Touted as a modern-day "Peter Pan"-flavoured dark romance. Definitely not a retelling, more an AU take. The writing was fair but I didn't enjoy the overly simplistic characterisations. I found the violence tediously cartoonish, the plot paper-thin, the characters bland and the twist not only telegraphed but semaphored, phoned and texted at me.

Unrealistically beautiful people falling in "Twue Wuv" practically instantaneously is just not something I can suspend my disbelief for, and don't enjoy it. I also have Thoughts about the sex scenes when seen in context of the time frame they're portrayed as occurring. Maybe Romance just isn't the genre for me. All in all, meh. ( )

Now this book!! Wow.... That about sums it up. It has left me with a complete lack of words, but I will do my best.

Hooked drew me in from the very first scene. I sometimes struggle with books that have a little slower first few chapters, but this one hits you full force from the first paragraph! I am not entirely sure what I expected out of this book, but let me tell you. It was not at all what I expected, but everything I didn't know I wanted.

The author tells you from the beginning that this is not a retelling of Peter Pan, and it truly is not. She takes the character names and some of the more recognizable things (such as the Jolly Roger and pixie dust), and warps them into her own modern day urban story. This book has everything from romance, to violence, to tragedy, to drug dealers, and so much more.

While the book itself does not list out the trigger warnings, there is a statement that if you have any at all to look on the authors website to find them. Please take this seriously if you do happen to have any trigger warnings. The writing is very detailed, and I could see how it could be disturbing or troubling for some.

Overall, I devoured this book! I am trying to figure out how fast I can get to the store to grab her other books in the Never After Series! If you have read Butcher and Blackbird and enjoyed it, give this book a try. ( )

I feel like my review needs disclaimers-- This book falls under the 'Dark Romance' category, so it's not your typical love story. Before diving in, please take a moment to read the disclaimer and trigger warnings.

The goal of this book is solely to present you with cheesy and ridiculous smut. It's not that deep. Take it as a fun read. Some books present as these beautiful love stories but in reality, are just cringe. That's when I will downgrade my rating. This book tells you beforehand what you are getting into.

The MMC is portrayed as a villain, behaving as you'd expect. -A Villain-.

Does he mistreat her? Yes.
Does he do less than savory things? Also, yes.

Wendy, on the other hand, is involved in a complicated relationship with this villain, which isn't the healthiest dynamic. The book leans heavily into explicit and unconventional themes, which might not be everyone's cup of tea. You either love it or you don't. I personally did.

My main gripe with the book is its labeling as a "retelling." It doesn't align much with anything, apart from names. Hook, Peter, Wendy, John, Smee... the 'names' are all there but there's nothing else nodding to "Peter Pan". The characters could have been named entirely differently without changing the story at all.

Alas, I personally really enjoyed this book, it exceeded expectations. ( )

1.5/5 average floridian love story

169,423 ratings, average of 3.85 stars. what world do we live in??????

Hooked is a dark mob boss AU of Peter Pan, where Hook is a club owner/drug ringleader, and Peter is a competing drug lord threatening Hook's turf (and haunting his past). Wendy is Peter's daughter, and Hook is drawn to her both sexually and as a way to get back at Peter.

Drug being pushed? Pixie dust. Peter's business associate? Tina Bell.

This was mostly laughable, and to be honest, the reason I read this book was because I thought it would be silly to listen to the audiobook with my friend.

That being said. I am a feminist. I understand, when reading smutty romance, a lot of my principles will have to go out the window. This is simply rite of passage.

But this book?????

It felt like the weirdest male power fantasy. James' POV was dedicated to torturing people graphically for multiple minutes at a time(and getting off to it), degrading Wendy, and just exuding power in general. Wendy's POV is sex scenes, enjoying being degraded, and trying to justify liking Hook's behavior. Like, Hook hardly knows Wendy and then inflicts the most gruesome torture on a guy who calls her a bitch. It just felt so self-righteous and again, MALE POWER FANTASY???

Wendy being called Hook's "pet" happened one too many times.

