What happens when you take the Christian allegory out of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, modernize it and add a little queer joy and some millennial/gen-z humor—I’m not lying I legit rolled my eyes at booping death on the nose? Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story is what happens and it was a delightful fantastical journey that I very much enjoyed.
The publisher reached out with a review copy in early 2024 and I finally got around to it just over a year later and it was worth the wait.* When I got to the passage that the publisher included in the outreach email I gasped and was like “THIS is why I requested it!” (I 100% did not re-read that email before starting this on vacation, I just knew exactly what it was and verified it afterward.)
I had no intentions of reading this book (or the entire series) even though I’m already looking ahead to Manslaughter Park, the adaptation of 
I’ve been knitting off and on for 20+ years, but really got back into it 7-8 years ago after 2-3 years of a little bit more off-and-on. This past November I took the leap and jumped into the knitting/fiber podcasting/vlogging world and haven’t looked back.
When the publisher reached out about this one they referred to it as “cottage core fantasy” and I was like OMFG I am here for this.* One of my favorite game streamers does cottage core Minecraft and I may have been watching it at the time. This was back in January of 2024 (SHAME ON ME I KNOW) and after a wild year last year I finally picked this one up and it was lovely.
When the publisher reached out to me with a copy of this, I went back and forth on whether to accept.* I was still making my way through the first in the series and it was a bit of a slog, but as I neared the end I found myself really enjoying that one and wanted to know what happened so I grabbed a digital copy of it—but for real go look at the physical copy . . . I mean those green edges are GORGEOUS!