ARC Review: Second Star to the Left

SECOND STAR TO THE LEFT

MEGAN VAN DYKE

SERIES: Standalone

GENRES/ SUBJECTS: Romance, Peter Pan Retelling

GOODREADS

SECOND STAR TO THE LEFT is a Peter Pan retelling/ prequel that throws together an exiled Tinker Bell and the crew of the Jolly Rodger. It has a great, adventure storyline with a treasure hunt and a curse to break.

As much as I love the idea of Neverland, I’ve struggled to find more than a couple of retelling’s I’ve really enjoyed (Peter Darling by Austin Chant and The Wendy by Erin Michelle Sky and Steven Brown are good examples).

SECOND STAR TO THE LEFT is another great find, especially if you particularly like your retellings with a heavy side of romance. It focuses largely on the Neverland pirates (a great crew and likeable misfit family), and creates a strong high-seas adventure with dashes of pixie and mermaid magic thrown in for good measure. I really liked the little bits of Neverland-inspired world-building (the mermaids from the lagoon, Blackbeard and the pixie’s homeland) woven into the main story.

It’s a fast-paced story, with lots of adventure. On the romance side of things, the protagonists have great chemistry together, and having the POV switch between Tink and Hook lets us see all the misunderstandings and developing romance from both sides. Personally, I’d have liked the enemies-to-lovers to have been a little bit more… forceful? There’s a hint of dislike at the beginning, but it’s really more of a ‘thrown together’ situation and the romance develops fairly quickly.

A fun and romantic adventure.

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Tinker Bell, banished from her homeland for doing the unthinkable, selling the hottest drug in Neverland—pixie dust—wants absolution.

Determined to find a way home, Tink doesn’t hesitate to follow the one lead she has, even if that means seducing a filthy pirate to steal precious gems out from under his…hook.

Captain Hook believes he’s found a real treasure in Tink. That is, until he recovers from her pixie dust laced kiss with a curse that turns the seas against him. With his ship and reputation at the mercy of raging storms, he tracks down the little minx and demands she remove the curse. Too bad she can’t.

However, the mermaid queen has a solution to both of their problems, if Tink and Hook will work together to retrieve a magical item for her.

As they venture to the mysterious Shrouded Isles to find the priceless treasure, their shared nemesis closes in. However, his wrath is nothing compared to the realization that achieving their goal may mean losing something they never expected to find—each other.

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.