The Lost Story: A Novel
Description
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 wildly imaginative book speaks to every reader who yearns for a more magical world.”—Thao Thai, author of Banyan Moon, a Today show Read with Jenna pick
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.
Praise for The Lost Story: A Novel
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, author of Empire Falls and the North Bath Trilogy
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)
“A heartwarming, page-turning story of found family and the world-changing power of a good book.”—Melissa Albert, New York Times bestselling author of The Hazel Wood
“A dreamy, inventive novel about how books can not only change lives but save them, too.”—Sarah Addison Allen, New York Times bestselling author of Other Birds
“Meg Shaffer’s debut establishes her as one of the best.”—Gwenda Bond, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. & Mrs. Witch
“Magical, emotional, and charming.”—Booklist
