Kara Swanson, the award-winning author of The Girl Who Could See, has written a bold and passionate sequel to her Peter Pan retelling/sequel Dust, a darker, captivating tale perfect for fans of Straight on Til Morning and Lost in the Never Woods. We chat with author Kara Swanson about her latest novel and last book of her Heirs of Neverland duology Shadow, book recommendations, and more!

Hi Kara! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer questions for The Nerd Daily! Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m a young adult author and coach who was first published as a teen. I fell in love with fantasy stories as the daughter of missionaries, growing up running barefoot through the jungles of Papua New Guinea and reading as many whimsical tales about characters finding themselves in unique worlds as I could. Now I live in Southern California, teaching teens how to use their voices to craft soul-stories and soaking in all the sunshine I can.

Now tell us a little bit about your Heirs of Neverland duology, particularly your newest release,

The Heirs of Neverland duology is inspired and based off of JM Barrie’s Peter Pan, but is a sequel to that book set in contemporary London – and Shadow takes place mostly on Neverland, and digs more deeply into the Peter Pan mythos and aspects of childhood trauma and loss that are hinted at, but never fully dealt with, in the original novel.

What was the biggest challenge when writing Shadow?

Juggling all the backstory and character threads set up in Dust, and crafting a final installment to the series that pulled everything together and did the source material justice.

How was writing Shadow different from writing Dust?

Oh, so many ways! Peter and Claire have grown so much and Neverland really brings out a new side of them, and a deeper aspect of the story as a whole.

Claire and Connor may be alike in looks, but as siblings, they are very much different. What inspired you to create the siblings and their very tragic but intriguing backstory?

Well, I have a passion for crafting stories that are authentic and genuine in the way they touch on the events and oftentimes the traumas that impact us and shape our view of the world. Claire and Connor sort of took on lives of their own as I fleshed them out, and in many ways Connor takes some of the selfishness Peter exhibits and carries it to the full extent that Peter never does. He’s a reflection of both Peter and Claire, and that was fascinating to develop.

In your duology, Neverland is much darker than the more innocent Neverland in Peter Pan. You also gave Neverland a very interesting backstory, explaining how it came to be. What inspired you to take this approach, and what inspired your story behind Neverland?

Well, Neverland was never that innocent in Peter Pan to begin with, we just gloss over a lot of the darker parts. Instead of glossing over them, I wanted to flesh them out…but also explore what growth and healing in a place like that would look like.

What is the main message of Shadow? What would you like your readers to take away from it?

That there is a place where even lost things are found, hope can blossom from brokenness, and that we can all choose to let light shine through the shadows we face.

With your duology now finished, do you have any plans for other future projects? If so, what can you tell us about them?

I do have a trilogy I am working on, but can’t give any more details on that just yet

And lastly, what are you currently reading, and do you have any recommendations for our readers?

I’m currently reading Story Raider by Lindsay Franklin! (A little behind on that series) And for recommendations…actually, my best friend RJ Conte has a Frog Prince retelling coming out soon called Frog Prince’s Courtship which is a delightful fantasy romcom, so I would suggest that!

Will you be picking up Shadow? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Kara Swanson, Author of ‘Shadow’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Kara Swanson has a reputation for writing achingly beautiful and simultaneously sad stories, and her Dust duology is no different. The first book, Dust, follows the journey of Claire Kenton and her search for her younger brother, Connor. This search leads her to England, where she meets the last person she ever thought she’d run into, and the very person she hates—Peter Pan. All around her, the original characters from the tales of Neverland emerge, but this isn’t an innocent bedtime story anymore. For Peter Pan is growing up. In the end, Claire leaves Peter Pan behind, traveling with Captain Hook to Neverland to finally reunite with her brother. Only, Peter never told her that her brother is not who she remembers him to be.

Shadow picks up where Dust left off, with Claire arriving in Neverland as the prisoner of Captain Hook. Peter returns to Neverland with the help of Tiger Lily and he finds his precious island in turmoil. Almost all of the lost boys are teamed with Captain Hook, the sirens have turned from friends to enemies, and the island itself is falling apart.

Peter scrambles to try and find a way to put things back to the way they were. With every flip of the page, I was spellbound, hoping and wishing that Peter would succeed in turning Neverland back into the innocent place it had once been. But with each turn and plot twist, nothing about the story was going quite the way I expected. Instead of gaining the upper ground, Peter continues to lose and lose, and Claire suffers for every mistake the Peter makes. It’s an unfair trade and I can’t say that I wasn’t disappointed by it. Still, as the story progresses, their shaky friendship is slowly mended to the point that it becomes something more. While I did find the romance development to be a little quick, it wasn’t jarring and fit nicely with the storyline.

As the story progresses, it reveals the bare bones of Neverland, adding depth and backstory not in the original tale, giving Neverland an origin and not an innocent one either. With each reveal, it’s shown just how dark and twisted the island really was, and how it always had been. With these reveals comes the character of Paige. It was fairly obvious to me how she fit into Neverland’s origins, but I was never able to like her very much or feel any sort of sympathy for her. In fact, I found her to be an annoying character.

The plot itself wasn’t all that exciting. Things moved a bit too slow for my taste, and I’m not much of a fan of fast-paced stories. Nothing really seemed to happen until the end, and all of the previous events felt slightly disjointed. It clearly showcased a fight of light against dark, of hope against hopelessness, but it didn’t feel entirely thought out or planned. Despite that, I was still enthralled by the story, needing to know what happened next.

My connection to the characters wasn’t as strong as it could have been. Characters that I felt like I could trust turned into characters I loathed, and characters that I didn’t like at first ended up being one of my favourites. Character like Peter’s Shadow, Hook, and the Lost Boys. I just couldn’t get too emotionally attached to all of them. And then there was the puzzle of Connor Kenton himself. From the beginning, I wasn’t too terribly fond of him, and as the story progressed, I liked him less and less. But then at the end, when certain spoilery things were revealed, I felt a small piece of sympathy for him. But still, Swanson wrote him as such a fierce antagonist that I couldn’t really sympathize with him very well.

I think the ending of the book was my least favourite moment. Not just because the story was over, but after so much darkness, the happiness felt somewhat artificial. And yet, I enjoyed seeing characters receive second chances and watching the island rebloom with life and love.

While there are many elements that didn’t sit right with me, there were many more that did, so Shadow gets an 8/10. This book, and the duology, is perfect for fairytale retelling lovers, as well as those who enjoy melancholic stories that leave you yearning for more afterwards.

Shadow is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of July 13th 2021.

Will you be picking up Shadow? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

Peter Pan has crash-landed back on Neverland. But this is not the island he remembers.

Desperate to rescue Claire and the fractured Lost Boys, Peter must unravel what truly tore his dreamland apart. But with each step, he is haunted by more of his own broken memories. Not even Pan himself is what he seems.

Claire Kenton is chained to a pirate ship, watching the wreckage of Neverland rocked by tempests. When she finally finds her brother, Connor is every bit as shattered as the island. Claire may have pixie dust flowing in her veins—but the light of Neverland is flickering dangerously close to going out forever.

To rescue Neverland from the inescapable shadow, the boy who never grew up and the girl who grew up too fast will have to sacrifice the only thing they have left: each other.

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