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.
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.
This is a whimsical fairy-tale like story with adult themes relating to PTSD, homophobia, abuses, and family dynamics. There is a mystery element as well as the team searches for Shannon while trying to resolve some past issues.
This book has quite a few magical and fantastical elements that made for an interesting story and kept things lively. This is an easy read. I wasn't always invested in the characters though and that's why I'm giving this four stars. In some respects it felt like a storytelling experiment with how the story is told, but that was one of the more interesting aspects of the book. It didn't always work for me.
About the Author
Meg Shaffer is the USA Today bestselling author of The Wishing Game, which was a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist, a Book-of-the-Month finalist for Book of the Year, a #1 Barnes & Noble bestseller, and a Reader’s Digest Best Book of the Year.
She holds an MFA in TV and Screenwriting from Stephens College. Her second novel, the instant national bestseller The Lost Story, is available now from Ballantine.
Shaffer lives in Kentucky with her husband and two cats. The cats are not writers.
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