loved the storytelling and worlds. Beautifully written and magical scene settings. Great characters and relationships. Adored this story

I loved this book! It's well-written, enjoyable, and a great read. After reading The Wishing Game, I knew Meg Shaffer would do a great job of writing in a way that captured my attention, and make me not want to put it down until I was finished! I would highly recommend it!

Thank you Netgalley & Ballantine Books Publishing for an eARC ♥️

This book is seriously amazing! It's about two childhood friends, Jeremy and Rafe, who went missing in the woods and returned six months later with no memory of what happened. Years later, they embark on a journey to find a missing sister and confront their past, discovering a magical world and the power of their own imagination along the way.

Meg Shaffer’s writing style is so beautiful and relatable, it's like they're speaking straight to your soul. The characters are super well-developed and easy to root for, and their stories are both heartbreaking and inspiring.

It's a journey of self-discovery and growth, and it's super relatable. I found myself reflecting on my own life and experiences, and it was really powerful.

This book is a must-read, trust me. It's a beautiful reminder that we're all in this together, and that the human experience is both messy and beautiful. 💔

The Lost Story
By Meg Shaffer

We are all officially old enough to start reading fairy tales again and this one is a must!

I fell in love with a world far greater than my own! The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer not only makes it okay to read fairy tales again but is a story that resonates with relatable characters and themes you fall in love with. The story is about two boys who were lost in a forest, The Red Crow, and are presented with a reason to return to the forest and forced to confront old demons and beautiful memories alike. Sometimes choices completely change your path in life and sometimes things are not always what they seem but one thing is for sure, those choices reveal who you really are meant to be… especially those choices that are made in The Red Crow. The Lost Story is a twisty tale packed full of vibrant characters that you can’t help but fall in love with. The setting is so beautiful you will long to visit and claim a title of your own. This fast pace story is the perfect escape into a world that will leave to longing for more long after the story has ended.

This book is a true delight. As a reader that is always searching for a beautiful fairytale, this book delivers exactly that.

This story follows three main characters. Jeremy and Rafe who were best friends as children and went missing in the Red Crow State Park. They mysteriously reappeared six months later looking healthier and stronger than when they left. Rafe cannot remember anything about what happened and Jeremy does remember but refuses to tell Rafe anything. Years later, Jeremy is working to find missing girls and he seems to have a magical knack for finding people. Rafe is living in the woods and trying to deal with the still having no memory of what happened to him. Jeremy and Rafe reunite after Emilie contacts Jeremy to help him find her sister, who has been missing for 20 years and also went missing in the Red Crow State Park. A magical journey begins when Emilie, Jeremy, and Rafe, enter the woods.

This was a beautiful story! I was so engrossed in the tale and I felt like I was adventuring through a magical world. The descriptions are so vivid and the characters are so well developed. This book has all the details you want in a fairytale - a queen, knights, a prince, unicorns, a magical land, and fun creatures but Shaffer masterfully weaves in very real life issues. Also, be on the lookout for the so-called breaking of the fourth wall, which is done with interludes by the story teller, and I loved.

All books are magic. An object that can take you to another world without even leaving your room? A story written by a stranger and yet it seems they wrote it just for you or to you? Loving and hating people made out of ink and paper, not flesh and blood? Yes, books are magic. Maybe even the strongest magic there is."

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House/Ballantine Books for this ARC.

Unfortunately I had to DNF this book. I made it to 50% and couldn't take how slow the pace was. I was really looking forward to a CS Lewis inspired novel, but instead got a very slow read with no action. I typically love a slow burning book, however this was just boring.

I enjoyed this magical book ! It is not a genre I would ever consider so I started it with reservations. I can say I was pleasantly surprised.

The characters were so well rounded. I could feel their love for one another. The same sex relationship was handled so well and not graphically described but really showed their love and caring.

I thought some horrible end had come with Shannon and instead it was like a fairy tale. I was so happy to see her reunited with her sister.

The boys, Rafe and Jeremy , both had great back stories that ran true . I loved how the father got to return to the story. It showed forgiveness and redemption.