The ending was fun. I enjoyed some of it for sure, but it was just soooooo over the top and cringe. Also, the big twist was so obvious that I thought it had to be a red herring. ( )

Hook wants revenge against Peter Michaels and is willing to go to any length to get it. Wendy is Peter's 21 year old daughter and Hook sees her as a tool to get to Peter. He plans to seduce Wendy and use her for his revenge.



Wendy has been hidden away for most of her life by her wealthy and distant father. When she meets James during a spontaneous night out with some girl friends, an addictive love affair begins to blossom. As James and Wendy's relationship become heated and intense, she learns about the mysterious world he lives in and is unsure if she is falling for James or his dark alter ego Hook.

I thought the overall story was done well and that the main characters had steady character development. The setting was well chosen, a large city with plenty of nightclubs for nefarious deeds. I found the pacing to be steady throughout the book until the end; the last 5ish chapters went by really quickly. There was so much buildup to the ending and then it felt like it was over in the blink of an eye. I also felt that the ending was fairly predictable and was not surprised by the twists.

My biggest issue was with the language and word usage. The description of a character's head movement was way over utilized. The words "tilt(ed/ing)" or "cock(ed/ing)" were used constantly to describe that head movement among other things. By chapter 12 I was thinking "somebody please give this author a thesaurus." There were other descriptions that I thought were over used as well but those two words occurred the most.

The spicy scenes were spicy and included some kink. 5 peppers on my scale: full, anatomically correct, step by step descriptions of sexual activity are given significant space in the story. They were well done and the author used good descriptions, but again certain descriptions and words were excessively used. ( )

DNF ( )

Got a little too dark and possible triggers foreshadowing

I…I…don’t know where to start. This is so dark and twisted and all kinds of what the actual bleep. This is not for the faint of heart or the generic cozy reader. It’s a spicy, spicy, bloody read. Please read trigger warnings if you ever attempt it. I’m also really annoyed at the ending. Otherwise, if you have ever had an unhealthy obsession with Captain Hook from the series Once Upon a Time, you will quickly breeze through this. ( )

This book wrecked me...I have so many emotions! On top of having some really good descriptions, Emily does an incredible job of making you feel for both of the main characters, and really puts you in the eyes of both the villain and Wendy. Such a good book. ( )

Soooooo good! ( )

It starts so strong, so gritty, so dark, but that second half is... pain. It's tonal whiplash. I was handling Peter Pan being the dad of Wendy and Wendy getting attracted to Hook, don't get me wrong, weird fanfiction, but I could almost vibe with it. Then it was extremely vanilla when it wasn't murder and stalker energy.

Wendy is not-like-other-girls. She's that tried and true foul-mouthed girl with no self-defense classes and no way to back up her foul mouth. A sassy damsel, which is now a dime a dozen. Whenever she's looked at, people magically know she's Peter's daughter. I find that to mean she's either appearing like a gender-bend of Peter or she's so well known it's weird people don't know who she is.

Also Hook is a tsundere for Peter, so much so I'm not the only one who expected Hook to cry out Peter's name during sex with his daughter. Hook straight up is the 'I don't like him, I hate him, what are you, a baka?!' meme. He dreams of defiling her having sex so rough it scars and deforms her insides and ruins her for all future men and then sending her back to her dad. He fixates quite a bit on breaking Wendy, especially in front of Peter or to the point Peter will see his daughter being fucked. So he's into making Wendy's dad a cuck...
Aight.

"The daughter of the man whom I've been keeping tabs on since I was eleven years old." Sounds like a child genius but this is never elaborated upon. He's literally a child, surely he's stalking this guy when he's not on kid sites and violating COPPA law to play Neopets or playing solitaire and minesweeper while waiting for a grown adult Peter to surface.

"I've no interested in damaged property." See above where he wants to damage and defile her and ruin her body. Okay? Gross. Nasty. No thanks.

Hook kidnaps Wendy's rude customer(s) and kills them because only he can objectify her. Ah, yes, finally. Some retail worker escapism. Finally, some peace. Only Hook can be a scumbag over this shit. He alone is allowed to harass Wendy. Also, everyone is thrilled over this happening and Hook gets a massive boner from this as well, he's so aroused to take a life. No red flags here!

