Book picks similar to
Essence of Neverland by Juna Jinsei


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Second Star


J.M. Sullivan - 2019
    Now as a Captain, she has everything she’s always wanted, including a ship and crew of her own. But when the Brigade receives a strange transmission from the legendary James Hooke, lost a hundred years earlier in uncharted space and presumed dead, Wendy is willing to risk it all to rescue her hero. She races to the planet known only as Neverland; her mission to find the long-lost crew and bring them home.But there is more to Neverland than meets the eye, and more to Hooke than what was written in history books. When Wendy crash lands on the ominous planet, she quickly discovers Neverland’s dark secret; a malevolent being known as The Shadow that’s looking for a host body to escape its eternal prison. To fulfill her mission, Wendy must decide whether to trust the dashing Hooke or the mysterious Fleet mechanic who goes by the name of Pan--and she has to decide quickly...Before the darkness consumes them all.

Everland


Wendy Spinale - 2016
    The only ones who have survived the destruction and the outbreak of a deadly virus are children, among them sixteen-year-old Gwen Darling and her younger siblings, Joanna and Mikey. They spend their nights scavenging and their days avoiding the deadly Marauders—the German army led by the cutthroat Captain Hanz Otto Oswald Kretschmer.Unsure if the virus has spread past England’s borders but desperate to leave, Captain Hook is on the hunt for a cure, which he thinks can be found in one of the surviving children. He and his Marauders stalk the streets snatching children for experimentation. None ever return.Until one day when they grab Joanna. Gwen will stop at nothing to get her sister back, but as she sets out, she crosses paths with a daredevil named Pete. Pete offers the assistance of his gang of Lost Boys and the fierce sharpshooter Bella, who have all been living in a city hidden underground. But in a place where help has a steep price and every promise is bound by blood, it might cost Gwen more than she bargained for. And are Gwen, Pete, the Lost Boys, and Bella enough to outsmart the ruthless Captain Hook?

Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook


Christina Henry - 2017
    And then there is the truth. This is how it happened. How I went from being Peter Pan’s first—and favorite—lost boy to his greatest enemy. Peter brought me to his island because there were no rules and no grownups to make us mind. He brought boys from the Other Place to join in the fun, but Peter's idea of fun is sharper than a pirate’s sword. Because it’s never been all fun and games on the island. Our neighbors are pirates and monsters. Our toys are knife and stick and rock—the kinds of playthings that bite.Peter promised we would all be young and happy forever. Peter lies.

Hook


K.R. Thompson - 2014
    Today, it found him. Caught in a chilly October storm, he ducked into a tavern, hoping to escape the rain. What he found, was a room teeming with pirates. Shanghaied by the most elderly of the lot, Archie found himself serving on a ship captained by the fiercest pirate ever to sail the seven seas— the man known as Blackbeard. Through a series of thrilling twists, Archie finds himself captain of another of Blackbeard's ships, the Jolig Roger. In an attempt to flee danger, his ship becomes lost under stars never before seen. Determined to save both his crew and the woman he loves, Archie will make decisions that will forever seal his fate. Discover the untold story of the man who became Captain Hook.

Hook & Jill


Andrea Jones - 2009
    But Time, like this tale,behaves in a most unsettling way. As Wendy mothers the Lost Boys in Neverland, they thrive on adventure. She struggles to keep her boys safe from the Island's many hazards, but she finds a more subtle threat encroaching from an unexpected quarter. . . . The children are growing up, and only Peter knows the punishment

Tiger Lily


Jodi Lynn Anderson - 2012
    Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.

Captive (Bale's Bedtime Stories, #1)


Sarah Bale - 2021
    I own it all.And right now, all I want is her.She may be the enemy,But that's not going to stop me,Nothing stops me.I will do everything to have her,Hold her,Keep her. AMELIAI work for a monster,And his rival may not be the answer,But I'm willing to take my chances,To help my family,And escape this situation. But passion leads to danger,While pleasure leads to problems,And the biggest one of all,He's got me CAPTIVE,In body, mind, and heart.

Lost in the Never Woods


Aiden Thomas - 2021
    It's been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road, and gets pulled into the mystery haunting the town.Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, claims that if they don't do something, the missing children will meet the same fate as her brothers. In order to find them and rescue the missing kids, Wendy must confront what's waiting for her in the woods.

Alias Hook


Lisa Jensen - 2013
    The wicked pirate captain is flung overboard, caught in the jaws of the monster crocodile who drags him down to a watery grave. But it was not yet my time to die. It's my fate to be trapped here forever, in a nightmare of childhood fancy, with that infernal, eternal boy."Meet Captain James Benjamin Hook, a witty, educated Restoration-era privateer cursed to play villain to a pack of malicious little boys in a pointless war that never ends. But everything changes when Stella Parrish, a forbidden grown woman, dreams her way to the Neverland in defiance of Pan's rules. From the glamour of the Fairy Revels, to the secret ceremonies of the First Tribes, to the mysterious underwater temple beneath the Mermaid Lagoon, the magical forces of the Neverland open up for Stella as they never have for Hook. And in the pirate captain himself, she begins to see someone far more complex than the storybook villain.With Stella's knowledge of folk and fairy tales, she might be Hook's last chance for redemption and release if they can break his curse before Pan and his warrior boys hunt her down and drag Hook back to their neverending game. Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen is a beautifully and romantically written adult fairy tale.

