This is a dark reimaging of Peter Pan, in which the magic is transformed into something toxic. Readers should be warned about these triggers before reading about captivity, torture, dubious consent, sexual acts with firearms and other implements, and explicit murder scenes.

McIntire sets the story in Florida. Wendy is Peter’s daughter. She despises her father but otherwise has no personality. She’s vapid and void; a gallon of paint proves more interesting than her. This colorless girl would have faded into nothing if not for James, her father’s nemesis, out for revenge. When he sees Wendy in his bar, he concocts a plan to ruin her and return her in pieces to her father.

James “Hook,” the villain or hero of this story, is twisted in ways McIntire attempts to redeem with a recounting of his childhood sexual abuse, but his mistreatment of Wendy is inexcusable: the torture, the constant demeaning, the gun in her pussy or his hook where is the pleasure in any of that? If this is McIntire’s way of making the story spicy, she fell far off the mark because it was disturbing on a new level of toxicity.

The characters don’t have any substantive conversations throughout the book, which makes it hard for readers to connect to either of them. The story is also fractured in time from past to present. Kudos to McIntire for executing this feat so seamlessly; it’s the reason why this book is a .5-star read.