I can accept murderous bad guys, I'm just burned out from how many times the good guy gets with them because the bad boy is:
A murderer.
A stalker.
A rapist.
A racist.
A genocidal tyrant.
A sexist.
A psychopath/sociopath who sees no value in them.
These are not sexy, they are abusive things. "Dark Romance" doesn't have to mean he's Hannibal Lector or a Nazi. It can be forbidden, monster stuff(vampire, werewolf, etc) or so on. But it's all become one thing: serial killer is the romance option.

I'm tired of it.

Hook's dick is constantly summarized as a "monster cock" and at least once as a "bomb" he wants to explode inside of Wendy. As he's having sex with Wendy he's not about to cum but then he thinks of having sex with Wendy in front of Peter Pan before he kills him and nuts really hard. Gosh, just go get with Peter, Hook. It's so obvious this is either a hardcore cucking fetish or pining hard for a man who went on and lived a life he felt like living.
At this point I'm convinced he's Peter's ex and Peter saw through Hook when they had a fling or something -or Peter dated Hook's dad- and he's after Peter's attention so much he'll do anything, even have sex with his female clone child who looks enough like him that Hook can pretend he's doing Peter.

Kidnapping happens, but it's okay because he's so vanilla and gentle, he basically cradles her and says he won't hurt her. He just needs to see her dad again - it's all about her dad! So he pampers her as if she's not completely at his mercy and his prisoner.

"-and my enemy's daughter choking on my cum." Peter is the star of this fantasy! It's all Peter Peter Peter.

Wellll... Peter never realized Wendy was kidnapped or gone. Nor did Tina Bell. Aight. Tina is trying to be friendly with Hook because she's a blonde dummy and somehow also Tinkerbell. She's oblivious to there being a kidnap, sex, basically anything. Like, I really don't care about Wendy's fate here. Peter is dumb, Tinkerbell is dumb, and Hook is a tryhard killer.

"When I was a little girl, my dad used to bring me acorns."
"And I collected those acorns, like kisses."
I should have DNF'd this thing right then and there. I should have walked away. I should have left. But I was already close enough to the finish. This is so bad. This is terrible. I'm not one starring this book because it's become a comedy after that halfway mark. Maybe it was always a comedy.

I think by brain broke but he spits into her vagina??? Like hocks a full lougie into it. The fucking horror that induced.

"I won't set the world on fire, but I'll stand at your back, and hand you the match." Yo, this isn't the 2000s. "Darling, if I'm the dark, then you're the stars." I cannot handle this. These are serial killer tumblr one liners.

And then she tries to kill her parents. Or does. My brain went full 404 screen at this point.

2.5 stars. Edgy dark story that became a comedy. ( )

I am frustrated

WTF? Please, someone tell me I read something wrong. I just finished that book, and I tell you, I wish I hadn't started it.

"Hooked" is a dark Hook retelling with a morally black hero and a very dark romance. It's a story about Wendy, the daughter of Peter, and her journey to the broken James aka Hook. It has twists and turns and was quite a rollercoaster, which means we have a lot of things to unpack.

I am gonna start with the general info. The writing style was great, and the plot was more than interesting (I finished it for 4 days during the exam session). So the writer certainly has a talent.

However, the end left me highly frustrated, the plot twist was predictable, and there was quite a lot to improve for the characters. By the middle of the book, I was craving James to redeem himself to Wendy, and I usually like my men broken. This never happened...

But let's return to the ending. Can someone please explain to me why? Why, why, why? I totally expected Smee to be a traitor, but I didn't want him to die. If they had just sitten down and talked with each other, if James had explained the situation, all this mess would've been avoided. And I really liked Smee, so it's a shame to see him die like that.

2) Moira I didn't expect, but she was a bitch anyway, so her death was pleasurable.

3) Peter's death though. I hated it. I hated every word, every sentence, every page of that scene. I wish I DNFed the book. I would have been okay with her shooting him, and bruising him. But killing her own father? He was a good dad, and he changed. It's normal. He grew cold, and things happened. He DIDN'T DESERVE TO DIE. Again all of this could've been avoided.

TBF, the end didn't feel like HEA, yes they got together, but at what cost?

