Everland

Gr 6 Up—The story of Peter Pan (Pete), Wendy (Gwen), and the Lost Boys is reimagined as a steampunk fantasy. Hook (aka Hanz Otto Oswald Kretschmer), the son of Katherina, the power-hungry "Bloodred Queen" of Germany, is captain of an army of Marauders. Equipped with eight-legged steam crawlers and zeppelins (including the Jolly Roger), they capture London (now called Everland) and reduce it to rubble. Hook's Buckingham Palace headquarters is the only building left in reasonably good condition. Even worse, the German bombs have destroyed Europe's largest biological weapons lab, releasing the deadly Horologia Virus, killing nearly everyone over the age of 18. Gwen and her two siblings, moving from one destroyed home to another in London's outskirts, are discovered by Pete and Bella (a petite girl wearing mechanical wings) and taken to live underground among the Lost Boys. Chapters alternately narrated by Gwen and Hook describe the action from both sides. Hook hears that one of the girls is immune to the virus and makes a plan to capture her; Pete, Gwen, and the Lost Boys must save them. Intertwined with the plot is Hook's desire to earn his evil mother's love. The story becomes somewhat melodramatic as the ending looms. Peter, Gwen, and the Boys try to escape from the Marauders; there's a bit of a love story as well. A girl named Lily, Smee (here called Smeeth), and crocodiles all make appearances.