And this is why I like to give authors two or three books before I write them off

A few weeks ago I read a book by Sarah Beth Durst that almost turned me off of her completely as an author. However, I’d bought The Lost at the same time as that one and so felt obligated to read it. I’m glad I did. The Lost is a haunting novel about loss and finding what you need within yourself.

Lauren decides to keep going straight one day instead of turning onto her work street and proceeds to drive into the desert. She’s running away, and she knows she’s running away, but she’s just no ready to face her life. As she starts to run out of gas, she starts to look for a town to fill up so she can turn around and force herself to face what lies behind her. After passing through a dust storm she stumbles across the strangest town she’s ever seen and finds that she can’t leave.

It’s a story structure that I’ve encountered before in various platforms; people arrive in a strange town and find that they can’t leave for some mystical reason. It’s another story that I enjoy, and I like seeing what authors can bring to it. What separates this one out is the haunting descriptions of the town, making you understand just how lonely and desolate the town, and Lauren’s current life, is. The people in this town have all lost something, and they can’t return home until they find it. It’s a lovely, if a bit obvious, metaphor for the dreams and hopes that we need in our lives to make them beautiful.

I really enjoyed the romance in the novel. Peter is a grown up Peter Pan watching his flock of lost people. He’s sexy and a bit capricious. He’s funny and sweet and as desperate as he is for his Wendy to stay, he lets her go when the time comes.

I absolutely recommend this on. However, one caveat: while the story is fully complete by the end of the novel and I don’t think it ends on a particular cliffhanger, there were supposed to be two sequels to the novel. Those sequels will probably not be published due to various issues with the publisher. As I said, I think the story ends in a good place, there are questions that could be answered in future novels but I don’t think they need to be answered to make the story complete.