The Lost Story: A Novel

Two best friends, boys, go missing in Red Crow forest. Jeremy and Rafe. They are missing for 6 months, or were they. They are found one day and rescued. One remembers all, one remembers nothing. They spend 15 years apart, more my necessity than choice. Until the day “Princess” Emilie finds Jeremy, who has the reputation for finding lost girls. She wants to find her sister who has been missing for 20 years. Quite the adventure. Good, clean, fun story.

Two young boys fall in love. In this time and place it wasn't allowed. But it did happen. To go away to another world and not be judged. Yes, this is a fairytale. Since I was a small child I listened to fairy tales. I grew up on them.

I enjoyed reading the Storyteller's Corner and liked her comments.

I read the reviews on this book about the two boys and knew I needed to read this story. The book takes place in West Virginia. Two boys disappeared from a school trip. They were searched for for months. Never found, people gave up after a long time. They must be dead. Six months later the boys came back. In good health. One boy becomes an artist. He painted and carved animals, trees, flowers, skies and oceans that were so beautiful that were never seen on earth. Jeremy began finding lost girls and women. People missing their lost ladies paid him to find them. He was so good at his job.

Jeremy and Rafe.

Fifteen years later when the two were almost thirty, the two got back together. Jeremy had gone back to England, then decided to look up Rafe. Rafe lived in an old shack which was decorated, painted, and carved to look so beautiful and unworldly. He was a recluse.

A young lady, Emilie, 23. hired Jeremy to look for her lost sister, Shannon. Emilie had been adopted by a wealthy woman and had everything she wanted. Shannon, coming home on a school bus, was dragged from the bus by an evil man. His body was found dead, eyes picked out. Shannon's body was never found. Emilie's mother was dead, badly missed. No relatives. Emilie needed to have her sister buried, a tombstone, not forgotten as though she never was.

Off to a beautiful world, a magic world, a fairytale world. This part of the book takes this reader far away to this place. Beautiful animals, horses, dragons, unicorns which fascinated Rafe when he first saw a unicorn. There is a bright red crow, Aurora. She is the queen's friend and spy. The evil Bright Boys, who liked to start problems. An interesting bunch, all of them good and bad. There are a few secrets. A world of danger. Imaginative. Adventure. Great read for those who like fairy tales.

The trip to Shanandoah was my favorite part of the book.

I keep saying I don’t like fantasy but clearly I do. While I wasn’t overly thrilled with Meg Schaffer’s first book, I absolutely loved this one. It has everything you’d ever want in a fantasy novel, plus it pays homage to some of the great fantasy books of childhood. When best friends Jeremy and Rafe were teenagers they were lost in the woods of West Virginia. Just as mysteriously as they disappeared, six months later they reappeared looking just as healthy and robust as the day they went missing. Rafe can’t remember anything from the night before he disappeared onward Jeremy refused to talk about it. 15 years later they are no longer friends and Jeremy is well known for his skill of finding missing girls and women. When he’s approached by Emilie, a young woman looking for her long lost sister, he knows it’s time to get Rafe and head back into the woods to help Emilie find her sister and Rafe to find his memories. I loved everything about this. Ms. Shaffer has created a book so magical you can feel it through the pages as you’re reading. Her descriptions are so vivid and the story really came alive within my head. While it is categorized as Women’s Fiction I think teenagers who are fans of the fantasy genre will love it too.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group for this free digital review copy.

This book was, as promised, very clearly Narnia-inspired, which I loved! I appreciated all the allusions to Narnia (especially "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"), and honestly I'm sure I missed some, and also appreciated that the Narnia books were actually mentioned and quoted in the story – that nod to the inspiration was a little meta and very fun.

That being said, I feel like I have to caveat this to say "The Lost Story" is essentially Narnia, but what if the characters weren't siblings and so were all romantically involved with one another in various (never explicit but definitely very adult) ways. I was expecting the male/male relationship to unfold, but when the woman was tossed into the mix too I was very much caught by surprise; it didn't affect my love for the magical story that this was, but I think it could dampen the enjoyment for some people.

Jeremy and Rafe disappeared in the woods when they were 15 years old, reappearing six months later somehow healthier than before. Rafe can't remember anything and Jeremy isn't telling, for reasons that are made clear later in the story. Fifteen years later, Jeremy has made a name for himself as a finder of lost people, and Emilie comes to him with a request: Will he help her find her half sister, whom she's just discovered and who disappeared in the same woods five years prior to Jeremy's own disappearance/reappearance? Jeremy agrees, but he needs Rafe's help, and since they haven't spoken in 15 years, securing it from the reclusive Rafe is going to be a bit tricky.

Rafe agrees to help after securing a promise from Jeremy that he will finally tell him everything he can't remember, and the truth turns out to be full of magic. When the boys were lost all those years ago, they stumbled upon the the magical realm of Shanandoah; when they left, the only way to secure the ability to return was for one of them to forget everything but retain the knowledge of how to return (Rafe), while the other could remember their time in Shanandoah but be unable to remember how to get there (Jeremy), necessitating them to reunite in order to return. Along with Emilie, the boys (now men) return to Shanandoah, maybe for the last time.

