The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

I love fantasy, but for me the best fantasy books aren’t simply about magic, strange creatures and imaginary worlds. I want characters I care about and a story that has something human underneath all the escapism. The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer gave me exactly that.

There is something wonderfully nostalgic about this book. It’s inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, and you can absolutely feel those echoes of disappearing into another world and discovering somewhere magical that shouldn’t possibly exist. But this is very much a fantasy story for adults. The characters have grown up, life has left its scars and returning to a magical world isn’t necessarily as simple as stepping through a wardrobe.

The story begins with Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell, best friends who disappeared as teenagers in a West Virginia forest. Six months later they mysteriously reappeared, with no explanation for where they had been or how they had survived. Fifteen years on, Rafe is a reclusive artist with no memory of what happened during those missing months, while Jeremy has become famous for his almost uncanny ability to find missing people.

Then Emilie Wendell asks Jeremy to help find her long-lost sister, who disappeared in the same forest. Jeremy knows something nobody else does: he and Rafe weren’t really lost in the woods all those years ago. They were somewhere else entirely.

And that is where the magic begins.

Narnia for grown-ups

The Narnia influence was one of the things I loved most about The Lost Story. There is the portal to another realm, the wonder of discovering an impossible place and that feeling of longing for somewhere magical that you once knew.

But Meg Shaffer does something interesting with the idea by asking what happens afterwards. What would it actually be like to experience something extraordinary as a child and then be returned to the ordinary world and expected to get on with your life?

These aren’t children having a magical adventure anymore. Rafe and Jeremy are adults carrying the consequences of what happened before, and that gives the story much more emotional depth than I initially expected.

It has the wonder of childhood fantasy, but also the complications of adulthood: loss, trauma, difficult families, love, memory and the question of whether it’s ever really possible to go back.

Characters I really cared about

The characters were a huge part of why this worked for me. Rafe’s story in particular has real emotional weight, and his complicated relationship with his father adds another dimension to everything that has happened to him. There is anger, hurt and a longing for connection underneath it all, and I found that side of his story incredibly moving.

Then there is Jeremy, whose relationship with Rafe is at the heart of the book. There are things Jeremy knows that Rafe doesn’t, and I loved watching their history gradually unfold without knowing exactly where Shaffer was going to take it.

I also loved Emilie. She’s determined, fierce and completely focused on finding her sister, but her journey becomes about much more than the search that initially brings the three characters together. I found myself really rooting for her.

That’s probably the biggest compliment I can give the book. I cared what happened to these people. However beautiful a fantasy world is, it doesn’t mean much if you aren’t emotionally invested in the people walking through it.

Fantasy with real emotion underneath it

What surprised me about The Lost Story was how much emotional territory sits underneath the fantasy.

There are magical kingdoms and extraordinary discoveries, but there are also damaged relationships, difficult childhoods, loneliness, family and the different ways people deal with things that have hurt them. The magic doesn’t replace those parts of the story; it gives Shaffer another way of exploring them.

I think that’s why the Narnia comparison works so well for me. There’s something about fantasy that allows us to explore quite painful subjects while still giving us that sense of wonder and escape.

This feels like a book written for people who grew up loving stories about secret worlds and still, somewhere deep down, hope that there might be one hiding behind a wardrobe or through a gap in the trees.

About Meg Shaffer

Meg Shaffer is also the author of The Wishing Game, which was a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist and helped establish her particular style of warm, emotionally driven fantasy. She holds an MFA in TV and Screenwriting from Stephens College and lives in Kentucky with her husband and two cats.

Her screenwriting background makes complete sense to me because The Lost Story is incredibly visual. I could easily picture this world and these characters on screen.

The Lost Story was published in 2024. The UK edition is published by Jo Fletcher Books, part of Quercus, while Ballantine Books publishes the novel in the US.

My verdict

★★★★★ 5 out of 5 stars.

I loved The Lost Story. It gave me the magical escapism I want from fantasy, but there was enough emotional depth underneath it to make me genuinely care about what happened to Rafe, Jeremy and Emilie.

If you grew up loving The Chronicles of Narnia, I think there is something particularly lovely about reading a story that understands the nostalgia we have for those imaginary worlds while looking at them through adult eyes. It’s about finding somewhere magical, but it’s also about friendship, family, love, loss and what happens to us when we come home again. For me, that’s when fantasy is at its best. Give me the impossible worlds and the magic, but give me characters with something real at stake too.

The Lost Story does both beautifully.

Jill Newey
Editor-in-Chief

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