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 vanished in a West Virginia state park, 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, Jeremy is a famous missing persons investigator with an uncanny ability to find the lost, while Rafe is a reclusive artist unable to stop creating otherworldly paintings and sculptures he shows to no one. He bears scars inside and out from his disappearance but has no memory of what happened while they were gone. 
 
Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth behind their time in the woods. 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. 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 when vet tech Emilie Wendel hires Jeremy to find her long-lost sister . . . the long-lost sister he and Rafe knew while living in that hidden kingdom. Now the former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories. Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy return to the enchanted world they called home for six months . . . for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.

“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

“Shaffer speaks to every reader who yearns for a more magical world.”—Thao Thai, author of Banyan Moon

PRAISE FOR MEG SHAFFER’S THE WISHING GAME

“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 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

PRE-ORDER: AMAZON (US) • AMAZON (UK) • AMAZON (AUS) • AMAZON (CAN) • APPLE BOOKS • AUDIBLE • BARNES & NOBLE • BOOKS-A-MILLION • BOOKSHOP.ORG • GOOGLE PLAY • KOBO • LIBRO.FM • TARGET

SIGNED COPIES VIA CARMICHAEL’S IN LOUISVILLE

ON SALE JULY 16, 2024

Ballantine and Penguin Random House Audio (US/Can)

Jo Fletcher Books/Quercus (UK/Aus)

304 Pages • Hardcover/eBook/Audio/Large Print Paperback

HC ISBN 978-0593598870

UK/Aus HC ISBN 978-1529436310

LARGE PRINT PB ISBN TBD

Author Photo Credit: Chanel Nicole Co.