I have always been a passionate defender of Mary Darling in all media and so seeing the title of this book was like catnip. A story about Mary Darling, and one that gives her agency too! In this tale, Mary and her brother are from Australia and are taken to Neverland by Peter Pan—but that is only the very start of Mary’s adventures and not how the tale unfolds. The reader learns her story backward, as HER children go to Neverland and she is determined to go and bring them back—with the help of her uncle John Watson and his friend Sherlock Holmes.

I enjoyed this a lot, which means a lot coming from me. The book is primarily traveling interspersed with vignettes from the past, and I historically do not like “traveling” books. But the author’s voice and her interest in history melding with the fantastic really captures the imagination. I think the real world melded with Neverland in a fascinating way.

Fair warning—if you are a Holmes fan, he does get the short end of the stick by being the Logical Man in a story of the fantastic, but the inclusion of these other famous British literary characters gave the story a unique twist.

One thing I did quibble about was part of the ending. After what George does in the beginning, I think he should have groveled FAR MORE and paid for it. But this at its heart was not a romance in that way.

All in all this was a very fun spin on the classic Peter Pan mythos and I’m glad to see Mary Darling shine.