"Once there were two sisters who did everything together. But only one of them disappeared.

New York Times-bestselling author Jacqueline West’s Long Lost is an atmospheric, eerie mystery brimming with suspense. Fans of Katherine Arden’s Small Spaces and Victoria Schwab’s City of Ghosts series will lose themselves in this mesmerizing and century-spanning tale.

Eleven-year-old Fiona has just read a book that doesn’t exist.

When Fiona’s family moves to a new town to be closer to her older sister’s figure skating club - and far from Fiona’s close-knit group of friends - nobody seems to notice Fiona’s unhappiness. Alone and out of place, Fiona ventures to the town’s library, a rambling mansion donated by a long-dead heiress. And there she finds a gripping mystery novel about a small town, family secrets, and a tragic disappearance.

Soon Fiona begins to notice strange similarities that blur the lines between the novel and her new town. With a little help from a few odd Lost Lake locals, Fiona uncovers the book’s strange history. Lost Lake is a town of restless spirits, and Fiona will learn that both help and danger come from unexpected places - maybe even from the sister she thinks doesn’t care about her anymore.

New York Times–bestselling and acclaimed author Jacqueline West weaves a heart-pounding, intense, and imaginative mystery that builds anticipation on every page, while centering on the strong and often tumultuous bond between sisters. Laced with suspense, Long Lost will fascinate readers of Trenton Lee Stewart’s The Secret Keepers and fans of ghost stories."

I've been wanting to get lost in books more and more lately!

This book was everything I hoped it would be! If you like Holly Black's Doll Bones you'll love this book! Spooky, mysterious and whimsical!

The "Long Lost" weaves together a sister love/hate relationship real-life story with a library book sister ghost story. This story within a story concept is often difficult to follow, but Jacqueline West pulls it off and it works well in this book. In fact, she draws the library book into real-life by suddenly merging the two stories and leaving the library book's ending unfinished propelling the reader to flip pages frantically to learn more. This book was a compelling page-turner that I think will be a hit with my middle school spook seekers.

Long Lost tells the story of three pairs of sisters - one pair has just moved to a new town, one pair is part of the past, and one pair’s story is told in a mysterious book that shouldn’t exist.
This is a wonderfully spooky middle grade read with a current of sisterly rivalry and the fierce love that balances that rivalry. It’s a ghost story that feels traditional, while still dealing with emotional issues that contemporary young readers will relate to.
This would be a great Halloween read for young readers who don’t like the really scary stuff, but great for any time of year for a reader who loves to be a little spooked.

Long Lost is a page turner; I couldn’t put it down. West weaves together two stories: Fiona and Arden’s relationship in the present day, and Pearl and Hazel’s relationship in the early 1900s.

My favorite part was the magical book Fiona finds in the Chisholm Memorial Library, The Lost One, which mysteriously disappears and reappears. As a reader, I identified with Fiona’s frustration when the book goes missing.

A story-within-a-story is hard to pull off. West manages this with both Fiona and Arden’s narrative and the book Fiona finds, The Lost One; I kept reading, hoping Fiona would find the missing book because I wanted her frustration resolved and because I wanted to keep reading “with” her.

I found myself as involved in the story of Pearl and Hazel as that of Fiona and Arden. The conflict between sisters is never ending but neither is the connection if it is maintained. I hope Fiona and Arden learn from Pearl and Hazel

Jacqueline West has spun a ghost story for any age. Fast paced and un-put-down-able, readers will follow as main character Fiona moves to a new weird house in a weird town full of weird people - all for her sister Arden, the Olympic figure skater hopeful. Needless to say, Fiona is not at all pleased with this new arrangement. But when she finds a book that has a habit of moving itself around the local library, Fiona is pulled into a mystery bigger than the whole town.

Great read. The mystery sucked me in to finish this book in just a couple days. First of all the cover is gorgeous. I won’t go into detail of the plot and spoil it for you. I didn’t know anything about this book or author aside from the brief description from the publisher and I think that helps when you go into it with no expectations. Several points in the story truly surprised me which says a lot for a middle grade book that are often predictable reading as an adult. I loved reading the book within the book and got so into it that I almost forgot about the present day storyline. It was hard to connect with the relationship between Fiona and Arden for me but that’s probably since I am not the intended audience. I am curious to see what my kids think once they read it too. Supernatural elements are not usually my kind of thing but this is the exception with the historical mystery aspect. Good pacing of the clues and twists along the way really kept you invested. What started out as a old mysterious town turned into more of a ghost story. I may not have picked it up had I known that an would have missed out. I mean what avid reader doesn’t love a story about libraries and books,
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley for review purposes.