Such a deep book in many ways. I saw many indications of symbolism with the red bird and the Bright Boys. The just needed to keep fighting their way to what they wanted in life.
Five star rating. Thank you for the opportunity to read

I wanted to thank Netgalley for allowing me to read this ARC. I am a sucker for a fairytale! A adult fairytale is even better!! Love how the narrator makes interruptions to add that extra flare foe the storytelling! Reminds me of my childhood but in a new and improved way.
It has everything s fairytale needs. Adventure, romance. Castles and mystical creatures all the ingredients for a amazing book and fairytale. JOB WELL DONE!!!!!

“All books are magic. An object that can take you to another world without even leaving your room? A story written by a stranger and yet it seems they wrote it just for you or to you? Loving and hating people made out of ink and paper, not flesh and blood? Yes, books are magic. Maybe even the strongest magic there is.”

Best friends Jeremy and Rafe were lost in the woods in West Virginia before being found 6 months later. They were unable to explain their disappearance. 15 years later Emilie seeks them out to help her find her sister who was lost in the same woods. Jeremy alone knows about the secret magical land in the woods and believes Emilie’s sister can be found there. They go on a journey to discover secrets and magic together.

A magical story inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia. I was immersed in the land of Shenandoah and would love to get lost there myself. I enjoyed the characters and their stories as they grew and finally dealt with their trauma. This is a cozy little fairytale that I enjoyed a lot and hope to revisit in the future:) such a charming book💙

Thanks to @netgalley and the publisher for an arc for review!

I read the author’s debut, The Wishing Game, last year, and wanted to try more of her work, so when this ARC came up on NetGalley, there was no question I would request it.

Here’s where I confess that, as a non-native English speaker, I didn’t read the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, so despite having a general idea of plot and characters, I’m not conversant with the books; for all I know they’re structured much like this novel is, and so, perhaps the absolute surprised delight I found in it is, for other readers, either a lovely call back or just derivative.

Beware: cancer; suicide; depression; mental health issues; child abuse; homophobia; drug addiction as a potential “cause” for autism; child neglect; bullying; death of parents.

The story is told in a combination of third person, past tense chapters from the points of view of one Emilie Wendell, Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell, and short section introductions in first person, present tense that break the first wall, where “The Storyteller” addresses the reader.

“Surely she’d imagined it. … No red crows. No magic words. A good story, yes, but not a fairy tale. They didn’t have fairy tales in West Virginia. They were lucky to have a Target. Then again, why not? Why did France and Germany all those places get to have fairy tales but not West Virginia? … Why didn’t they get to have magic here, where the hills rolled like ocean waves and the morning mist was a thick as the silence of a family keeping secrets?” (Prologue)

Most of the trappings of the story embody classic childish imaginings, from the fantastic creatures to the idyllic setting, but they are nothing but ways for three damaged people to face their traumas. Trying to explain or summarize the plot would spoil the reading experience, and the worldbuilding only works within the framing for reasons that would also spoil it, so I’ll mostly speak of the three main characters.

Emilie, the adopted daughter of a well-to-do single woman, had a secure childhood and a privileged life, never wanting for anything. However, she has always struggled to fit in in the outside world; I would say that she’s written as being on the autism spectrum, but the story blames her differences on her biological mother’s drug abuse during pregnancy.

At any rate, Emilie’s life has recently crumbled around her. First her mother died, painfully, of cancer, leaving Emilie completely alone in the world; soon after she found out that she had once had a half-sister through her biological mother, only that girl had been abducted by a sexual predator two decades before, her body never found.

Emilie reaches out to Jeremy for help finding Shannon’s remains; ostensibly because she wants to give her long-lost sister, the dignity of a proper burial, but essentially because she needs something to focus on beyond her loneliness. The fact that finding Shannon means actually venturing out in the world beyond her own home forces Emilie to realize her own strengths and to conquer her fears.

Of the two once-lost boys, Jeremy is the one who has apparently led the most successful, if not necessarily “normal” life. He went back to England with his own mother, and even attended college for a while. Once his ability to find women and girls–lost, abducted, murdered–became known, he dedicated his life to it. It’s not what anyone could call a garden variety career, but he has saved many lives and given many families closure.

