A gorgeous literary feminist take on what happened to Wendy and Captain Hook after Neverland from the bestselling author of Wendy, Darling, perfect for fans of Christina Henry and V.E. Schwab.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from A.C. Wise’s Hooked, which is out July 12th.
Once invited, always welcome.
Once invited, never free.
Captain James Hook, the immortal pirate of Neverland, has died a thousand times. Drowned, stabbed by Peter Pan’s sword, eaten by the beast swimming below the depths, yet James was resurrected every time by one boy’s dark imagination. Until he found a door in the sky, an escape. And he took the chance no matter the cost.
Now in London twenty-two years later, Peter Pan’s monster has found Captain Hook again, intent on revenge. But a chance encounter leads James to another survivor of Neverland. Wendy Darling, now a grown woman, is the only one who knows how dark a shadow Neverland casts, no matter how far you run. To vanquish Pan’s monster once and for all, Hook must play the villain one last time…
Exploring themes of grief, survivor’s guilt and healing broken bonds, Hooked is a modern-day Peter Pan story, perfect for fans of retellings, Christina Henry and V.E. Schwab.
Wendy Darling isn’t a child anymore. The fact shouldn’t surprise him—children grow up in this world, after all. But in his mind, she is frozen as he last saw her, a young girl trailing after Pan. She doesn’t belong to this world; she belongs to Neverland.
James watches Wendy Darling, the woman, pelt away from him. Not running from him this time, but running toward a child of her own. Should he find it strange that even with strands of gray in her hair and lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, he knew her instantly and she knew him?
No. If some part of her still belongs to Neverland, so does a part of him.
Stay. Stay here with me.
Against the day’s cold, Samuel’s hands are suddenly on his, flesh and blood and wood and flesh again. Dizziness sweeps him, and James leans his weight onto his cane until it passes. Samuel’s voice, his ghost, has never come to him outside of their flat before. His worlds, all of them, bleed together, disorienting him.
Stay.
James blinks. The world resolves back into the gray London street, the damp, clumpy snow falling from the sky. Did it ever snow in Neverland? He shakes his head to chase the thought away. A melting trickle of icy water slips beneath his collar, a finger traced down his spine.
He wishes for Samuel’s warmth again, regrets the loss of his ghost. He shouldn’t have banished him. He needs him here, now. The tug of Neverland is stronger than ever. Wendy Darling reappearing here in this world—it must be connected. Did she feel the door open too? Did she feel the beast slip through?
Last night, he might have dismissed the beast and the door as an illusion, but now he’s certain.
And if the door is real, why shouldn’t he return? If he’s meant to stay in London, he needs Samuel to ground him, to give him some rationale for why he shouldn’t run off seeking his ghost, the remains of him in Neverland. Because if the door can open one way, if the beast could step through, then couldn’t James himself cross back as well? And find Samuel waiting on the other side.
The thought freezes the breath in his lungs more effectively than the winter air.
The temptation pulls at him, stronger than the desire for smoke or drink. Samuel had always been his anchor, reeling James back when he drifted too far, when he let smoke carry him to the point of unraveling in a desperate attempt to quell his pain. He’d promised Samuel, again and again, that he’d be careful. And again and again, he’d broken that promise. Here, now, everything still hurts, and he no longer has Samuel, his compass, to find his way home.
“Why should I stay when you’re gone?” He snaps the words aloud into the cold, puffs of breath hanging like ghosts in the air.
A young couple passing close to him startles. The man casts James a wary glance, pulling the woman at his side closer and steering her away.
He ignores them. Mad Hook. Bad Hook. Let them think him a crazy old man. What does he care? His leg aches, not just with the cold. He feels the buried fragments of a blade shattered long ago, lodged beneath his skin. Shrapnel. They shift, magnetized pieces tugging him back to where he promised never to go.
Gripping the head of his cane, he walks deliberately against the ache with no destination in mind. He can’t remember why he even left the flat—he does so rarely these days. Something pulled at him, demanded he be here at this precise moment to meet a ghost from his past made real.
He can no longer see Wendy Darling on the street ahead. But he’s certain now that they’ve found each other once, he’ll see her again. It strikes him—presumably she’s been in London this entire time, right under his nose, but they’d never encountered each other. Not until today. There must be a purpose to it. Did Pan ever give Wendy Darling the secret of his hunting beast? Could she have called it here, or better yet, could she call it off if it attacks again?
A faint memory tugs at him—the pale oval of a face surrounded by coppery curls, mouth startled-wide, peering over the rail of a ship—his ship—as he sank into the beast’s jaws.
She stood at Pan’s side and watched him die. She did nothing to stop it.