This was a fantastic read. I burned through it in a day. It hits all the right notes for me: a mystery in the past with elements of a ghost story.

When Fiona is forced to move to meet the demands of her sister’s competitive skating practices, she ends up spending quite a bit of time in the library to avoid said practices. It’s there that she finds a small, unlabeled book titled The Lost One. She reads this fictional story about two sisters named Hazel and Pearl who did everything together, until they didn’t.

The book within a book is wonderfully atmospheric and had me in the edge of my seat waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was just enough of a supernatural element to keep me guessing about what was real and what wasn’t.

This is pretty scary in parts, so I’m not sure if the 8-12 rating would be 100% correct. I teach fourth grade and could imagine some of my students would be pretty scared, particularly by some of the earlier parts. This may be more of a 10-14.

I have written and re-written this review several times. Everything I say seems like a discredit to what I truly experienced reading this book. There’s something simply divine about being a girl reading a book about a girl reading a book. The story-within-a-story element of Long Lost by Jacqueline West brought me back to my childhood, hiding in a closet with A Never-ending Story, Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, a Wrinkle in Time, ect… I am certain Long Lost would rank among these as one of my favourites. I got cozy and devoured these pages. They took me to another place and time, where anything could happen.

Fiona Crane is a young girl whose family just moved to a mysterious old town in Massachusetts. It was a practical move; her parents are closer to work and her perfect Olympic-skater-hopeful sister, Arden, is only a fifteen minute drive away from where she goes to practice. It worked out well for everyone. Everyone except Fiona. Her life and friends are now miles away, and all anyone seems to care about is her older sister.

Unwilling to while away the hours of the day alone at their creepy old house or watch her sister’s practice from the benches, Fiona ventures into the strange old town library. There she encounters unwelcoming residents, a librarian who is keeping a secret, a strange little boy, and a mysterious old book… a book that isn’t supposed to be there. You might notice I keep using the adjective “old”. And that’s on purpose. Everything about the stage upon which Long Lost is set is old. Centuries old. Old books, old town, old library–all of it covered in layers of dust, moss, legends, and deception. If that doesn’t thrill you, you miiiight not be an avid bookworm 😉

I didn’t know much about Long Lost going in. I didn’t read the blurb or even know the genre. It was that stunning cover that drew me in. Not every book lives up to what its cover promises, but believe me, Long Lost certainly did. West’s writing is fantastic. I’ve not read her previous works, but I was not surprised to find that this isn’t her debut. She handles words like a master artist, invoking all the right sensations to put me right in the shoes of her protagonist. One moment I was cuddled up next to Fiona on the Turkish rugs of the library, the sun warming my back and the smell of musty aged pages in my nostrils, the next I was racing through the cool damp forest with the characters of the book she was reading. Pearl and Hazel. The “sisters who always did everything together. Until one of them disappears.”

I was enthralled. I got goosebumps as the mystery played out. Fiona’s side of the story was every bit as mysterious and compelling as the sisters’. I never skipped ahead to read one because I was bored of the other. The flow was masterful. Fiona was easy for me to relate to–even though she’s the youngest of two and I’m the eldest of ten children. But she’s a bookworm, and I think, deep down, all bookworms can find solidarity based on that point alone.

A subtle detail I think that parents of children of colour may appreciate when considering this book is that Fiona and her sister are only ever described as having dark hair and brown eyes. Some characters Fiona encounters are specifically described as white. I think these two little details may help readers envision Fiona as a girl of colour, and she may be more relatable to them in that way as well.

I still wonder about the librarian character, what her connection really is and what she really knows. Being a librarian myself, my only complaint is that element did not seem fully resolved by the end, and maybe that was done on purpose. Some authors like to leave the stories of side characters open-ended so that they can be explored in other stories. Again, I haven’t read West’s other works (yet!) to know if that is the case here.

