Cynthia Pelayo has been making an excellent identify for herself mixing fairy tales and crime novels set in Chicago. I used to be a giant fan of Youngsters of Chicago so once I was pitched It Got here from Neverland for evaluate (Stephen King’s IT meets Peter Pan) I jumped on the likelihood for a evaluate copy. I’m glad I did as a result of the novel exceeded the unfair, excessive expectations I positioned on it.
Because the story of Peter Pan has been a part of our tradition, Peter has typically been forged because the hero, many individuals assume him to be the hero. However what if Peter is the villain? What if he’s extra than simply “the boy who wouldn’t develop up” and one thing darker? A egocentric, controlling, abusive entity who makes use of kids to keep up its youth and discards them. There was one particular person to flee his powers of management: Wendy Darling.
1914, Wendy Darling works by day as a faculty instructor and by evening, she assists troopers who’ve returned dwelling from the Western Entrance. There may be one mysterious affected person who regardless of all of the care they’ve given him, is in a deep sleep, unable to get up. One evening, when he murmurs the phrases “Peter Pan,” Wendy is thrown again to a darker time, one which she needs she may overlook.
When one among her college students goes lacking, it brings again recollections of when kids went lacking and have been later discovered murdered in London a few years in the past. Wendy believes that Peter Pan, the entity that she believed killed these kids, is again. She and her brothers had an in depth encounter with Peter Pan, in spite of everything. However her brothers solely keep in mind Peter Pan and Neverland as a fantasy of childhood video games.
When one other baby goes lacking and indicators begin to level to Wendy, Scotland Yard digs into outdated stories, discovering that Wendy knew the names of all the youngsters who had been killed. As Wendy tries to show her innocence, she additionally has to discover a option to cease Peter Pan as soon as and for all.
Pelayo’s novel casts Wendy as a survivor, a sufferer of gaslighting, in addition to emotional and psychological abuse. She is the protagonist and we see a lot of the story by means of her eyes. Again in London, Wendy is a instructor and helps troopers… two issues that drew her to Peter within the first place as a result of Peter noticed her as a surrogate mom. She fears the monster continues to be on the market looking for her. However to talk of what occurred to her all these years in the past would deliver some undesirable scrutiny as a result of among the Misplaced Boys who returned along with her weren’t alive.
Peter is depicted as akin to a cult chief, a persuasive entity that bends others to its effectively. Because the boy who by no means grew up, Peter isn’t an entity that has any type of empathy, an incapability to suppose past itself and solely of its survival whatever the evil inflicted upon others.
The Peter Pan story was all the time “there” for me… it wasn’t a narrative I used to be all the time drawn to, however it’s such a pervasive enduring story that it appears each few years some type of film is made utilizing Peter and Wendy as a launch pad. In fact I’m a fan of the Spielberg-Robin Williams movie Hook as a result of, effectively, Robin Williams. What I discovered attention-grabbing as I used to be studying It Got here from Neverland is that each one the cues Pelayo took to actually flip Peter into an evil entity are apparently within the unique novel by J.M. Barrie. There’s illusions in Barrie’s novel of how Peter handles the Misplaced Boys in the event that they determine to develop up, for instance. That direct connection is only one ingredient that makes Pelayo’s novel so nice.
Peter Pan has typically been depicted as one thing of a fae or faerie creature and going again to among the unique Fairy Tales, a few of these non-human creatures are depicted as fairly malicious. Monstrous, nearly. Once more, this Peter Pan… and perhaps Barrie’s unique imaginative and prescient of Pan has a few of that… at the least the mischievousness which is only a step or two, at most, away from malicious.
Backside Line – Pelayo casting Peter Pan as a monster may be very a lot in line and has logic connecting to the unique story and the character of the character.
Her depiction of Wendy as sufferer, survivor, nearly a remaining lady who should overcome her tormentor to reside a free life is enthralling and engrossing. The claustrophobic aura of the novel when Wendy is compelled to work together with the police, and her fears of her previous, pulled me into the story and gave me much more empathy for Wendy. I favored Wendy, I felt for her, and I wished to see her destroy Peter Pan.
Pelayo has a means with phrases and enchanting/magnetic prose. Between the superb characterization of Wendy and the prose, I used to be swept up within the spell of this novel and had blinders on for every part else. (Besides perhaps my canine who was sitting subsequent to me on my love seat once I completed the novel, as a result of effectively, she’s a giant loving canine).
It Got here from Neverland is a incredible novel and can certainly get a slot in my favorites / finest novels of the yr. That is the type of novel that may join very strongly with probably the most die laborious of horror readers / followers whereas managing to have potential enchantment to readers who don’t usually crossover into these darkish tales. That isn’t a straightforward path to take, however Cynthia Pelayo tears down that highway with spectacular success.
Extremely advocate.
© 2026 Rob H. Bedford
Paperback | Crooked Lane Books
June 2026 | 288 Pages
Excerpt: https://www.fangoria.com/exclusive-it-came-from-neverland-peter-pan-horror-novel/
https://www.cynthiapelayo.com/
Overview copy courtesy of the writer, Crooked Lane Books
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