Betwixt and Between


Jessica Stilling - 2013
    Betwixt and Between follows three intertwining narratives: that of Preston Tumbler, a ten-year-old boy who is poisoned by a neighbor and wakes up in Neverland, where he finds himself—along with a group of other deceased children—under the watchful eye of Peter Pan; Preston's mother, Claire, in the real world, as she deals with the loss of her son; and a family in Victorian London as they wait for their little girl to awake from a coma, a family whose neighbor happens to be Peter Pan author JM Barrie.Jessica Stilling has an MFA from City College, where she currently teaches creative writing. She has been an editor for The Muse Apprenticeship Guild, The Olive Tree Review, and The Castalia Project. She lives in New York City.

Tigerheart


Peter David - 2008
    Action-packed and suspenseful, heart-tugging and wise, it weaves a spell both hauntingly familiar and utterly irresistible for those who have ever surrendered themselves to flights of fancy, and have whispered in their hearts, “I believe.”Paul Dear is a good and clever boy, doted on by a father who fills his son’s head with tall tales, thrilling legends, and talk of fairy-folk, and by a mother who indulges these fantastic stories and tempers them with common sense. But Paul is special in ways that even his adoring parents could never have imagined. For by day, in London’s Kensington Gardens, he walks and talks with the pixies and sprites and other magical creatures that dwell among the living–but are unseen by most. And at night in his room, a boy much like himself, yet not, beckons to Paul from the mirror to come adventuring. It’s a happy life for Paul, made all the more so by the birth of his baby sister. But everything changes when tragedy strikes, and Paul concludes that there’s only one course of action he can take to dispel the darkness and make things right again. And like countless heroes before him, he knows that he must risk everything to save the day. Thus begins a quest that will lead Paul down the city’s bustling streets, to a curio shop where a magical ally awaits him, and launches him into the starry skies, bound for a realm where anything is possible. Far from home, he will run with fierce Indian warriors, cross swords with fearsome pirates, befriend a magnificent white tiger, and soar beside an extraordinary, ageless boy who reigns in a boundless world of imagination.Brimming with the sly humor and breathless excitement of a traditional Victorian bedtime story, deftly embroidered with its own unique wisdom and wonder, Tigerheart is a hymn to childhood’s happiness and heartbreak, a meditation on the love, courage, sacrifice, and faith that shape us and define our lives, and a splendidly rendered modern fable–for readers of any age–that brilliantly proves itself a worthy brother to the timeless classic that serve as its inspiration.From the Hardcover edition.

Wendy, Darling


A.C. Wise - 2021
    She has a husband and a young daughter called Jane, a life in London. But on night, after all these years, Peter Pan returns. Wendy finds him outside her daughter's window, looking to claim a new mother for his Lost Boys. But instead of Wendy, he takes Jane.Now a grown woman, a mother, a patient and a survivor, Wendy must follow Peter back to Neverland to rescue her daughter and finally face the darkness at the heart of the island...

Peter Pan in Scarlet


Geraldine McCaughrean - 2006
    M. Barrie's Peter Pan!In August 2004 the Special Trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, who hold the copyright in Peter Pan, launched a worldwide search for a writer to create a sequel to J. M. Barrie's timeless masterpiece. Renowned and multi award-winning English author Geraldine McCaughrean won the honor to write this official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet. Illustrated by Scott M. Fischer and set in the 1930s, Peter Pan in Scarlet takes readers flying back to Neverland in an adventure filled with tension, danger, and swashbuckling derring-do!

Love, Tink


Elle Strauss - 2012
    Unfortunately, Peter is tired of the adventure and especially tired of dodging Captain Hook who is after his head. He just wants to go back to New York City and live his life as a normal fifteen year oldTink is the only one who can help Peter return, but it breaks her heart to do it. She just wants to make him happy, so she does the unthinkable and betrays the fairy king. Now her heart is filled with remorse. Should she go after Peter? Should she follow him to his New York?

Straight On 'Til Morning


K.J. Sutton - 2021
    The Davenport family hides their lost fortune. Lady Julie Bainbridge will go to any lengths to keep her past from becoming exposed. A boy watches everything from the shadows. And the island awaits.Wendy Davenport can’t dodge the bank much longer, and her family’s dire circumstances aren’t improving. She knows change is on the horizon. It soon comes in the form of Peter, whose name is whispered in the streets by friends and enemies alike. They call him a wish granter. A miracle worker. A demon.One of those enemies sees an opportunity. Lady Julie Bainbridge, a wealthy woman who knows the truth about the Davenport household. She presents Wendy with a choice—kill Peter and get paid handsomely for her troubles, or all of London will know about her family’s ruin. With no other alternative, Wendy journeys to Neverland with the intention of ending Peter’s life. A task that may prove even more difficult as her attraction to him continues to grow.Will Wendy be able to strike when it matters most, or will the magic of Neverland—and the boy who holds its heart—jeopardize all she holds dear?Content warning: This novel contains scenes or themes of dubious consent, sex, profanity, queerphobia, sexism, murder, amputation, and an animal death.