Thank you Netgalley and Titian Books UK for my free copy! 
All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4/5 ⭐️

Peter Pan is one of my all time favorite fairytales and I never pass up a reimagining. Once I saw that this was a feminist reimagining, I was very intrigued. And I was not disappointed in the least.

Wendy Darling has never forgotten Neverland nor has she forgotten Peter. On the night Peter returns, he takes Wendy’s daughter Jane. This story is very captivating from the beginning. It’s very dark and twisted and thrilling. Wendy will do anything to save her daughter Jane, even if it means destroying the place and person she’ll never forget.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It’s so so good I couldn’t stop reading it. I’m not going to say much more because I want everyone to experience this book without knowing a lot. If you’re into dark reimaginings and a badass main character then this book is for you!

Release on June 1st so make sure you grab a copy!

Trigger warning: PTSD, Abuse, Mental Illness racism, and misogyny

This book tried to fix some of the problems in the original, but I'm not sure it succeeded. As a result, I didn't connect with it as I expected to do. It was much darker than I anticipated, which didn't make it a fun read, at all.
There are a number of Wendy's flashbacks to Neverland and in an asylum. Then, there's just something off with the way Peter interacts with Wendy and her daughter. Some parts dragged, which also pulled me out of the story.

First things first; this book deals PTSD, Abuse and Mental Illnesses. Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

What a ride! Wendy Darling is now grown up and married with a young daughter, Jane. We quickly learn that life after Neverland was not as straight forward for Wendy as it was for her younger brothers who quickly forgot about their adventures. As Jane is taken by Peter who has come to find 'his Wendy', the real Wendy knows she is the only one who can retrieve her daughter. She must reconcile with her past and return to a world she has been trying to deny for years. Neverland is not as it once was. But, Wendy is not as she was, either.

The story is told from Wendy and Jane's perspectives. The former's chapters take place in the present day and a few years prior as Wendy recounts the toll that Neverland took on her and her relationships. There's something truly raw in the writing and it was interesting to see this take on Peter Pan; it's a well balanced dark retelling. At first, I honestly thought I was going to be reading something very similar to 'Hook' and... well, boy, was I wrong! The book is fast paced and action packed. I also enjoyed the way A.C. Wise ties in historical events to bring a level of authenticity; the war is mentioned throughout and the impacts of that on the men who come home; I couldn't help but feel there was a comparison here between that and Wendy's return from Neverland - brilliantly done.

At it's core this is a story of survival. Wendy is a survivor, not just of the abuse and trauma she has experienced both in Neverland and at home, but of a war being waged within herself. Wendy does not truly know herself and her mission to rescue Jane is also a mission to save herself.

For me this is a 4 star read. I really wanted to give it the full 5, but I found the ending a little rushed. There was a lot of build up and then only a couple pages of resolution. I felt there was more to be resolved and we could have done with more of an insight in to the immediate aftermath.

I should state up front that I disliked “Peter Pan” by J.M. Barrie. There were some good ideas within the story, but there was also a huge amount of racism and misogyny, which severely detracted from the story.
This book by A.C. Wise goes a long way to addressing things that were wrong with the original, plus also telling the story of a woman who’d lived through A LOT after returning from a magical world. At the book's open, we see Wendy married to a kind husband, Ned. They have a daughter, Jane, and a dear friend, Mary.

Then, Peter Pan crashes back into Wendy's life, snatches up Jane and flies off to Neverland. Wendy doesn't sit around and wait for someone else to fix things. Instead, she heads out after the pair to rescue Jane.

Wendy and Jane experience a Neverland that is quite different from the one Wendy remembers. There are horrors and destruction, and many examples of Peter's capricious cruelty and mercurial temper.