What no one knows is that he has spent every day essentially biding his time, waiting for the person who will trigger a chain of events leading Jeremy back to Rafe; Rafe, the man he loves, but hasn’t seen for fifteen long and lonely years.

Rafe, who still doesn’t remember any of the events of those six months, and who has suffered great mental anguish as a result. He has dreams that he often can’t remember, and has had dissociative fugues so severe, he has been hospitalized several times over the years. More recently, he has found some peace living mostly as a recluse in what once was a small hunting cabin in the woods, and recreating the vivid subjects of his dreams in paintings and sculptures inside and around it.

But the fact that he can’t remember anything about those six months, and that Jeremy essentially disappeared from his life immediately after their return, has never stopped hurting Rafe. So when Jeremy turns up out of the blue, asking for help, Rafe is forced to confront that pain, and all that hides behind those missing memories.

There is a lot of trauma in this book, and a lot of heart. The one thing the three main characters have in common is that their mothers loved them, fiercely and fully, even when they didn’t always understand them or could actually help them. And each of them returned that love in equal measure, despite other challenges.

Because let me tell you, were there challenges for Jeremy and Rafe! Emilie, for all that she’s the catalyst of the story, has the least significant character arc. The boys, on the other hand, make incredible sacrifices for one another, out of nothing but the purest and deepest of loves, as well as confronting their own unrelated traumas, so it is very satisfying to see them reach a place of joy and acceptance together as men.

And there is acceptance; Jeremy is openly bisexual, while Rafe is certainly gay but perhaps bicurious. Emilie is likely asexual, while Skya seems to be in some form of romantic relationship with both Jeremy and Rafe, though that is never pinned down.

Which brings me to the two aspects of the story I was less than thrilled about.

One, the most that happens on page between Jeremy and Rafe are a couple of kisses; I didn’t care for the “this isn’t that kind of story” aside for several reasons, but mostly, I thought that fifteen years of emotional torture deserved a more visceral closure than a slammed door on the reader’s face. In the same way, all the veiled hints about the relationship between both men and Skya felt like a cop out.

Second, I am never thrilled when the “blood is thicker” and “you should always take the high road” and “forgiveness is divine” tropes appear; victims shouldn’t have to bear the additional burden of being better humans than those who harmed them, period–never mind when the victims are children.

Despite my complaints, I inhaled this book in one long gulp, and will likely re-read it soon. Once again, I look forward the author’s next book.

The Lost Story gets a 9.00 out of 10.

This book will be released on July 16, 2024

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer
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Two boys go missing in a large national park. They are found six months later with no further story then they got lost. Now a young woman is asking for their help to find her sister. Their journey with take them to a far away place, and unlock the secrets of those missing months.
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I adored the author’s previous book (The Wishing Game). So when I read that this new book was for fans of Narnia and The Wizard of Oz, I was beyond excited.

Sadly, this book did not do it for me. It wanted so badly to be the next whimsical fantasy that it came off as a little trite and corny.

3⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer--This fairy tale for grown-ups releases on July 16 and is inspired by Narnia. As teens, Rafe and Jeremy were missing from Red Crow forest in West Virginia for 6 months and reappeared with no explanation of where they'd been. 15 years later Jeremy is well-known for being able to find lost people and is tasked with finding Emilie's lost sister Shannon. This leads them, along with Rafe back to the magical land of Shanandoah where they had spent their missing 6 months. I really liked the fairy tale elements and also the homage to other magical stories. There are aspects of the characters lives that have some traumatic elements that were dealt with sensitively. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

I adored The Wishing Game and I adored this book as well. As a native West Virginian, I was even more obsessed. Meg made something extremely special to me with this book. I really don't have any notes. I just plain loved it.

How do I even begin to describe how perfect this book was?! The book had be from the description of a portal fantasy book in the vein of “The Chronicle of Narnia” books. Stevie nicks is also referenced a bunch, and you really can’t go wrong with that! Easy 5 stars!

