Peter Pan meets Stephen King’s It in this twisted horror retelling of a classic childhood fairytale set during WWI.

1914, Wendy Darling works by day as a school teacher and by night, she assists soldiers who have returned home from the Western Front. There is one mysterious patient who despite all the care they’ve given him, is in a deep sleep, unable to wake up. One night, when he murmurs the words “Peter Pan,” Wendy is thrown back to a darker time, one that she wishes she could forget.

When one of her students goes missing, it brings back memories of when children went missing and were later found murdered in London many years ago. Wendy believes that Peter Pan, the entity that she believed killed those children, is back. She and her brothers had a close encounter with Peter Pan, after all. But her brothers only remember Peter Pan and Neverland as a fantasy of childhood games.

When another child goes missing and signs start to point to Wendy, Scotland Yard digs into old reports, finding that Wendy knew the names of all the children who had been killed. As Wendy tries to prove her innocence, she also has to find a way to stop Peter Pan once and for all.

I received an advance copy of this book courtesy of the publisher. All thoughts are my own.

This was a fun and inventive retelling of Peter Pan, and I had a great time with it. Most of us are familiar with the story of the boy who refuses to grow up, the lost boys, the pirate captain with the hook for a hand, and the Darling children who fly off to Neverland with said boy and come back with amazing tales of adventure. Pelayo’s whole premise is, what if that fairy tale was a cover story? What if J.M. Barrie took Wendy’s actual experience and softened it into the version we all know, when the truth was a nightmare? In this book, Peter is the monster. He’s closer to Pennywise than to the impish boy of the book and famous Disney movie. He kidnaps children and kills them so he can stay young. Captain Hook is the one who’s been trying to stop him. That setup definitely hooked me. (Pardon the pun.)

The story picks up years after Wendy and her brothers Michael and John have come home from their nightmare in Neverland. WWI is happening, and Wendy spends her days around children and her evenings reading to soldiers recovering from the front. While she still struggles with the aftermath of what happened when they were kids, her brothers have buried what happened. As far as they’re concerned, Peter Pan was just a strange childhood game. But then a child in London disappears, and Wendy starts to feel it in her gut. Peter is back. He’s hunting again. Then another child goes missing, and the police start looking at Wendy because she somehow knows things about the case that nobody else does. Now she has to convince her brothers that Neverland was real, prove she isn’t the killer, and stop Peter for good.

If that sounds a little like the second half of “It”, that’s because the parallels are absolutely there. A childhood evil that was thought to be defeated. Survivors as adults who have spent years pretending it didn’t happen. The thing coming back and going after the next generation of kids. Pelayo isn’t hiding the inspiration, and I don’t think she needs to. She uses the structure to tell her own story, and the Peter Pan layer makes it feel fresh.

The book is told through all three Darling siblings’ points of view, and that choice really worked for me. Wendy carries the weight of having always known what was real, while John and Michael are the ones who tried to forget. Their voices are distinct, and the differences in how they’re processing what happened add a lot of texture.

The horror itself is a slow build rather than a constant punch in the face. This isn’t a gore-fest. It’s creepy, and the dread builds underneath the story. The 1914 setting also adds an interesting layer because it makes it feel more like the original than a modern retelling which really worked for me.

What I enjoyed most was watching a story I’ve known my whole life get flipped upside down and shaken. Peter is genuinely menacing here, while Hook is sympathetic. The way Pelayo recasts these familiar pieces is the kind of move that could feel like a gimmick in less careful hands, but it never does. She commits to every choice she makes and it really pays off.

If you like dark retellings, and stories where the fun-loving boy you thought you knew turns out to be something much worse, this is a great pick. I really liked what Pelayo did here.