All in all, this is a book for book-lovers, and it does not disappoint. Highly recommended, especially to those who enjoy ghosts, paranormal activity, mysteries, and, at it’s heart, a story about sisters who might not always get along, but at the end of the day are each others’ closest confidants.

Have you read Long Lost by Jacquelyn West? I'd love to discuss your thoughts on my blog!

4*
Wow. What a delightfully creepy read. This story kept me hooked and wondering what would happen next. I was wonderfully spooked.. After Fiona is forced to move to a new town for her older sister's skating Fiona is resentful. Everything is always all about Arden. Fiona finds a mysterious book while exploring the library and is quickly entranced by the story within. But no one has ever heard if the book, it is not in the library system, in fact, the book has never been published at all. When Fiona finds parallels between her new town and the mysterious book, her curiosity drives her deeper into discovering what really happened all those years ago. Will Fiona be able to solve the mystery and reconnect with her sister, or will the dreaded Searcher take her away as well?

*This ebook was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for my review. All opinions stated are my own.

I could not put this book down. It was so good and so fast paced and the mystery was so interesting. 11yr old Fiona just moved to Lost Lake to be closer to her older sisters Arden’s figure skating club and far from any of Fiona’s friends but nobody seems to her unhappiness. Fiona ends up in the towns library which is a rambling mansion donated by a long dead heiress and there she finds a gripping mystery novel about two sisters and small town and a mysterious disappearance. As she keeps reading there appear startling similarities to Lost Lake and when she comes back after getting her library card to check the book out and finish it she is told it doesn’t exist. She finds where the librarian hid the book and she takes it but as she keeps reading it abruptly stops in the middle and now she has to figure out what happened to the sisters and why the book keeps disappearing to end up back at the library. This was so good and the characters were so spot on and the conflicts between the sisters and their faltering relationship was just so interesting to read. The mystery with the story and it actually being something that really happened in the town and Fiona investigating to figure out what happened and get to the truth was so great and how eventually Fiona and Arden make up and their relationship get so much better and that it parallels what the sisters in the story were going through. The ghost parts were really good and sometimes took you a while to figure out who was the ghost which was really fun. Just a great fast read and would be perfect for fans of mysteries with a ghost story included.

Thanks to HarperCollins Children’s Books and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book in e-book form. All opinions in this review are my own.

Long Lost tells two parallel stories about two pairs of sisters. Fiona and Arden live in the modern world, and the family has just moved to a new town in the interest of furthering Arden’s promising skating career. Hazel and Pearl live in the world of a strange book called The Lost Ones. Fiona finds the book in the library on one of the many days the rest of the family is occupied with Arden’s practices. Long Lost is almost equally divided between the two stories, and I confess, I was skeptical the format would work at first. It’s hard enough to ground the reader in one world and build up empathy for one set of characters. It’s even more difficult to do it twice. But Long Lost does so with incredible effortlessness.

There are obvious parallels between the two stories; both of them revolve around a younger sister who constantly feels like she’s living in the shadow of the older one. But as Hazel and Pearl’s tale gets darker and darker, the animosity builds between Arden and Fiona. Curiosity grows to escapism and obsession, and for a decent chunk of the book, Fiona’s main goal revolves around getting hold of the mysterious library book, which she never seems to be able to keep in her hands long enough to read to the end. And I found myself right there with Fiona, begging her to find a way back to the library to read more (Fiona’s inability to get a library card to take the book out by normal means is a quest unto itself). When an author tells you they’ve got a fascinating story to tell, my first instinct is a skeptical, “Oh, really? It’s that good?” By building up Fiona’s obsession with getting to the end of The Lost Ones, Ms. West hypes up the story within a story with an incredible amount of confidence. And that story delivers.

Fiona is such a sympathetic character, flawed yet understandably so, with a fierce determination to drive her own story even when the adults are doing everything to stop her. Her sister Arden is a wonderfully developed character in her own right–not the entitled golden child but a complex girl who both wants her sister involved in her passions and wants to apologize for monopolizing their parents’ attention. Long Lost captures some complicated and heartfelt relationships while at the same time delivering an eerie supernatural story that will stay in readers’ memories long after the last chapter ends.

A perfectly bittersweet, spooky middle grade story of sisters and secrets, complete with a spooky story within the spooky story. Absolutely stunning. Haunted, gothic, heartwarming, and everything in-between. I cried.