It was really sweet seeing Rafe regain his memories, both good and bad, and how the other characters supported him through his grief. The magic in this story was very fairytale-esque, with bad guys that were truly bad but also very defeatable, absurdities that only a kid would think of, and an ambiguous ending that left room for plenty more magic in their futures. The whimsical feel of this novel was certainly reminiscent of Shaffer's first novel, "The Wishing Game," which I gave five stars last summer.

📚 The Lost Story ✍ Meg Shaffer 📖 Fiction/Fantasy ⭐3.25/5

➡ Fifteen years ago, Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell walked out of Red Crow Forest in West Virginia virtually unharmed after going missing for six months. Despite being almost inseparable before their disappearance, Jeremy leaves their small town immediately after they are found and the two haven't spoken since.

Now, Jeremy spends his days channeling an impossible sixth sense that allows him to find missing girls and women around the globe while Rafe lives an agoraphobic existence in a small hidden cabin in the woods. When Emilie Wendell tracks Jeremy down and asks for his help to find sister who went missing 20 years ago in the same forest that Jeremy and Rafe disappeared in, he knows that only Rafe can help him track her down. But to get Rafe to agree to go back into the forest, and to the lives they left behind 15 years ago will take more than a little magic. ◾ 🙏 Thank you to Ballantine Books, NetGalley and Meg Shaffer for an advanced copy of The Lost Story. All opinions are my own. ◾ 🎯 What I loved: I really enjoyed Shaffer's 2023 release The Wishing Game and felt like it had just enough magic without veering into fantasy territory. With The Lost Story, it's safe to say that Shaffer has officially made the fantasy jump. Toggling between the real world and a fantastical realm imagined by a teenage girl, The Lost Story is adventurous and mystical with touches of heart and romance that reminded me of her previous book. The book explores themes of belonging, family and escapism and I think it would be a great book to discuss as part of a book club!

🙅‍♀️ What I didn't: Though I was drawn in by the creative premise, I did find that the focus was less on the story than the details of the imaginary environment where the story was set. Despite getting decent backstories about each of the characters, I didn't feel emotionally attached to them and I didn't feel the connection between Emilie and her sister. I want to say that it's because this read like a movie and I needed the visual connection to what was happening but it also could have been because most of their conversations were very surface level. Beyond that, I was confused about some of the royal relationships (i.e. I think there were multiple romances happening in the castle) and how the narrator interjections were supposed to play into the book (again- this very much read like a movie). I do think this book will work for anyone that loves fantasy and getting lost in mystical worlds- that's just not my personal forte. ◾ Read if you love: *Chronicles of Narnia & beloved children's fantasy series *found family *magical realism + fantastical realms *adventures! ◾ See also: Rules for Vanishing, Starling House (for a more horror-ish take on imaginative realms), This Will Be Fun

I was immediately swept up in this closed-door gay romantasy fairytale from Meg Shaffer. Part Narnian fantasy, part second chance romance, all mystery, magic and adventure, it's a very hard book to put down. I had to know what could possibly happen next! It's about reunions, family drama, forgiveness and finding what's been lost. Chapters narrated by Rafe and Jeremy are broken up by the omniscient narrators' chapters breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the reader. It has a really good set up and premise but falls a little short for me in the plot.

Rafe and Jeremy disappear into the West Virginia woods in their teens and are found again six months later by hikers. Rafe has no memory of the last six months and is injured; Jeremy remembers everything but can't tell. Fifteen years later the estranged friends now have special abilities. Jeremy can find lost people and things. Rafe has serious bow and arrow skills and a mysterious connection with animals, (especially birds). When Emilie seeks out Jeremy to help her find her older sister Shannon who was kidnapped and lost in the same West Virginia woods, the adventure begins and the secret of what happened to the boys while they were lost in the woods begins to unravel. Rafe, Jeremy and Emilie team up to search for Shannon and end up getting a second chance at happiness, dealing with childhood trauma, forgiving their pasts and forging new futures.

The fantasy world adventures were kind of underwhelming and existed more to be a safe place for Rafe and Jeremy to be in love than as a world in need of saving. The "big bad" was obvious and wasn't a big enough villain to create a satisfying climax in the storyline. WAS that spider shoot the plot climax? I'm unsure. The descriptions of the ghost town reminded me of the "upside-down" in Stranger Things. Why did nobody want to help these poor souls? I guess it just didn't feel like the stakes were that high for the gay romance. It's 2024 and 3 out of four of their parents are dead. Who's to stop them? Let your freak flag fly, guys!

Shannon/Skya's character was interesting, but I felt like we didn't get enough interaction between her and the other characters to really care about her. It was like when you get together with a bunch of people who have history, and they tell anecdotes about all the fun things they used to get up to instead of talking about where they are in life now. There were so many anecdotal asides about these adventures they had 15 years ago, and I was like, "Who cares? Get back to the chase!" or whatever.

Shaffer leaves it open for a sequel, but I don't think one is needed. I think THIS is the sequel and Shaffer just never wrote the first book because it wouldn't have the happy ending all fairytales need.