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I absolutely loved Meg Shaffer’s debut, The Wishing Game. It was charming, poignant and an utter delight, making it one of my admittedly rare 5-starred books. So when I saw she had a new book coming out, I snapped up the advanced readers copy. I’ll say up front that The Lost Story did not give me all the reading feels Wishing Game did, but it’s still quite good (4 stars).
When they were about 14 or 15 years old, Jeremy Cox and Ralph Howell went missing in a forest near their homes in West Virginia. They were gone for six months and everyone assumed they were dead. Then, one day, they just reappeared.
In the 15 years since then, Ralph has kept a very low profile; as an adult, he’s kept to himself, living in his father’s cabin in the woods. Jeremy, on the other hand, has become well known as an expert at finding missing girls and women.
Emilie, a veterinary aide from Ohio, finds Jeremy and asks him to find her sister. Emilie’s sister, whom she never knew, disappeared in the same forest the boys did five years before they went missing. She wants to know what happened to her, and Jeremy is her best hope.
What she doesn’t know, until after Jeremy finally accepts her request, is that Jeremy and Ralph (whom Jeremy always called Rafe, a nod to Jeremy’s British roots) weren’t just surviving in a forest for six months. They found a doorway that led them into a magical world called Shanandoah. And they will have to go back there to find Emilie’s sister.
While this is a journey to help Emilie, it’s just as much about Jeremy and Rafe’s unfinished business. Best friends (and possibly more?), the two hardly spoke again after their time in Shanandoah. Rafe doesn’t know why, and Jeremy has had to keep a lot of secrets, even as it broke his heart. Going back will open up old wounds but will also be the means to heal them.
The Lost Story is a magical tale about the lure of fanciful kingdoms just on the other side of secret doors, the power of writing and imagination, the bonds of family and friends, and forgiveness. A lovely nod to C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes one use of strong language, around 20 instances of moderate profanity, about a dozen uses of mild language, and 30 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes brief kissing and implied “closed-door” sex.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
