Hooked Book Review: Never After Book #1 by Emily McIntire

It’s been a while since I’ve read a dark romance. When I heard that the Never After series was a reimagining of the fairy tales we all know, but starring the villains, I was immediately interested.

Most romance readers love a bad boy, but before I started reading I had a lot of questions. How do you take a villain and make him sexy? How dark were these novels going to be? Before the book started, the author mentioned that she had a list of trigger warnings on her website so that readers could prepare themselves.

I knew that I was going to need to read the first book Hooked in order to find answers to those questions. So here is my Hooked Book Review.

Spoiler Alert: I didn’t love this book and thought it was kind of dumb.

But this is such a popular book that a lot of people seem to love, so I’m just going to chalk it up to being not for me. If you’d like to read more of my book discussions, you can view them here.

What is the book Hooked about?

Hooked tells the story of Captain James Hook (often referred to as just Hook) who is obsessed with destroying his enemy, Peter Michaels. The two have longstanding beef, as Peter is the one responsible for killing James’ father. But after a chance encounter with someone who is very important to Peter, James comes up with the perfect plan.

One evening at James’s bar, The Jolly Roger, James is viewing the security footage and sees a beautiful young woman enter his establishment. She’s young, cute, and beautiful. But more importantly, she’s Peter’s twenty-year-old daughter Wendy. Although Wendy doesn’t have the best relationship with her wealthy cold father, Peter loves her very much and refers to her as his little shadow.

James knows that seducing Wendy Michaels during her spontaneous night of fun would be the perfect taste of vengeance. When Michael finds out what he has done, it will ruin him.

But while Hooked is a story of revenge, it is also a love story. Wendy is drawn into their toxic relationship and soon finds herself falling in love. But there’s no chance of her and Hook living happily ever after without her father finding out, and without Hook getting his revenge.

Throughout the story, the author throws in Peter Pan references and characters to help tie the whole fairy tale reimagining together.

In this first complete standalone novel in the Never After series, the characters must deal with internal struggles and no ones happiness is guaranteed.

About Emily McIntire

Booktok sensation Emily McIntire has written quite a few books, but her most popular series is the Never After series. Her books have grown quite a following on booktok, which is a section of tiktok where content creators rave and rant over their favorite books. She writes in quite a few different subgenres of the romance genre.

How Many Books are in the Never After series by Emily McIntire?

There are currently 5 books in the Never After series and each book focuses on a different fairy tale villain. I’ve only Hooked, which is book 1. But judging by the crime and nefarious activities going on in James’s organization, I have a feeling the rest of the books will be just as exciting.

Is Hooked worth reading?

I do not think Hooked is worth reading and would not recommend it to any of my friends. I just don’t dig that kind of hero. In this peter pan retelling the Hero is Captain Hook and the Heroine is Wendy Darling. Their addictive love affair is toxic to say the least, and honestly… Hook is pretty slimy from the very beginning. I like a bad boy as much as the next reader, and of course there’s something sexy about an accent.

But that’s really all I could get behind. Hook’s actions are gross and domineering. I want to give Wendy a pass for falling for him because she’s so young but then I read the epilogue and was like ugh.

How Old Should you Be to Read Hooked?

In my opinion, you should be 18 years or older to read Hooked by Emily McIntire. It’s a romance novel, but it’s got dark undertones and mature themes. There are also quite a few sex scenes which may be better suited for an older audience. Reader discretions is advised.You can click here to read the trigger warnings that she shares on her website.

How old is Wendy in Hooked?

Peter’s daughter Wendy is 20 years old at the beginning of Hooked, but she does celebrate her birthday close to the second half of the story. They live in a small town and she works at a local coffee shop, which is where she has one of her first interactions with Hook.

Is Hooked a Dark Romance?

Yes. While Hooked is a fairy tale reimagining of Peter Pan, the main character James is a loose interpretation of Captain Hook. He’s very demanding, very suave, and very horny. He sets his sights on the darling girl and won’t give up until he’s taken what he wants from her. Hooked is a dark contemporary romance with a fantasy twist.

What did I Like About Hooked?

I do like the idea of retelling a fairy tale from a different perspective or in a different way. It’s an interesting way to revisit a classic tale. Although my high school put on Peter Pan during my junior year, I only loosely remembered the story so it was fun to revisit it in this book.

I liked how the drugs (or, I mean… habit-forming products) were called “pixie dust”. And I liked how James’s boat was called Tiger Lily. All of the references and the tie ins to the Peter Pan story were pretty clever. Especially how James had Smee working on his boat as his right hand man.

I liked the relationship between Wendy and her brother Jon. I have a brother who is four years younger than me so I related a lot to their close relationship. Although this book is a retelling of Peter Pan in a way, it also felt like an original story.

What I Didn’t Like About Hooked

When it comes down to it, James just felt cheesy. It was weird how the second he saw Wendy over the security camera at the bar, his penis started twitching. What? Is he really that horny that a grainy security camera footage turns him on?

I don’t like how he treated Wendy. She seemed smart at first and then she quickly succumbed to his “charm”. Even when she found out about his revenge plot, she forgave him way too quickly. It just felt rushed and ridiculous. I get that she’s impressed by dashing Captain Hook, but it didn’t make much sense to me how she seemed to give up on her original discernment of him.

But then again, she did grow up pretty sheltered. As a grown woman, she hasn’t been as exposed to things as other people. I just have a lot of thoughts. There has to be a better way to make the two characters fall in love than to make Wendy seem helpless and like she just needs James in order to survive.

In Conclusion

I think you have to be a certain kind of romance fan to really enjoy this book. Most of us reading romance are looking for happy endings and cute moments between characters. But darker romances are just different. In this sort of book, the drama consists of crime and drug addiction and revenge. The stakes are high and the characters are very flawed. While Wendy’s sudden emotional attachment felt forced to me, other readers may be into that kind of thing.

We all like different books and this one just wasn’t for me! I’m always going to give you a realistic look at books on my blog so that you can decide whether you want to check them out or not. And if you disagree with my thoughts on this book, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.

xo Marian

But wait, there’s more!

If you enjoyed today’s book discussion, you can check out more of my reviews here.