The story follows 2 best friends who go missing as kids in a forest in West Virginia, come back six months later with no answers to what happened to them in that time. Years later, the friends grow estranged, but a woman searching for her sister, brings the two back together and helps unravel the memories of that time they went missing.

The story is filled with so much magic and light heartiness but was also filled with so much depth and heartache. This was a good example that every fairytale has a light and dark side and its how as humans navigate through life. I loved that this fantasy would we were dropped into still had rules and was very rich with landscape, leaving us feeling like we have only seen a sliver of what this would had to offer. I thought the writing of this book was fast paced and smart. I very much liked the narration style (the actual narrator too) while also loving every character we meet…even the rat ;). This story will leave u smiling and very hopeful.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine Books for the E-Copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I received a gifted advanced copy of THE LOST STORY by Meg Shaffer from Random House / Ballantine Books!

THE LOST STORY is set in West Virginia. Years ago, best friends Jeremy and Rave went missing in the forest, reappearing six months later. They are unable or unwilling to answer any detailed questions about where they've been this whole time. The pair have drifted apart over the years. Rafe has become an eccentric, reclusive artist, but Jeremy has made a name for himself with an uncanny ability to locate lost women and children.

Emilie has followed Jeremy for some time and when he makes an appearance relatively close to her home, she can't help but ask him for help. Emilie's half-sister went missing when she was a teenager in the same forest where Rafe and Jeremy once disappeared. Jeremy is sure he can help get Emilie answers, but it does mean that he will need to reunite with Rafe and uncover secrets long buried.

I really enjoyed this author's previous book, so I was excited to be offered an ARC for this one. I am happy to report that this book lived up to my hopes for it. This is very much a whimsical fantasy / magical realism type of read which can work for me sometimes more than others, but I really enjoyed the missing persons aspect of it and the focus on fairytales and storytelling.

I wasn't initially sure how much I loved the inclusion of between the chapters commentary from an unnamed storyteller, but I did find the extra elements this storyteller gave us to be generally fun. I really wound up enjoying the change of scenery that we get later into the book and the fairytale vibes were really well done.

The fantasy reader in me had a few things here and there that I wish had been built out a little bit more in the world building (this is generally the thing that doesn't entirely work for me in magical realism), but the book as a whole was such a charming read. I picked this up to read and just never wanted to put it down!

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I adore fairy tales in all fashions, scary or not, Grimm or updated. Shaffer's world of Shanandoah was a lovely place to visit and I would definitely go back in the future.

The story begins with 2 lost boys in West Virigina. They go missing and return six months later, one with no recollection of what happened. The best friends are then separated for years after their experience splits them up. Then we meet Emilie, a girl who found out she has a half sister through one of those online DNA tests. Except she went missing 15 years before. Emilie has never met her but is alone in the world otherwise and longs to find her missing family. She meets Jeremy, one of the lost boys who now has his own talent for finding those lost, even those who seem impossible to find.

This is a magical journey to a hidden world with silver tigers, red crows, unicorns and dragons. I looked forward to going back to this book so much I read it on my breaks at work, though it was very hard to put down when time was up. The story made me feel something instead of just words on a page and I look forward to reading it again.

My thanks to Ballantine Books and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book had me at "Chronicles of Narnia"-inspired and then never let me go 🥹 Meg Shaffer is 2 for 2, for me! I had the absolute honor and privilege of arc reading "The Wishing Game" (a stunning debut in 2023) and couldn't wait to see what would come out of her wonderful mind. The Lost Story was pure magic, a treat for adults who grew up getting lost in epic fairytales. This book was brave and bold in its storytelling and I loved how she added the element of "The Storyteller". Jeremy and Rafe (but Jeremy especially) are some of those characters that will stick with you long after you've turned the last page.

Definitely check this one out in September and check your TW's (if needed). 🫶🏼

"All books are magic. An object that can take you to another world without even leaving your room? A story written by a stranger and yet seems they wrote it just for you or to you? ... Yes, books are magic. Maybe even the strongest magic there is."

Thank you netgalley and Ballentine Books for the eARC ♥️