I've never read Narnia, but I've seen the movies and heard a lot about the series, and I have to agree that if you like the whimsical, new-world-on-the-edge-of-another setting, I recommend THE LOST STORY! It's a bit slower paced as a whole and had an interested structure in that there were two points in the story that I would consider the big third-act event, but the pacing for both events was set up nicely. It's a great cozy, overall low-stakes fantasy for a late summer or early fall read. The book kind of opens as if Emilie, on a quest to find her missing sister, will be our main character, but we quickly pivot to following Rafe and Jeremy as they help her find Shannon, and reignite their love story along the way. This had great humor and was a quick read, but I wish we'd spent a bit more time experiencing the world. We didn't get to Shanandoah until over a third of the book was over, and then we jumped into major events and didn't have time to settle and learn about the world except in passing. That being said, I think this will be a hit and I'd recommend it:)

Reading this book was like sinking into a warm hug at the end of a long day. It was perfect, I loved it so much, I am obsessed.

Two best friends, Jeremy and Ralph go into the woods and disappear, and then magically reappear, six months later with no explanation to where they have been. They both claim to not remember.

The oddest part? They are for the most part, in better physical shape now, then when they disappeared.

Fifteen years after coming back, we catch up with them, and their lives are much different. No longer in contact, Jeremy now helps to locate missing people, while Ralph is an artist who is struggling to move on from his past.

When a woman, with no family left, Emilie, comes to Jeremy asking for help to find her missing sister, it’s time the two men get back together to travel to the world they got lost in fifteen years before.

This book is perfect for fans of C.S. Lewis and L. Frank Baum, or anyone who loves a cozy, magical mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/ Ballantine Books for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Crying while writing this! After reading The Wishing Game last year, I knew I would read anything by Meg Shaffer. The Lost Story is another slam dunk.

It’s a very different vibe from her breakout novel, but no less amazing. The world building of Shanandoah is wonderful, and she did a great job of capturing the a new Narnia-esque world. Some of the twists were predictable, but that didn't make me any less excited for the reveals. Jeremy, Rafe, Emilie, Skya and the rest of the characters all had their own unique personalities and I truly felt like I could understand their backgrounds and intentions.

The only thing I hated about this book was the last couple pages. Meg, how can you leave us on a cliffhanger like this? When will a sequel be released?!

Thank you so much to Meg Shaffer, NetGalley, and the publisher for this ARC, you’ve given me my favorite book so far of 2024!

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

When Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing when they were fifteen, they were typical scrawny teenage boys. Six months later, Jeremy walks out of the forest carrying Rafe over his shoulder and both boys are more like men. They've grown inches, gained muscle and pounds, and look like fit men, something that perplexes everyone.

Inseparable before they walked out of the forest, Jeremy's mom whisks him away before Rafe is even out of the hospital, and in the present day, it's been fifteen years since they've seen each other. Jeremy finds lost people now, usually alive, sometimes dead. Rafe has no memory of their missing six months and Jeremy has a reason he stays away from Rafe and won't reveal all that Rafe doesn't remember.

That is, until a young woman named Emilie tracks down Jeremy and begs him to find her missing sister. This request is a trigger that brings Jeremy and Rafe back together again. Being a fairy tale, with all kinds of rules and made up restrictions and such to follow, there are "reasons" why this and that but I won't go into them. You need to read the story for it all to make sense (or not).

There are two parts to the story, before going back to a very special place and after the trio travel to the very special place. The story is enjoyable but to me it feels very YA. The boys, now men, are thirty but they still seem much younger in many ways, still maybe stuck as teens. But even the story can feel young, with its storyteller coming in every few chapters to explain things to us. I actually enjoyed the storyteller part of the story a bit more than the actual story, I think. 3.5 stars rounded to 4 stars

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Ballantine Books and NetGalley for this ARC.

Meg Shaffer please give me all the books!

I loved this one just as much as her prior book, The Wishing Game. There is something so whimsical and beautiful within her books. This was heartfelt, funny and emotional.

I just love the way she can pull me into loving her characters with ease. I was immediately hooked and read his in under a day because I just wanted to stay with these characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for this advanced reader's copy. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.

