The concept of this ‘sequel’ to Peter Pan is absolutely brilliant. What if Captain Hook isn’t the real villain of the story? What if Neverland isn’t really the utopia it seems to be to the Lost Boys?
Set seven years after the original tale, Wendy goes back to Neverland to rescue her brothers who were kidnapped. She’s a great stabby FMC who starts out believably naive, gullible, and shortsighted, but as she learns and grows, and seeks out the truth beyond the lies she’s believed for far too long, she becomes a truly wonderful character, someone I could respect and root for.
Captain Hook and Peter Pan are still brilliant foils of each other, but I love the twist Curtis worked into this story, which added so much more depth than the original has. I also absolutely loved the romance. It’s very well written and was done just right. Enemies to lovers is quite overdone, but this one is refreshing and was a delight to read.
Unfortunately, one thing I found horribly jarring, and which threw me out of the story repeatedly, were massive inconsistencies related to the setting. The original version of Peter Pan is set in the first decade of the twentieth century. So, when this was set at 7 years later, I expected the London depicted to fit how the world was just before the First World War. However, language use, information about clothing, and other elements consistently didn’t fit this picture. I then thought perhaps the author decided to use the Disney creation date of 1953 as the baseline, but that didn’t match up properly with other elements in the setting. If there had been only a few jarring cases, I might have been able to brush off my irritation, but as there are so many, I got the impression the author made absolutely no effort to research anything, and it felt sloppy.
For readers who love historical fantasy to be accurate, I’d say pass on this one; anyone who loves a good reimagining of a classic tale, enjoys fabulous twists, good characters and a nice steamy scene or two, this novel will be right up your alley! It even comes with a strong message about growing and embracing change, no matter how old you are.