A fantastic ‘story within a story,’ Long Lost will engage readers with its lyrical writing and twisty plot. The story keeps readers guessing, making it perfect for reluctant readers. Highly recommended.

Sometimes it’s a little hard to review middle grade books because they’re not meant for an adult audience. Some parts of the story may feel flat or predictable, but those parts wouldn’t necessarily feel that way to the intended audience. I always have to remind myself of that when I read these books. The reason I go back to them is for the simplicity and pure fun that they give. Usually, the middle grade books I pick up are fantastical, and I just love the pure imagination I find.

Long Lost is about Fiona Crane who has to move away from her old life to Lost Lake with her family. She’s very unhappy about it and jealous of the attention her older sister, Arden, receives for being a figure skater. The story takes place during the summertime, so Fiona has to find something to do with her time. She turns to the local library and discovers a mysterious book. This leads her on a hunt for truth.

I highly enjoyed reading this book. It’s about Fiona and her family, but it’s also about the mysterious book she discovers, which is also about two sisters, Hazel and Pearl, who lived about a hundred years ago. The story of Fiona involves her reading this story, and it’s hard to say which story is more interesting. At first, I thought it was going to be a frame story, but Fiona gets interrupted in reading the Hazel and Pearl book. This brought some intrigue since you, as the reader, wanted to finish it with Fiona.

I personally don’t like too much detail about the books I’m going to read, so I’m not going to give away much more details. But the adventure Fiona goes on is so much fun. I quickly read through the second half of the book, when things really started taking off. As I stated at the top, some things do feel flat and predictable, but that’s more on me. I’m not the audience for this. Even so, those few small things don’t kill the book. The overall story is a joy.

There’s many characters throughout the book, and most of them are pretty distinct. I can’t say the writing was anything special. It was all pretty straightforward, just telling us what we need to know, but there were a few pretty phrases. However, I think middle grades are more about the story instead of pretty writing. I’ve never read a book my Jacqueline West before, but the imagination in this book really impressed me.

Wow! Loved this book so much and was sad to see it end. This book y'all will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck especially at night! Wow!
This new to me author has done a great job and left my heart feeling happy because this book that is directed for middle grade has a little bit of everything in it. From page one it will leave you on the edge of your seat wanting more with each turning of the page.
I can relate to most of Fiona's story about moving to a new place and all and wanting to fit in.
But with a sister I can't. I was raised as an only child.
Jealousy I completely understand.
I get that way sometimes too but then we all do.
This was just an awesome book all around and one that I enjoyed very much!
For a middle grade book I give this one 5 stars
My thanks for a copy of this book. I was NOT required to write a positive review and all opinions are my own.

West's new adventure has something for everyone: mystery, suspense, friendship, sisterhood, jealousy, ice skating and libraries. Fiona has to move to a small town that's a lot closer to her sister's ice skating competitions, forcing her to leave her friends and causing resentment. When a trip to the library results in the find of a very unusual book, Fiona finds herself embedded in a local mystery and making a new friend even as she's talking to ghosts and running from the eerie creature of local legend, the Searcher. The first half of the book seems like pretty standard fare and requires a lot of set up, as there are three sets of sisters that readers have to keep straight, but the second half ramps up the action and West adds a few interesting twists. Young readers will keep turning pages past their bedtimes with this one. Review from e-galley.

I loved this book! It has such a great pace. I read it in one day, I could not put it down. If you are a fan of libraries then you will definitely love this book.

This book took me right back to being 10-14 years old, looking through my library's YA shelf for something spooky to read (but not TOO spooky), that would consume my next several days and nights. This book was middle-grade-spooky-GOLD. It was SO good! It provides the angst of sibling rivalry and "you're the favorite!" with moving to a new town. Enter, the Library, which is inside of an old mansion donated to the town by a woman who lost her sister when they were children. Enter, GHOSTS. Yes, this book hit all the right spots, perfect for any kid who loves to read, loves spooky tales, loves libraries and books, and can relate to the strife of being a sibling.

I came to this book because of the "If you like Katherine Arden's 'Small Spaces,' then you'll love this" blurb, and I was not disappointed. This book is not quite as scary as Arden's awesome spooky books can be, but it still hits the spot just right. Also, the cover is brilliant!