Hooked on Neverland
(2026)(The second book in the Once Upon Another Time series)
A novel by Eliza Nevius
Emberly didn’t mean to fall into a book—literally. One minute she was browsing the suspiciously enchanted Thistle and Thorne Books, the next she was face-planting on a beach that shouldn’t exist. Welcome to Neverland—except it’s been rebranded as Second Star, and nothing about the story matches the bedtime version.
Here, Peter Pan is a dangerous chaos magnet with a cult of Lost Boys. Tinker Bell is equal parts ethereal guide and cryptic taskmaster. And Captain Hook? He isn’t the mustachioed caricature from children’s tales—he’s Jace: clever, infuriatingly attractive, and the captain of a ship that may be the only thing standing between Emberly and the darkness tearing this world apart.
Because Neverland is unraveling. A strange rot is consuming its edges, warping storms, seas, and even people. And somehow, Emberly—an exhausted ghostwriter with nothing heroic on her résumé but sarcasm—has become its target. Worse, the island seems convinced that she’s the key to fixing it.
As Emberly is pulled deeper into Second Star’s secrets, she’s caught in a dangerous tangle of a plot: Peter’s reckless mayhem, Hook’s ruthless pragmatism, her own growing magic and the shadows trying to claim her. The story Emberly thought she knew and the truth bleeding through its pages has become a plot even she couldn't craft.
If Emberly can’t find a way to rewrite Neverland’s ending, the whole world may fall apart. But stories have power, and she’s about to discover just how dangerous it is to be the girl who still believes.
Genre: Fantasy
Here, Peter Pan is a dangerous chaos magnet with a cult of Lost Boys. Tinker Bell is equal parts ethereal guide and cryptic taskmaster. And Captain Hook? He isn’t the mustachioed caricature from children’s tales—he’s Jace: clever, infuriatingly attractive, and the captain of a ship that may be the only thing standing between Emberly and the darkness tearing this world apart.
Because Neverland is unraveling. A strange rot is consuming its edges, warping storms, seas, and even people. And somehow, Emberly—an exhausted ghostwriter with nothing heroic on her résumé but sarcasm—has become its target. Worse, the island seems convinced that she’s the key to fixing it.
As Emberly is pulled deeper into Second Star’s secrets, she’s caught in a dangerous tangle of a plot: Peter’s reckless mayhem, Hook’s ruthless pragmatism, her own growing magic and the shadows trying to claim her. The story Emberly thought she knew and the truth bleeding through its pages has become a plot even she couldn't craft.
If Emberly can’t find a way to rewrite Neverland’s ending, the whole world may fall apart. But stories have power, and she’s about to discover just how dangerous it is to be the girl who still believes.
Genre: Fantasy