Fifteen years ago, Jeremy and Rafe got lost in the woods of West Virginia and reappeared six months later. Their reappearance was just as confounding as their disappearance. Being lost in the woods usually leads to malnourishment, diminished strength, and unkempt appearances, but Rafe and Jeremy were healthy, obviously well-fed, and strong. They were also frustratingly silent about what had happened in their six-month stay in the forest. Three days after emerging from the forest, Jeremy fled the States to his home country of England, and Rafe was left with no idea what had happened. Fast-forward to the present and Jeremy is a world-renowned rescuer of lost people, specifically young women, and holding a meet and greet in which Emilie takes a chance to ask him to find her sister, who has been missing for 20 years in the same woods Jeremy and Rafe spent months in 15 years earlier. Jeremy knows he can find Emilie's sister alive, but he will need Rafe to do it, and they haven't seen or spoken to one another since their dramatic exit from the woods. Rafe has no desire to step foot in those woods again; he feels abandoned by Jeremy and barely hangs on to any kind of life. And yet. Yet he lives in a cabin filled with paintings of people and places he can't explain; he also sculpts statues of people and places his imagination leads him to, but he also can't explain why he feels like he knows the people and has been to the places. When Jeremy and Emilie show up to ask Rafe to accompany them into the forest, and Jeremy seems to know why Rafe paints and sculpts these people and places, Rafe reluctantly agrees to go on the quest. Stepping back into the forest, Rafe and Jeremy will be swept back 15 years; this time, Emilie is along for the adventure.

Oh, my word. What a lovely, lovely story. What a wonderful tale with beautiful characters. The publisher says the story is inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, and I can feel that inspiration as a reader. Still, Shaffer's story and characters are all her own - there's no feeling of "I've read this before, and it was done better by Lewis." (Because, let's be honest, Lewis' Narnia series is sublime in this reader's opinion.) The reason why Shanandoah exists is creative and whimsical. Rafe and Jeremy are characters I want more of; I could have continued to read about them for several hundred more pages. The brief descriptions of Rafe's art made me wish it was real and I could view it. Reading this book and getting to know these characters was like settling down with a cozy blanket and a great cup of tea.

When I read The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer, I felt like she perfectly captured the vibe of falling in love with reading as a child. The Lost Story just cements her talent in capturing the nostalgia and feelings from my childhood as a reader (I LOVED the Chronicles of Narnia and the possibility of being transported to an adjacent world). These books are referenced a few times throughout The Lost Story, enough to be a nod but not to feel like a blatant ripoff of the books. I would say that this book feels like a YA with a bit of extra heaviness in some spots.

The relationships between characters, both main and supporting, feel real and the backstories are well developed. My only criticism would be that I would have loved a bit more time in Shanandoah - I know the timeline makes sense for the story being told, but it feels like there's so much more to see and learn. I absolutely, 100% will recommend this book - I actually already have! I will continue to follow Meg Shaffer's work.

I honestly am at a loss for words… The Wishing Game was such a BEAUTIFUL story and this was messy and all over the place in my opinion.

The romance between Rafe and J was cute. And made sense but the sister relationship was annoying. I found Emilie to be extremely childish… and her pet rat… even more annoying🤣

I liked the concept of this book (because who doesn’t love a spin on The Chronicles of Narnia)!?! But this was not it… I almost DNFed and it makes me really really sad to say this because I adore this author!

2.5/5 ⭐️ rounded up

This was such a great ride! Clearly modeled off of Chronicles of Narnia. The magical aspect fit really well and worked for this novel. This had some romance, friendship, and lots of other characteristics that made this such a great one. I was hooked from the beginning and loved this reimagining of Narnia.

Two boys got lost in the woods years ago. They returned with no good explanation 6 months later. Now, Emilie is searching for her half sister, who also got lost in those same woods and she knows that Jeremy can help her.

I don't know why Meg Shaffer knows that those of us that were voracious readers growing up, the kids that got lost in their stories and dreamed of visiting those fantastical lands, needs these stories as adults. Adults living out the fantasies we dreamed about as kids. Jeremy and Rafe became princes and knights, and rode enchanted horses in the service of a queen. All somehow tucked away behind an old tree in a forest in West Virginia. The Wishing Game brought us mystery like Nancy Drew, The Lost Story brings us the magic of places like Narnia and Lumberjanes. It's absolutely magical and I didn't want the book to end. There are happy endings, and an ending ambiguous enough that we have hope for maybe a sequel at some point. I really would love to see more adventures in that magical land.

