Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire

Winner: 2022 Hugo Award for Best Series A 2023 Indie Next Pick! A young girl discovers an infinite variety of worlds in this standalone tale in the Hugo and Nebula Award-wining Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found. Welcome to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go. If you ever lost a sock, you’ll find it here. If you ever wondered about favorite toy from childhood... it’s probably sitting on a shelf in the back. And the headphones that you swore this time you’d keep safe? You guessed it.... Antoinette has lost her father. Metaphorically. He’s not in the shop, and she’ll never see him again. But when Antsy finds herself lost (literally, this time), she discovers that however many doors open for her, leaving the Shop for good might not be as simple as it sounds. And stepping through those doors exacts a price. Lost in the Moment and Found tells us that childhood and innocence, once lost, can never be found. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Okay, if they keep getting better, I might end up as a fan of this series, after all.

Seanan McGuire has rare ability to delve into deep subjects, in this case loss without drowning the reader in sorrow. This ability is what makes Wayward Children such a beautiful and compelling series. In this instance, the newest Wayward story, Lost in the Moment and Found, is a story about loss in all of its iterations.

Antoinette, or Antsy as she is refereed starts the story through here memory as a child of her father dying right in front of her, at Target of all places. The pain she feels at the loss of her beloved father colors her interactions through the rest of the story. And, while the pain of loss dulls with time and experience, the wound never really leaves you. Antsy is wounded, and dealing with trauma. Her mother, flawed as she is trying to make her way through the grief of the loss of her husband. And in that grief, she find love with a new man. Although Ansty doesn't trust the man, a child's intuition, she tries to be civil with him. But, there is a reason why loss is discussed in many forms and Antsy ends up physically lost hiding in the doorstop of a shop with big words above the door:

“Be Sure”

Antsy decides that she is, pushes through and finds out where lost things go. We start a journey into grief, healing, and loss. While Antsy is lost in so many ways, McGuire never for one moment allows the audience to become lost. We are at rapt attention page by page. If you haven't started this series, you aught to. This is one of the best series being written today, book after book. And I am sure that you will enjoy it as much as I did. if you decide to make the leap, and purchase the slim first book of the series, pause for a moment. Take a deep breath and be sure because you are about to go on an adventure.

Gutted that I have caught up on this series. Time to be back in my born world for a while. I look forward to finding another Door soon, I'm sure.

I loved this iteration. It's about any characters that I already knew although there were some honourable mentions. I loved the idea of a place where things are lost just a giant library of lost things ready for them to be picked up when they needed them. And like many things in this series, there was another dark turn.

It really felt like Ansty, with her experiences is being set up less as a student and more as a future teacher or caretaker of Eleanor West???s Home for Wayward Children. To replace Eleanor. I got that vibe anyway. I am so sad these books are not longer. I wish there were 50 more of them.