A.C. Wise’s take on "Peter Pan" fills in Wendy’s life post-Neverland, from her childhood onward. It’s not the happy time one would have expected after all the siblings’ adventures. Instead of bonding over their experiences in Neverland, the memories prove to be divisive in the extreme, with Wendy holding onto her memories desperately, and demanding the boys retain the wonder of their time away, while the brothers forgot the longer they were back in London. Add in family and personal trauma, grief, loneliness, and mental health issues.

Wise moves back and forth in Wendy’s memories, from moments in Neverland in both her past and present, and how she becomes the person we see at the beginning of the book, including a stint in an asylum. If Neverland isn’t horror enough, early 20th century mental health medical practices (i.e. abuse) add greater pathos to Wendy’s story.

The author presents us with a grown Wendy who is a flawed person, insisting on the truth of her experiences. Wise also shows us the horrors of Neverland and the always-young Peter. Together, these elements make this an interesting story. It’s a wiser and more honest woman who returns to London at the end of the book. Wendy’s journey is compelling reading, and left me feeling satisfied with Wise’s portrayal of a person dealing with a profound and disturbing experiences.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for a review.

A darkly whimsical reimagining of Neverland and its inhabitants… or perhaps just a deeper exploration of what was there all along. Wendy Darling has never forgotten Peter or Neverland, even when her brothers no longer believed. After a few years spent in women’s asylum meant to “cure” her fantasies, Wendy has managed to get out and build a life for herself. But when Peter reappears and steals her daughter away, she must return to Neverland and confront the fact that the fond recollections of her time there may not be as complete as she once thought.

This book unfolds using interconnected memories and timelines, leaping from Wendy as a worried mother, to her as a young girl trapped in an asylum, and then to even earlier, when she first visited Neverland. The present Neverland is mostly seen through the eyes of her daughter, Jane. Just as Wendy spent years clinging to her memories of Neverland back in the real world, now Jane is struggling to remember the life she was stolen from, right down to her name. Peter has such a tight hold on the island that everyone can’t help but fall prey to his whims, and this book does a brilliant job of capturing the sinister nature of his games.

The high point for me were the relationships. Wendy’s imperfect and fractured love for her brothers, the connection she has with Mary, the tentative understanding she feels for her Ned, and of course the mother/daughter relationship. None of these bonds are always simple or easy, but they had a lot of depth and truth to them.

There were a few parts where I wanted a little more wrap up or explanation but overall, this was an enjoyable read with lots to offer.

Thanks to NetGalley & Titan Books for the early copy in exchange for an honest review. DNF'ed at 30%.

I normally love Peter Pan retellings but this is not really what I was looking for in one, truth be told. It's very dark, be forewarned. It's also not really...fun? If that makes any sense. It's just morbid memory after another and it's just unpleasant for me to read.

This will not apply to everyone, however, so if you're fascinated by the morbid and macabre, this would be for you. I would almost classify this as gothic in some ways.

This was such an enjoyable read and an intriguing premise. AC Wise takes the classic story of Peter Pan and turns it on its head. Every problematic element of the story is brought to the spotlight and confronted in this dark book that's really more of a sequel than a retelling of Peter Pan,

The story is told in three perspectives all of which I found very interesting. First is Wendy, now a married mother in her 30s who has been hiding her past. Her past shows up in the form of Peter Pan crouching in her daughter's window before taking her daughter, Jane, to Neverland. Wendy follows them and embarks on an adventure to bring Jane home. This is the main storyline and while it has its intriguing parts in finding out what happened in Neverland after she left, it's not the most probing of the stories.

Wendy's other storyline is 10 years previously when in her late 20s, Wendy is put in an asylum by John and Michael as she insists they remember Neverland. I loved these sections of the story. It such a dark and unique twist on what happened to the Darling children when they returned from Neverland. You also see Wendy meet Mary, a Native American from Canada which allows her to realize the racist nature of Neverland. There's also good discussions on gender roles and how poorly treated she is by the men in her life, more of a possession than a person. These pair well with the other two stories showing both Wendy and Jane's storyline's take on a feminist twist.