I read this book after coming home from visiting West Virginia, and it's definitely a place that both needs this magic and also has beautiful places that could be hiding the magic. I wonder if one day I might find a red crow, and be able to follow it into a different land, where Bright Boys roam looking for trouble, and Valkyries wait to defend their queen.

Such an imaginative and sweet tale! I was in LOVE with Meg Shaffer’s first book, The Wishing Game, so I could not wait to get my hands on The Lost Story.

Overall, the book was very good. It was sweet, it was charming and the pacing was good. I loved the message and plot but for me, overall, I couldn’t reconcile the two worlds. Still, the book was a great read with a charming place to lose yourself for a while.

Advance reader copy provided by Random House and NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

The Wishing Game was one of my favorite books of 2023, so I was so excited to receive an advanced copy of the Lost Story. Unfortunately, it fell quite flat for me. The beginning of the book was full of promise, but once they were in the woods I did not feel engaged. There was a lot going on and I think because of this it didn't keep my attention. I enjoyed the premise, but the execution wasn't there for me. Will read more books by this author in the future though.

2.5/5

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again C.S. Lewis”

This is a beautiful reimagining of The Chronicles of Narnia. Clear your day because this is not a book you can put down once you begin. I loved the Wishing Game, and this book is another treasure by Meg Shaffer.

Rafe and Jeremy were lost in the woods at 15. They disappeared for 6 months and when they were spotted again they were a picture of health. Their glowing health and added muscle mass isn’t explained by the boys. Rafe cannot remember anything from the elapsing time, and Jeremy won’t speak of it, but has become a professional, seeking others who have disappeared.

Emilie finds Jeremy with a plea to help her find her sister who disappeared 5 years before the boys in the same forest. Jeremy accepts on the condition that Rafe accompanies them- no small feat as Rafe and Jeremy have been estranged since returning from their disappearance.

The vivid descriptions of a parallel world blew me away. A story of adventure, daring, a quest, and love is told via a narrator and I love the format and telling of this story.

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This truly stitched something back together in my fairytale loving grown up heart. I absolutely adored this but I’m not surprised as anything Meg does is usually my new favorite thing I’ve read.

This was my first book by Meg Shaffer and after having read it, I am interested in seeing what she will do next. The Lost Story has been described as Chronicles of Narnia for adults and to an extent that is fairly accurate. You follow the story of two boys who disappear into the wilderness in their town in West Virginia. They emerge 6 months later, seemingly without any memories of what happened to them during that time. Fast forward 15 years later and one boy, now an adult, Jeremy, specializes in finding lost girls. He's contacted by a young woman, Emilie, who is in search of her older half sister. This search leads Jeremy back to West Virginia and to Rafe, the other boy whom he has not seen since they re-emerged from the wilderness all those years ago. Interestingly, while Jeremy seems to remember where they were for those 6 months, Rafe has zero memories of it. The three go back into the wilderness to where Jeremy and Rafe were for those 6 months. A place called Shanandoah that truly is something out of a storybook. It's not really a spoiler to say that Jeremy and Rafe as children ended up in a Narnia-like land for those 6 months. The story of why they came back to West Virginia and why Jeremy and Rafe became estranged afterwards is more or less the emotional core of the story.

The book does an excellent job of describing Shanandoah and the fantasy-like beauty of the place. I also enjoyed the characterizations of Jeremy and Rafe as well as the simple, fairy tale-like reasons for why Jeremy remembers Shanandoah but Rafe does not. Their love story and particularly Jeremy's ironclad devotion to Rafe was incredibly touching. My main two gripes about the story was that in comparison, Emilie and her older sister felt rather thinly sketched by comparison. It's really with their characters that this story felt much closer to a YA story than Narnia for adults. There was also this writing choice of the main story getting periodically interrupted by chapters starring a Storyteller who interjects things like the rules of a fairy tale as well as giving brief background information and is essentially breaking the fourth wall. I was not a fan of this concept. I get by the end why it was written like this but I found the interruptions irritating and the tone of the Storyteller, again sent this story into something that felt very YA.

