The Backlot Gay Book Forum discussion

Office of the Lost (Chaos and Order, book 1)
By J. Scott Coatsworth and Kim Fielding
Published 2025 by OtherWorldsInk and Tin Box
Five stars

This marvelous new collaboration between Scott Coatsworth and Kim Fielding is both farcical and frightening—not to mention poignant and thought-provoking. If it reminded me of anything I’ve read before, it might be T.J. Klune’s “Tales of Verania” series.

The story is full of twists. At first it seems like a sort of classic opposites attract romance—when Crispin, as self-defined “desk fae,” is sent out to find Leopold Lane and bring him back to the Office of the Lost. Crispin, although his mother is the Queen of the Fae, has chosen a quiet, orderly life as a curator in the Office of the Lost (an eerie entity described in the book as being something like the warehouse shown at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark). Leopold, on the other hand, is what one might describe as a hot mess. Clumsy and unlucky, everything in his life seems to go awry.

The moment Crispin finds Leopold, things start to go wrong, launching these two young guys into an adventure that bounces them through several of the many worlds in the universe. The entire arc of the narrative is discovering what’s happened and why—and along the way discovering who Leopold and Crispin really are.

As a retired museum curator, I could fully embrace the idea of the Office of the Lost, filled with unseen treasures being kept safe until they are needed. The definition of what makes something a treasure is important here, as well as the idea of what makes something useful. This is not a world most readers think about, and the authors take their time making sense of it.

As the subtitle suggests, this is the set-up for a series, and not just a single rollicking story by itself. The authors create a crazy, terrifying-yet-hilarious world in which we ultimately realize both Crispin and Leopold are important (but don’t know it yet). The authors’ imaginations are on full-speed-ahead, and their use of dialogue and action, as well as vivid description, keeps the reader turning the pages.

Of course, the book’s m/m roots show in the backstories of both main characters. These are lonely young men who try hard not to dwell on what they lack in their lives. The chaos unleashed by their initial meeting becomes the pathway to self-discovery. The reader falls for both Crispin and Leopold, despite their rather enormous differences. Good hearts, gentle souls, best intentions. For me, that’s an emotional trifecta.

I can’t wait for the next book in the series, and hope there are many to come.