My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Fantasy
Release Date: July 16th, 2024
Pages: 336
Synopsis:
“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.”
Review:
I think I let my own hype for this one get too high, because it was slightly disappointing to me.
Her debut last year was one of my top ten books of the year, I truly adored that book so, needless to say, I was very excited for this one.
But it just didn’t at all give me the same feelings I had when reading The Wishing Game.
The writing/prose was stunning, I tabbed this one a lot.
I liked the characters just okay, but I didn’t realize this was going to be so romance heavy.
I liked the narrator interjections.
The pacing was too slow-building and the plot fell a little flat for me.
The world-building was severely lacking. I mean, it’s Narnia inspired, I expected way more enchanting, magical aspects.
Overall, it was just okay, it really didn’t live up to my own expectations.
3.5 rounded up.
Read if you like:
- The world of Narnia 🌳
- Adventure 👟
- Fairytale-esque stories 🪄
Huge thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for gifting me an early copy of this amazing story! I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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