Overall, a solid, enjoyable story. I kind of hope Shaffer returns to this universe.

The Lost Story
4.5 ⭐️

All of the nostalgia for Narnia wrapped up in this story 🥰 and I loved it.

Pitched as a retelling of Chronicles of Narnia, this book is an adult reliving a childhood memory both in the story and for those who loved the Narnia world. Rafe and Jeremy must travel back to where they were lost for 6 months as children in order to help Emilie find her long lost sister.

This book is filled with beautiful characters and a magical land. Parts were so melancholy and wonderfully done. I can’t wait to read more of Meg Shaffer’s writing!

Thank you Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for the ARC!

While I haven't had the pleasure of reading Meg Shaffer's other works, she gained an instant and lifelong fan with this book. It definitely required some suspension of belief, but it was so worth it! I loved the characters, the plot and the imagination. It was wonderful.

Thank you again for the ARC!

I adored The Wishing Game when it came out and so this review pains me to write. I had all the expectations for a beautiful, fun, and magical story and The Lost Story just did not live up to the hype for me.

Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell, known as The Lost Boys, mysteriously vanished in the Red Crow Forest and reappeared six months later. Fifteen years later, Emilie Wendell is on the hunt for the sister she never knew about, and Jeremy and Rafe are the perfect people to help Emilie find her, especially since her sister Shannon went missing in the same forest just a few years before Jeremy and Rafe. But Jeremy and Rafe haven’t spoken since they were found, and only Jeremy knows the truth of where they were. As the events of fifteen years ago come to life, so does the impossible.

The plot sounds amazing and with Shaffer pulling inspiration directly from C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narina, you go in already knowing the impossible is about to happen. Instead of getting a glittering fantasy with adventure though, this read like a poor imitation of Narina and/or almost a fan fiction. I’m a huge fantasy and science fiction reader – Narina, Harry Potter, Magic Tree House, etc were my life when I was a kid, but The Lost Story tried too hard to be what Narina was to kids but to adults. And honestly it didn’t work for me.

The narration of the story is an interesting choice and switches between our main characters and an anonymous Narrator. I didn’t mind the switch up, but the story would have been 100% the same if the ‘Narrator’s’ parts had been taken out, so it just didn’t add anything for me.

Our characters were just fine. Emilie was setup to be much more than she was, and she ended up just being there as to prop up the plot. Jeremey and Rafe were a bit deeper but still neither felt terribly complex or compelling.

Shaffer is a great writer, but I think her Narina inspiration hindered her ability to really create a captivating story and magical new land. The incorporation of Narina ideas and comparisons were a bit on the nose and this felt more like a YA read with some adult topics (ie: childhood trauma, kidnapping, some child abuse etc). I know so many people are probably going to love this book, and I didn’t hate it, I just also didn’t love it and it made me wish I was just rereading The Chronicles of Narina rather than a spin off.

The Lost Story comes out July 16, 2024. Thank you to Ballantine Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my review. If you liked this review, please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof.books.

Thank you SO much to netgalley and to the publisher. I could not get enough of this read, it truly felt like a fairytale but didn't seem childish or immature. I could NOT put this down and it had this magic that I haven't found in a book in a long time. I think other readers will relate to the fairy tale like feeling of this book that transports readers into another world. I cannot wait for wherever the author chooses to go next in her stories and I will be early awaiting! The general plot is 15 years ago, two boys had gone missing in a West Virginia forest. They were found 6 months later with little details on their survival. Now, one of the boys is someone who had dedicated his life to finding missing girls and the other boy is a recluse artist. Jeremy is hired by Emilie to find her missing half sister, Shannon, who disappears from the self same State Forest many years ago.

This book was...fine. I liked some of the aspects of the magical kingdom. I also liked Emilie as a character, so I was bummed when she ended up as kind of a side character with no depth. I was expecting it to feel more like Narnia than it did. I really didn't like the Storyteller Corner. I found it pointless and distracting when it wasn't just a way to poorly summarize other events. The fantasy kingdom felt very juvenile, which I understand was kind of the point due to some spoiler-y worldbuilding, but I fell like there had to have been a better way to write it so it still felt more polished. Overall, it was decent, but I don't think it's a very good comparison to Narnia. I'd rather just go reread the original Chronicles of Narnia again.