Title: Seas
Author: Colleen Oakes
Series: Wendy Darling #2
Genre: YA Fairy Tale Retelling
Published: September 20th, 2016
Source: Finished copy received for review from SparkPoint Studio
Just like with Three Dark Crowns I was contacted back in August to be a part of a Fall YA Tour. Now the books came a little later than planned, so I didn't get to this one before the publishing date unfortunately. I also had asked for the first book in the series, but due to the mix up and late mailing, I didn't get it. Fortunately, the author does a great job of catching you up on what happened in the last book. It's not done in a big info dump at the beginning, although you do get the necessary details right away. A lot of what happened is spread throughout the story in appropriate conversations and memories in the right spot. Obviously there will be a few spoilers in my review below, sorry about that. But you can pick this one up and read it without reading the first one if you want.
As you can guess, this is a retelling of the story about Peter Pan. Only in this version, Peter is not the good guy. Captain Hook is still a pirate, and so still not really a nice guy, but in this story he is going to be really all that Wendy has to help her get her brother back from Peter, as well as to keep her safe from Peter's obsession with her. You see Peter Pan is very charming. Not only does he have Tinkerbelle in love with him, but at first, he makes Wendy feel like she is in love as well. But soon she sees him for what kind of a person he really is, when he takes her up flying, and drops her from very high above the ground. He catches her, at the last minute, but uses this as a way to try to make her stay with him. But Wendy now just wants to get her brothers and get back home. Even though according to everyone in Neverland, there is no way back. Wendy and her youngest brother Michael must learn to live on the pirate ship, while Hook tells Wendy his story and his reasons for being after Peter. Wendy will work in the kitchen, and get to know the pirates well enough to call some of them friends, in their own way. As long as she is on the ship, she is pretty well protected from Peter.
Eventually Hook and Wendy will go to find out how to really kill Peter, which will require a dangerous trip alone for Wendy, so that she can ask help from the mermaids. The mermaids who will trade the information for virgin blood. Wendy's blood. Along their travels Wendy will not only have to worry about Peter finding her, but also some of the pirates on the very ship she is on may not be able to be trusted. Along with a big pirate summit where there is mutiny among Hook and the other ships. The mermaids cannot be trusted, and even just to get to them Wendy will travel a path where Peter will almost be able to capture her and stop her.
Wendy's thoughts are just to save her brothers and get back to her home where her family is, as well as the man that she really feels she could be in love with. In the end we will lose some of the characters we grow to love, and things will not come out quite the way as planned. There is a big surprise at the end, making me very anxious for the next book, so that I can see what Wendy will do to solve this next obstacle.
This was my first book by the author, even though I have a copy of the ARC of Queen of Hearts sitting on my TBR shelf. I am definitely very excited to read that one now, and I have also ordered my own copy of the first book in this series so that I can read about the whole relationship between Peter and Wendy, and how this version of the fairy tale all began. If you haven't started this author, or this series, I definitely recommend it.