Overall, 3.75. I enjoyed the book but the end deducted a whole star from it. If you like dark romance, then go ahead, and read it, but be prepared something dark is coming, and the light in the end is more dim, than bright. ( )

This was an interesting reworking of Peter Pan. This was full of modern-day gangesters and thugs. There were knives, guns, betrayals, and a little Stockholm Syndrome thrown in for good measure. Hook was a bad guy; Peter was the worst guy.

Peter was a well-known and very rich businessman. He was also ruthless, underhanded, and very, very dirty. Hook also worked within the seedier side of life. He's intimidating, to say the least, and put a lot of stock in loyalty.

Then Wendy, daughter of Peter, the man who destroyed Hook's family, walked into his bar and under his skin. He knew who she was almost immediately and quickly created a plan to use her to get what he wanted most in life, revenge.

It did not go according to plan.

This was hot and spicey, and just want I needed to get myself out of my reading slump. I cannot wait to read the other books in this series! ( )

I think I liked the concept more than how it turned out. But I did enjoy the spin on the fairytale! ( )

I am not really good at writing book reviews so normally I just rate by stars and leave it at that, but I loved this book so much that I had to say a little something about it. First it is not the Hook, Peter or even Wendy we read about as kids, character relationships clearly different but it works, based on modern times with modern issues. I am normally not into excessive sexual content in books/stories as sometimes I feel it is just forced but this is just the right amount and never forced, some might say not necessarily realistic in some parts but not here to me everything fit. The unpredictability of what would happen to me was perfect. I would definitely read this several times. Also side note had I started to read this earlier in the day I definitely would've finished it in one day but I had other adult things to take care causing interruptions so there for it took me two days, lol. ( )

I couldn't put the book down, read it in a day. I loved Hooked, I loved how the story got twisted to modern times. I knew the twist before the reveal but still an enjoyable plot. ( )

Once Upon A Time, there was a little boy.
His belly full of laughter, his life full of joy.
Until one day, something changed; stripped his innocence away.
The hole inside making space for the devil to come and play.
His dreams gone forever, he grew up way too fast.
An endless night of crocodiles, and watches made of glass.
He grew into a villain, the taste of vengeance on his tongue.
Craving to make his enemies pay for the misdeeds they had done.
Instead he found a darling girl, and refused to let her go.
For what better way to make the man pay, than to steal his little shadow.

*Hooked is a full-length, complete standalone and the first in The Never After Series: A collection of fractured fairy tales where the villains get the happy ever after. This is a DARK Contemporary romance (not a literal retelling and not fantasy) featuring mature themes and content that may not be suitable for all audiences. Reader discretion is advised.* (Goodreads.com)

When I tell you the choke hold this book had on me. This is the first time I read a dark romance, and I completely understand why everyone reads them. I am completely into these types of books. I mean the writing and the plot is so good. Also James... oof that man is disrespectful in the best of ways. I am a white man's whore for him. Highly recommend this book. ( )

A dark-inspired romance based on Peter Pan?

This IS NOT a retelling, get that straight. This only uses character names.

The main character is James Barrie (the author of Peter Pan), and his love interest is Wendy Michaels whom he calls, darling as an endearment.

James is an underworld crime boss with a reputation for using a hooked knife to slice up people who piss him off. He lives on a boat with a guy named Smee who works for him. His boss' name is Roofus, Ru for short. [why not just call him Rufio? We see what you did there.]

Peter Micheals is a businessman, Wendy's dad, and he wants to get into business with Ru and James.

Wendy has a brother named Jonathan [in Peter Pan, the Darling children are Wendy Darling, Micheal Darling, and John Darling] who is shipped off to boarding school.

The story is pretty basic. Stockholm's Syndrome trope. James has trauma that isn't clearly detailed but you get enough that you can guess and that makes it so much worse because you can use your imagination - good author plan.

Death, drugs, sex, kidnapping, murder.

Chili peppers: 2

Recommended for 18+. Reader responsibility to check CW/TW.

**All thoughts and opinions are my own. Read on my personal KU subscription.** ( )

Actual rating 3.5/5 ( )

2023 ( )

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
🌶🌶🌶 /4 ( )