The last story is Jane's first hand account of Neverland. This plays really well into the other storylines and showing the dark nature of Peter and Neverland and how truly perverse the whole thing is.

I loved every story, the characters, everything. It made me think and kept me hooked the whole time. So why not 5 stars? The ending (not the epilogue, the wrap up of the Neverland story) was absolutely terrible. I almost bumped it down to 3 stars. It didn't make sense with the rest of the story, it wasn't fully explained, and there were just so many better and more satisfying ways to end this story. Definitely ended on a sour note which is really disappointing given my enjoyment of the rest of it.

If you enjoy retellings with a dark twist, I definitely recommend this one, just don't set your expectations too high on the ending.

**I was provided an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

I used to have a nostalgia about classic books I'd read as a child, but when I started re-reading them as an adult I was shocked by the not so subtle dark themes that run through them. Alice in Wonderland is a great example and has even had retellings that have thrown the dark nature of the book in the reader's face. Wise has done for Peter Pan what the likes of Juno Dawson and Christina Henry have done for Alice. It really is a fantastic read, from the initial kidnapping of Wendy's daughter, Jane, to a stretch in a lunatic asylum to hunting and getting 'kilt'. You could tell in Barrie's novel that there were issues. These issues have been explored by Wise and this novel is the brilliant result. I greatly dislike John, Wendy's brother, but he is balanced by the tender and gently Ned, Wendy's husband. I wouldn't say it was a delightful wholesome read but it had me HOOKed...sorry I couldn't help myself!

"Wendy Darling, the girl who learnt to fly, who survived, who refused to be Afraid"

The Classic Peter Pan and the Lost Boys retold. Only Peter Pan is not just the boy who refuses to grow up but much more dark and malicious. This story is the darker version of what happens in neverland after Wendy leaves and returns home. "This is what happens when you grow up!!"

Wendy when she was in Neverland first with her brothers (1902), wendy after she comes back and is sent to an asylum(because she struggles to forget neverland and peter while her brother can't remember it) (1917-1920), Jane(wendy's daughter being flown away with Peter, and Wendy flying back to Neverland to save her daughter are simultaneously depicted here (present 1931).

Peter abducts Wendy's daughter, Jane, mistaking her for Wendy and takes her to Neverland. Very soon after reaching Neverland Jane realizes her memory fading away until she forgets her name. She senses the dark manipulative power of Peter and though she falls for his tricks on her mind, she finds her way back.
On the other hand, Wendy decides to save her daughter from the boy who refuses to grow up. on her journey to Neverland again, she recalls paramount secrets given to her by Peter about himself which she had long forgotten or made to forget. However now she will fight Peter and bring back her daughter.

I felt a little stretch in the story, with few details which could have been avoided.

Thank you NetGalley and Titan books for the ARC.

I received a copy from NetGalley and Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.


Overall, this retelling of Peter Pan has its merits. It follows the story of Wendy’s life and return to Neverland and the adventure that follows. I have some pros and cons for this story. The cons include plot. It felt disjointed during certain parts and left me a little confused with the time skips and how they related to the overall plot. I thought the ending was really predictable too. Another issue I had was the language used. If you’re a fan of Madeline Miller’s story telling, you’ll enjoy Wendy, Darling, however, after reading it. This type of story isn’t necessarily for me. Now to the pros. I think revisiting a classic fairytale is always difficult but the author did it well. The parts with Wendy and Mary in St Bernadette’s were some of my favorites. Their friendship truly was heartfelt.

Would I read this again? Probably not, however, I do see how this could easily become others’ favorite story.

I’ve always thought Peter Pan was such a creepy tale... a little fairy boy that kidnaps kids and is super sexist? No thank you. This book embraces the creepiness of the tale, and highlights the horrors Peter can bring about. Wendy is all grown up, but now her child is abducted into the same nightmare she tries to convince everyone around her happened. After being committed, Wendy stops talking about Neverland, but maybe if she’d told her story to her daughter, Jane, maybe Jane would have been prepared. Loved it!

Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In this Peter Pan retelling the story follows Wendy after she leaves Neverland. Immediately after she is put in an insane asylum because no one believes her about Neverland. We also see Wendy as an adult with a child of her own, Jane. Where she walks into Jane’s room and finds Peter taking her daughter and she has to travel to Neverland to get her back.

Not only did this retelling stay true to the original story but it also managed to make this story feel original and new. Focusing on what happens to Wendy after Neverland. It took the darker aspects of Peter Pan and made a new story out of them and it was amazing. The story telling was beautiful. I could not put this book down. I needed to know if Wendy was able to save Jane. The messages and lessons the author put in the story were beautifully done. I recommend this to anyone who loves retellings but also wants to read something original. This is a story I won’t forget and I plan on preordering this book as soon as it’s released. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on 6/1/2021 and I highly recommend you pick it up. I know I be.

Thank you, #netgalley, for the ARC of #WendyDarling!

This story is absolutely perfect! It takes the main element of Peter Pan that I always found bothersome and exposed it for the nightmare it is. Told between 1904 Neverland, 1917-1920 London, and "present day" (1931) London and Neverland, Wendy, Darling tells the story of Wendy and her family and the repercussions of her initial Neverland visit, her memories, and her brothers' lack of memories.

Peter Pan was one of the most important stories of my formative years. It’s had a lasting impact on me, and is a tale I return to frequently as I puzzle out what my own childhood, and childhood in general, means to me. I have read several re-imaginings, prequels, sequels, and companion pieces to Barrie’s stories, and am always on the lookout for a new and exciting contribution to that world.

*Wendy, Darling* is a worthy such contribution.

The story sets itself up as a kind of sequel, in which Wendy, now a mother, returns to Neverland to retrieve her daughter, who has been taken away by Peter in her stead. Wendy, however, is neither the wide-eyed girl who first went to Neverland nor the uncomplicated Platonic ideal of motherhood she is often expected to be. She carries with her her scars, trauma, fear—and also her strength, love, and friendship.

Some things I love about the book lie around how it engages with Neverland, and how Neverland looks and feels to children and grown-ups. I also love the exploration of the gender dynamics of the story we all remember, and how they are skewed both by the way children are socially conditioned to behave and treat one another and by the fact that in Neverland, things work as Peter expects them to, not as they are. And my very favorite element was the exploration of Wendy’s sewing: the devalued, girlish skill that first endeared her to Peter, which becomes her weapon and defense in adult life and upon her return to Neverland.

There were also some missed opportunities. Although the action takes place in 1931, with flashbacks through the 1910s and ‘20s, Wendy’s adult life seems aesthetically more mired in the early-Edwardian London of her childhood; perhaps this is due to an old-fashioned father-in-law, but the novel seems weirdly out of place in its own setting. London itself is left completely un-sketched-in, odd when Wendy decides for herself that it is as much her home, if not more, as Neverland. And for a feminist re-imagining to completely ignore Tinker Bell, one of the most fascinating female characters in the original story (and fairies in general, who play a hefty role in Peter’s mythology) is strange. Perhaps it is because fairies are so tied in to Peter’s origin story, and Wise wished to craft a new and darker beginning for him—but that could have easily been explained away as his own fiction.

Fans of Peter Pan will certainly recognize their Neverland in this story. Though Wise doesn’t repeat verbatim the darker elements of Barrie’s work (and there are many), she captures the spirit of them that was always lurking around Neverland’s edges, and brings them together to a single darkness for Wendy to confront. Though not my favorite Peter Pan imagined sequel, and it could use some fleshing out, *Wendy, Darling* is a welcome addition to my curated collection of Pan-aphernalia.

