Ever since the first book in the 'Wayward Children' series, which is a doorway that opened up back in 2016 but I didn't discover until this time last year, I've wanted to know more about the structure behind the connected worlds that Seanan McGuire created. I guess that means I belong in a logical world and, while there are plenty of moments in plenty of worlds thus far that I would enjoy, none of those worlds have resonated for me quite like the Shop Where the Lost Things Go.
That's why it seems a little weird to me as well as to Antsy, who's just spent more years of her life than she should have done there, that Eleanor West categorise the Shop as a nonsense world and have her room with Cora, the mermaid from the Trenches, which she also categorised as nonsense. That's, well, nonsense, and McGuire knows it. She's setting us up for things and many of those are things we've waited for since the very beginning. Here is where we truly start to learn about what lies behind the Doors, even if we're not let in on everything. After all, I'm sure there are plenty of 'Wayward Children' novellas still to come.
Like the Shop, this book is a nexus for the series. It's a beginning in so many ways, but it also seems to be an ending for quite a few characters, even if those endings aren't always either what we were expecting or when. You see, as 'Lost in the Moment and Found' ably highlighted, Antsy isn't merely a Wayward Child, who walked through her own door at a critical moment and later returned to our world, she's someone who can find things. It's a talent she has and it's innate to who she is. It's not an unconscious thing, because there are lost things around us all that she doesn't notice. However, if she wants to find something or someone asks her to and it becomes a conscious thing, she can do it every time.
And this book starts with her arriving at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, at which all the students and many of the staff would dearly like to be able to find the door that's all that lies between them and the worlds where they truly belong. Of course someone realises this soon into the book and asks Antsy and we're off and running. We all saw that coming in 'Lost in the Moment and Found'. Not going there in this book would have been a cheat and McGuire wouldn't do that to us. Most of us are wayward children too.
The problem is that the student who asks is Seraphina, one of the nastiest characters in the series, who comes from a world where she was made so beautiful that nobody can ever resist her, except for Christopher, because as impeccably beautiful as she is, she has flesh on her bones and so she's just not up his alley. So she doesn't so much ask as hypnotise Antsy into doing her bidding, which is never the same thing. Fortunately, Christopher interrupts and she's rescued by the usual questing group and Antsy opens a door that's been in Kade's room all along and...
And I'll shut up now because I don't spoil books anyway and this would be a very easy one to spoil. Oddly, the deeper I dive the more I might be spoiling things for myself, because McGuire is acutely fond of throwing minor characters we probably don't even remember into new books in different situations and we're pretty sure that this person is that person and, well, we'll have to go back to book two or five or seven to refresh ourselves. Case in point: I know Antsy from her origin story in 'Lost in the Moment and Found' but I'm suddenly sure that she plays a minor but pivotal role one book earlier in 'Where the Drowned Girls Go'.
Certainly, many of the primary characters from the novellas that aren't origin stories and spend a decent amount of time at Eleanor West's play pivotal roles. Kade, Christopher, Sumi and Cora are the most obvious, along with Eleanor herself and a string of characters who escaped from the evil Whitethorn Institute in 'Where the Drowned Girls Go'. There are references to many more, who do not appear here but shaped who some of these primaries are and are remembered fondly. This is a strange series where many of the books could viably work as your first, but few of them should be. Really, you should start with 'Every Heart a Doorway' and then make your decisions about who to follow. I'm happy I followed it through in publication order, but you don't have to. Just Be Sure.
If there's a primary character here, though, it's Antsy, who got an origin story last time out and an establishment story here. I felt 'Lost in the Moment and Found' powerfully and wasn't worried at all about how Antsy would end up. However, I didn't know how that would be until now and I'm very happy indeed about how her story plays out, both for her sake and because it allows us to see how quite a few other stories play out too. There's a dinosaur on the cover so I guess it's no spoiler if I'd let slip that we spend some time in a world with them. It may only be there so McGuire could throw out a very particular line but she does it with aplomb and I enjoyed it anyway.
That means that this one does a lot more than 'Lost in the Moment and Found' and I'm very happy about that, but it doesn't provide the same impact as that one did for me, even if we get to spend more time in the Shop Where the Lost Things Go. As a nexus, I hope we spend more time there in a variety of future books. It would seem very possible, which would mean that we'll get more Antsy and Hudson too, which would never be a bad thing. Now, how can I send in my cv? I probably ought not to open a lot of doors there, if the Shop would even let me, but I'd be happy organising. ~~ Hal C F Astell
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