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Learn moreBookseller recommendation
“I loved Meg Shaffer's debut novel The Wishing Game so much, but The Lost Story is even better! This adult fairytale with a mystery is set in an enchanted land called Shenandoah with very vivid descriptions. It’s filled with wonderful friendships, love and romance. This book covers important issues like suicide, adoption, and family issues. I cried and I also laughed a lot! I did not want it to end!! I hope there is a sequel. I loved all three of the main characters so very much!! ”
— Sandra • Underground Books
Bookseller recommendation
“I had high expectations for The Lost Story after The Wishing Game, and I was not disappointed! Beautiful and full of whimsy, we are transported to a Narnia-like world. This is a fairytale for adults with some darker themes. I loved the incorporation of "Storyteller Corner" in between chapters - it felt very C.S. Lewis with the witty remarks. This story made me feel so nostalgic for my childhood when I would read classic fantasy novels under my covers with a flashlight. The love between Jeremy and Rafe is heartbreaking at times but also beautiful. I also got Peter Pan vibes with the Bright Boys and the Ghost Town. I cannot wait to listen to Meg Shaffer's next book!”
— Amy • Auburn Oil Co. Booksellers
Summary
Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.
“This is the book you’ve been waiting for.”—Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls and the North Bath Trilogy
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.
* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF that contains a map and recipes from the book.
Reviews
Praise for The Lost Story“If our sad, brutal, cynical, cowardly, unkind, exhausting world is too much for you, if you’d like to dream instead of a parallel world where love and loyalty and friendship are the magic that transforms the least of us into genuine heroes, then Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story is the book you’ve been waiting for. And here’s the real magic. When you return from that enchanted place to the world you wanted to escape from, you’ll find it’s changed. Why? Because you have.”—Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prise-winning author of Empire Falls and the North Bath Trilogy
“Shaffer manages to capture the joys and magic of childhood innocence alongside the wisdom that comes with age. The taut mystery keeps the pages of this love letter to the fantasy genre flying. Readers will be transfixed.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A spiritual epilogue to C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story explores what happens after you return from a magical realm.”—BookPage, starred review
“Readers will find this an absolutely immersive pleasure to read. Shaffer delivers an unforgettable and nostalgic experience.”—Library Journal, starred review
“Jeremy, Rafe, and Emilie all embark on a wild and magical adventure that makes for a perfect cozy fantasy read, reminiscent of the childhood books we grew up loving.”—HuffPost
“This wildly imaginative book speaks to every reader who yearns for a more magical world.”—Thao Thai, author of Banyan Moon
“This soothing novel will appeal to fans of classic and portal fantasies, where other fantastic worlds are lying under our own, just waiting to be discovered.”—Booklist
Praise for Meg Shaffer
“A love letter to reading and the power that childhood stories have over us long after we’ve grown up.”—V. E. Schwab, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
“Wholly moving.”—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling co-author of Mad Honey
“Shaffer speaks to every reader who yearns for a more magical world.”—Thao Thai, author of Banyan Moon
“Shaffer blends tragedy and triumph. . . . This is wish fulfillment in the best way.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) Expand reviews