I’m a sucker for the evil Peter Pan trope. Sure it’s commonly done, but the concept of a child from a different dimension who flies into your window and kidnaps you is easy to interpret as something that doesn’t sit quite right, so no wonder. In this version, Wendy is now an adult and the only one who retains any memory of their time in Neverland. Michael holds the mental and physical burdens as a survivor of the war; John was forced to mature quickly with the death of their parents and holds the weight of the world on his shoulders, and neither have any sympathy for their sister’s ramblings about a fantasy world they no longer believe existed.

This book flashes back between their present day (1931) and 11 years prior, when Wendy was committed to a mental asylum by John himself. The book flips between these two timelines, documenting the horrors of St. Bernadette’s along with their present time, where Wendy’s daughter Jane has been kidnapped by Peter.


“She must keep trying to remember. Nothing here is what it seems. Peter may look like a regular boy, but in truth, he’s a dangerous thing. He may not be human at all.”


While Wendy remains insistent that her time in Neverland was a happy time full of adventures though her brothers have both forgotten, turns out her memory of their time in Neverland isn’t infallible either. In fact, there is something Wendy has repressed. A terrible secret about her time in Neverland that Wendy has forgotten. But surely it must be a lie....Neverland was nothing more than a grand adventure, right?


“Neverland isn’t what she once believed it to be, an escape, a cure for all ills. As children, they ran away here without even any troubles to escape from, and wasn’t it Neverland itself that left her scarred?”


I quite enjoyed this read and found it engaging!
Though my favorite books (using this trope) still are the Wendy Darling series by Colleen Oakes, I thought this was a unique and fun take. However, I would’ve liked the ending wrapped up just a little neater after the climax, because I still have some questions. Still, this was a beautiful read with a bittersweet ending.

Thank you to Netgalley and Titan Books for sending me an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

I couldn't help but be drawn in by the idea of a dark retelling of Peter Pan from the perspective of Wendy, and this was so much more than I could have imagined when first picking up the book.

A dark, dazzling tale that takes us years into the future after Wendy's initial visit to Neverland and launches us straight into the action with Peter returning to the window but this time taking Wendy's daughter, Jane. From there, we learn that Wendy has aged, but she had never truly grown up, having held onto Neverland for better or worse since childhood.

We get Wendy's flashbacks to time spent in Neverland as a child, then in an asylum for her refusal to deny as A.C. Wise takes us on a fantastical adventure to rescue Jane from an island place where no one ever grows up and whose leader is far more sinister than we could have ever truly imagined.

Beautifully written, Wise allows us to revisit some beloved familiar faces and brings us new, diverse characters who you will come to love as fiercely as Wendy herself does.

Wendy, Darling though short is a thrilling tale of adventure with a tinge of horror.

When Wendy Darling was a child, she went on a journey to a magical place called Neverland. Along with her two younger brothers, they ran and jumped and played with an impish boy named Peter and his band of Lost Boys. There were no adults to enforce any rules, and Wendy felt free for the first time. But then Wendy did the unthinkable-- she grew up and everything turned upside down. After leaving Neverland, Wendy went from asylum patient to wife to mother, never once forgetting her time with Peter. A part of her always wished to return to that special place, but Neverland isn't as serene as she remembers. When Peter steals her daughter away, flashes of memories start to come back to Wendy of a darkness that lives at the center of the island. Now, Wendy must face the wickedness of Neverland and the sinister boy she'd once do anything for if she hopes to rescue her daughter from a dark fate.

I've always loved the story of Peter Pan, but this is not the idyllic Disney story we're all familiar with. Wise takes a story that most everyone knows and completely flips it on its head. It's a darker more malicious take on Neverland and it works so well. Peter is still this fun-loving boy, but there's an underlying predatory feeling to him that makes you feel very uneasy. The way he interacts with Wendy, her daughter, and especially the Lost Boys is almost unhinged in a way. I also thought the way Wise tied him to the darkness of the island was very clever. My favorite part of this though was Wendy. She went through so many hardships after coming back from Neverland, but she never let anyone break her spirit or make her second guess herself, it just made her resolve that much stronger. I liked seeing her come back to Neverland as an adult and confront her past while fighting for her daughter. There were bits of this that felt slow and dragged out, but overall, this was a fun one.

