Publication Date: June 9, 2026
Peter Pan meets Stephen King’s It in this twisted horror retelling of a classic childhood fairy tale set during WWI.
1914, Wendy Darling works by day as a school teacher, and by night, she assists soldiers who have returned home from the Western Front. There is one mysterious patient who, despite all the care they’ve given him, is in a deep sleep, unable to wake up. One night, when he murmurs the words “Peter Pan,” Wendy is thrown back to a darker time, one that she wishes she could forget.
When one of her students goes missing, it brings back memories of when children went missing and were later found murdered in London many years ago. Wendy is convinced that Peter Pan, the entity that she believes killed those children, is back. She and her brothers had a close encounter with Peter Pan, after all. But her brothers only remember Peter Pan and Neverland as a fantasy of childhood games.
When another child goes missing and signs start to point to Wendy, Scotland Yard digs into old reports, finding that Wendy knew the names of all the children who had been killed. As Wendy tries to prove her innocence, she also has to find a way to stop Peter Pan once and for all.
The survivor of an otherworldly entity wearing the mask of an ageless boy must confront her past before he claims more innocent children in Cynthia Pelayo’s entrancing novel, It Came from Neverland.
Boldly turning the fairy tale of Peter Pan on its head, Pelayo presents a vastly different image of the boy who can never grow old through the eyes of the girl who loved him most. In 1914, Wendy Darling is an adult, teaching at the Marigold House for lost and abandoned children during the day and visiting a nearby hospital at night to read to wounded soldiers at night. But when one soldier, caught in a deep sleep he cannot awaken from, says the name she dreads above all—“Peter Pan”—Wendy must fight to keep the children in her care from becoming Pan’s next victims. Together with her brothers, John and Michael, the trio must find a way to return to the island of their childhood, the island where Wendy could not save the rest of “her lost boys.”
Because in this darkly imaginative take on the beloved fairy tale, Peter Pan is not the sweet boy who promises immortality to those who “come away” with him to Neverland. Rather, he is an “it,” something ancient, hungry, and thirsting for the affection, hope, and memories of children he steals away to his island before casting their hollowed-out shells back into the natural world.
Wendy has spent the last twelve years burying the memories of the London child disappearances and murders that plagued the city. Her self-imposed isolation at Marigold House is necessary to evade those who question how the Darling siblings were found alive in Kensington Gardens, while so many others were found dead. But now, in this twelfth year after their escape from Neverland, crows fill the sky, shadows are detaching, and a sinister light shines underneath the sealed nursery in the Darling house where Wendy lives alone. When she recalls the name carved into the Black Rock, the one Roger Hook revealed to her then as a child, she fears for the safety of the children at Marigold House. His name should never be spoken, Roger warned her…Peter, Peter, shadow eater.
Pelayo reinvents the Peter Pan story for those who like their fairy tales twisted, with a side order of shape-shifting evil thrown in. The story closely follows the original Peter and Wendy story by author J.M. Barrie, whom the adult Wendy believes took “her terror and turned it to his profit” in authoring the book. But the other characters of the Peter Pan story are here, too: Captain Hook, his son, Roger, the Lost Boys, and the Darling siblings, of course. The narrative shifts at times between characters, and Wendy’s patchy memories of Peter —the “monster” she loved—flicker in and out, as she pours all her memories into her journal.
When one of Wendy’s students goes missing, it is clear Peter is back for more children, and it is up to the Darlings to end Peter Pan’s “never-ending story” once and for all. The siblings team up to discover where Peter’s power comes from and how to stop the creature hiding behind the face of a green-eyed, beautiful boy: they must return to his island, one more time. Wendy vows not to lose another child to Peter’s predation, even if it means never coming back.
It Came from Neverland is a masterful and mature reimagining of the iconic children’s story, but this time with more blood, death, and terror. What’s not to love?
Cynthia Pelayo is the Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Forgotten Sisters, Children of Chicago, and The Shoemaker’s Magician. In addition to writing genre-blending novels that incorporate fairy-tale, mystery, detective, crime, and horror elements, Pelayo has written numerous short stories, including the collection Lotería, and the poetry collection Crime Scene. The recipient of the 2021 International Latino Book Award, she holds a master of fine arts in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her family.
