Meet Meg Shaffer from Kentucky, bestselling author of The Wishing Game
For Meg Shaffer, much of the magic of her bestsellers comes from the cafes of Louisville.
Characters come to life on her screen as they sip iced coffee with cream at Quills Coffee on Frankfort Avenue and Heine Brothers on Chenoweth Lane. Sometimes, over a steaming cup at Fante’s Coffeehouse, the details of a new world take shape. Each day, she and her husband choose a Derby City cafe that becomes the setting in which she writes novels. Her work is aimed at adult readers who appreciated stories as children. Shaffer’s first novel, “The Wishing Game,” is loosely inspired by Gene Wilder’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” and her newly released “The Lost Story” began as an unexpected cross between “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “Lord of the Flies” that morphed into a romantic fantasy.
While these stories will certainly seem cozy and familiar to bookworms, other Kentuckians will find some delightful bluegrass gems hidden between the pages.
In “The Wishing Game,” a chicken-fried Kentuckian is performed as part of a competition called “The Utterly Impossible Scavenger Hunt.” “The Lost Story,” released this month, is set in Bernheim Forest, only Shaffer’s version is the home of real Giants instead of the large wooden sculptures we see 25 miles south of Louisville.
A native of Owensboro, a graduate of Centre College in Danville and a homeowner in Louisville, Shaffer is a Kentuckian through and through.
She’s also a nationally bestselling author, and we’ll probably be hearing more from her. She has a book deal with publishing giant Penguin Random House for at least two more novels.
The afternoon before the July 16 release of “The Lost Story,” Shaffer had 80 pre-sold copies left to sign before attending a launch party at Carmichael’s bookstore on Frankfort Avenue. She and her husband, fellow bestselling author Andrew Shaffer, planned to lug several copies from their allotment into the store, fearing they might sell out during the event. Shaffer’s wistful brand of magic has quickly captivated readers and put her name alongside some of the country’s best titles. The Louisville author is a Book of the Month finalist, a USA Today bestseller and a Barnes and Noble No. 1 bestseller.
Nevertheless, she spent about half an hour on the phone and told me a completely different story than the eagerly awaited “The Lost Story”. Her own story.
Just as Shaffer’s novels appeal to magic-hungry readers who believe in stories so much that many are still secretly waiting for their Harry Potter Hogwarts acceptance letter, this new, exciting chapter in her writing career was born out of something that is widely relatable. She had been chewing on the idea for The Wishing Game for nearly five years, but the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic ripped the story away from her.
In particular, her 21-year-old cat Honeytoast “hung in there” for her and her husband during lockdown and after society reopened. She died around the time they received their first vaccination. The Shaffers are heartbroken and still in the midst of the pandemic.
During those tough months, Shaffer needed the joy she found in creating the whimsical clock island that is home to a wish-granting mastermind in “The Wishing Game,” just as her ever-growing fan base needed something light to read.
“This is about the power of books to get us through dark passages in our lives,” Shaffer told me. “I think that’s why people have clung to them so much after the lockdown and the pandemic.”
The whimsical, hopeful tale was unlike anything Shaffer had ever published, but it certainly wasn’t her first foray into the world of storytelling. She has published 35 romantic and erotic titles, including the popular “The Original Sinners” series, published under a different pen name, Tiffany Reisz. After cranking out about four romance novels a year for over a decade, she was craving a change. “The Wishing Game” was so successful when it hit shelves in 2023 that now, with her publisher’s support, she can “send Tiffany to a farm in the upstate” and put Meg in a more family-friendly spotlight.
The older you get, the closer you feel to your childhood, she told me. In recent years, she began to return to the books she loved in her youth. The idea for “The Lost Story” came in 2018 when she re-read William Golding’s 1954 novel “Lord of the Flies.” Re-encountering the characters Ralph and Jack, stranded on an island after a plane crash, made her sad. She wanted to know what happened to these boys 15 or 20 years after they survived.
“When you’re young, you want to grow up, and when you’re older, you want to be young again,” she explained. “I read middle school books, and I miss that feeling. I’m an old married woman now, and I miss sitting by the window in a summer rain, reading ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ and eating ice cream like I did so many summers in Owensboro.”
As fascinated as she was by Lord of the Flies, she couldn’t publish a sequel to a novel that wasn’t in the public domain, so she put the book back on her shelf, next to the box containing The Chronicles of Narnia.
Then, she says, in an almost Hollywood way, she had a eureka moment. She realized that if she took inspiration from both classic stories and rearranged the origins, she had created the framework for what would become “The Lost Story.”
“Writers are vultures, and we steal every good idea we find,” she told me with teasing sincerity.
She submitted the first 20 pages as a sample to a writers’ workshop hosted by Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo. She was accepted. Six years and many drafts later, the famous author was advertising the front cover of her book.
“This is the book you’ve been waiting for,” says Russo on the cover.
At the recent grand opening of Carmichael’s Bookstore, her Kentuckiana fans agreed.
“It rekindles the love of reading,” said Willie Graham, one of the lucky few in the room who had already read an advance copy of “The Lost Story.” “It’s a fairy tale for adults and readers of all kinds. You will experience a rollercoaster of emotions and at the end of the day, after reading this book, you will be on top of the world.”
Of the 130 books Graham has read this year, The Lost Story is clearly among her top three.
Donna Reidel liked The Wishing Game so much that she had to re-read parts of it. The professor emerita at Jefferson County Technical College reads four books a week and says honestly that there aren’t many books that touch her as much as Shaffer’s work.
“I don’t know how to explain it, but it just made me believe in fairy tales again,” Reidel told me.
Having finished The Lost Story, Shaffer is now turning her attention to her third book under the name Meg Shaffer. It doesn’t have an official title yet, but just as The Wishing Game and The Lost Story might sound familiar to readers, she suspects this one will too. This time, she’s delving into crime fiction, taking inspiration from the famous Nancy Drew crime series. Eventually, she’d like to continue The Lost Story, too, she said. She didn’t leave a cliffhanger at the end, but there’s the possibility for more if her readership clamors for a sequel or two.
While there are undoubtedly fantasy elements in Shaffer’s stories, Shaffer’s ability to dazzle her audiences rests largely on the nostalgia and warmth that linger in her pages.
Before we hung up last week, I tried to harness that magic again.
In “The Wishing Game,” the Mastermind says, “The only wishes that ever get granted are the wishes of brave children who keep wishing even when it seems like no one is listening, because there is always someone, somewhere, listening.”
“So what do you want now?” I asked Shaffer just hours before the debut of “The Lost Story.”
“That’s a good question,” she told me.
Then she paused thoughtfully and said, “I hope the readers who need The Lost Story find it, because I think when they find it, they’ll be glad they found it. … There’s a reader out there who will appreciate this book on a very, very deep level, and I just hope they find it.”
Magic appears in literature in so many ways.
It doesn’t have to be about looking for a golden ticket to the chocolate factory, visiting the wardrobe in Narnia or meeting a real giant in “The Lost Story” version of the Bernheim Forest.
“There is no better feeling than finding a book that was written for you,” she concluded.
Columnist Maggie Menderski writes about what makes Louisville, Southern Indiana and Kentucky unique, wonderful and sometimes a little weird. If you have something in your family, your town or even your closet that fits that description, she wants to hear from you. Say hi at [email protected].
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