Haunting, beautiful and bittersweet. As a child, Peter Pan was my first crush. I longed for the boy who could fly to appear in my window and whisk me away to a land of endless childhood. But in Wendy, Darling, the boy who never grows up is much darker, the island is haunted by shadows and secrets. When Wendy and her brothers return from Neverland she is brutally forced to renounce her so-called memories of Peter but she tucks them away into the back of her mind. Wendy loses her voice, her strength, herself. This isn't child's play anymore and for Wendy Darling, all grown up, when Peter comes for her daughter, Jane, her motherly instinct kicks in fueled by the memories of her time in Neverland. You can feel Wendy's pain and rage and the reader is instantly grabbed by her mission to save her daughter, her desire to be in the place she loved with the boy she held so dear, and her anger over her lost years thanks to Peter. This continuation of Peter Pan is a touching story about what happens to Wendy after she returned from Neverland and her quest to return. Her memories are not what she thought they were and as she journeys deeper into the heart of Neverland. Peter is hiding something and she is going to uncover his secrets, save her daughter and maybe just save herself in the process.

Thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

I (like many others I'm sure) grew up watching Peter Pan to later realize all what was ignorant about it-- or what could strike fear. At the time, I hadn't known that-- I had only wanted to never grow up, to remain a child, as adulthood was something I feared. But even then I knew-- I didn't want to stay young with Peter Pan. They kept running around, and Wendy wasn't able to do as much as the boys, even the baby.

I also knew that many of the Peter Pan sequels I'd seen that had Wendy/Peter was never something I could like.

So this Peter? This fey, stubborn Peter? So very much a child in all the worst ways of stubbornness, and casual cruelty, of still learning the world isn't his and people have feelings? Very much down my alley. I also too loved the *what happened to Wendy after*-- her struggles with connecting, her ties to Neverland, and her relationship with her family.

Speaking of family. . .I am not Native, and both Mary's and Tiger Lily's story arcs I 'm not quite sure how to feel about? I liked most of what was done with them, and how much the stories revolved around their choices, but . . yes. I hope a sensitivity reader was used!

I’m addicted to Peter Pan universe! I think only this year I might have read more than five retellings about Peter- Wendy Darling and lost boy stories made me dream more about Neverland which ends with nightmares! I have to admit I always find myself dragged into the dark and morbid parts of the story!

After reading this book, I’m sure everyone change their minds about getting a golden ticket from Neverland because nothing as it’s portrayed at the previous books. It was bleaker, darker, scarier!

It’s not a good place for Wendy and her brothers anymore.

Do you wanna know what happened to Wendy, her brothers John, Michael? Did they live happily ever after? Nope, they didn’t because in real world there is no bloody happily ever after according to this story that highly agree!

Their story has no resemblances with fairytales. On contrary, they include PTSD, abuse, mental illness, so many personal dramas!

Wendy became badass adult and a lovely mother. But when her childhood friend you missed returns back to kidnap your child what would you do?

Yeah, Wendy has to return back to the place where her nightmares started to save her daughter Jane!

I liked story telling style including different timelines and both Wendy and her daughter’s voices. And hidden monsters, psych wards, abuse, inner fears of children scared the living daylights out of me!

I loved Wendy! She was survivor, warrior, flawed, traumatized but trying to stay strong after being controlled by oppressive characters for years.

The author takes us to the journey giving parts of Wendy’s first trip to Neverland, her returning back and her daughter Jane’s time at there after she’s been kidnapped.

This true dark, wild, terrifying version of the story truly captures your attention! It’s not only bleakest, depressing retelling of the story but it is also great psychological thriller with great character analysis.

I enjoyed it a lot and finished in one sit!

Highly recommended to great fans of Neverland and readers who aren’t afraid of crossing the dark side to experience very different version of story!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.