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The Lost Story

by Meg Shaffer

A return to the forest—and the world beyond

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A return to the forest—and the world beyond

A childhood disappearance in a West Virginia forest links two former best friends to a magical realm they experienced together, though only Jeremy remembers what happened there. Fifteen years later, his work as a missing-persons investigator brings him back to the forest with Emilie Wendell, whose sister has vanished in the same place. The search also draws Rafe, now a reclusive artist, into the buried history of their own disappearance. The adventure combines a present-day search with a return to an enchanted world marked by both danger and wonder, while questions of memory, secrecy, and shared loss shape the characters’ journey.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Adults interested in fantasy adventures that connect a contemporary search with a magical realm.
  • Readers who enjoy stories about friendship, shared history, and unresolved memories.
  • Fans of fairy-tale-inspired fiction with a missing-person mystery at its center.

Themes

Friendship and shared historyMemory and secrecyDisappearance and lossFantasy realms and quests

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - 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 is the book you've been waiting for."--Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls and the North Bath Trilogy


AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

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.
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