Insight of a Kenyan Girl

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

A dark, twisted fairytale that gets under your skin and stays there.

I will be honest. I almost did not pick up Hooked. Dark romance is a genre I approach carefully, because too often “dark” is used as an excuse for poor writing dressed up in aesthetic moodiness. But something about this Peter Pan retelling called to me, and I am so glad I answered.

Let me set the scene: James Hook is not the cartoonish villain we remember from childhood. In Emily McIntire’s hands, he is a cold, calculating crime lord with a past that explains, though never fully excuses, the man he has become. Wendy Darling, on the other hand, walks into his world with the kind of reckless energy that either gets you killed or changes everything. In this story, it does both, in ways I did not see coming.

What struck me most reading this book as a Kenyan woman who grew up on Western fairytales is how McIntire strips the magic away and replaces it with something rawer and more honest. Power, desire, grief, and the complicated ways people hurt each other when they do not know how to love. The Peter Pan parallels are not just decorative. They are doing real thematic work, asking questions about who gets to be the villain in someone else’s story, and whether lost people can ever truly find their way back.

The slow burn between Hook and Wendy is genuinely masterful. I found myself reading chapters twice, not because I was confused, but because I did not want to leave certain scenes. McIntire understands that tension is built in small moments: a look held too long, a conversation that cuts closer than it should, silence that says more than words. By the time the story reaches its most emotionally charged moments, I was fully gone, invested in a way that made me put the book down just to breathe.

Is it perfect? No. Some of the secondary characters feel like furniture, present but not quite alive. There were moments I wanted more time in Wendy’s internal world, more access to what she was feeling beneath the surface. And the pacing in the first quarter demands patience that not every reader will be willing to give.

But here is what I keep coming back to: Hooked stayed with me. Days after finishing it, I found myself thinking about Hook, not as a romantic fantasy, but as a genuinely complex character study. That is the mark of writing that goes beyond the genre’s basic requirements.

If you enjoy dark romance, morally complicated men, and stories that refuse to be tidy, this one is for you. Just make sure you have the sequel ready, because you will need it the moment you turn the last page.

Recommended for: Fans of dark romance, morally grey heroes, slow burn tension, and fairytale retellings that bite back.