Everland
Everland
By: Wendy Spinale
Everland came in my second Owl Crate and the theme was Steampunk. I’ve never thought about Steampunk as a genre … I thought of it as a wardrobe choice—more like cosplay than anything else. So I didn’t know what to think about a Steampunk book. But I really like Peter Pan, so was excited to jump into this one!
A couple interesting things to note: Wendy Spinale use to be a character actor at Disney (I have no doubt this helped publish this story! Publishers like authors that have special insight into the niche!) Instead of pirate ships, Captain Hook commands a fleet of zeppelins. A biological weapon has destroyed London—almost all of the adults have been killed—and now London is called Everland.
This book is all about Gwen Darling and her siblings. They’ve recently been orphaned and Gwen is fighting to keep her family safe and fed when she encounters Pete and Bella (enter Peter Pan and Tinkerbell!).
I really don’t want to give too much away about the plot because once I got about 20 pages in. I was hooked. (20 pages isn’t that bad—I’ve read some books that I made over half way through and still felt like we were stuck in world building mode.)
This story is character driven—which I don’t mind at all—as sometimes the plot would become a little muddied. (Not for long though.)
One of my favorite moments was when one of the lost boys, a blind boy, told Pete that Gwen was beautiful. Pete, of course, questioned the blind boy on how he could possible know that the filthy girl was beautiful. The boy told him that he could tell she was beautiful because she was kind and loved her family. He said she could be ugly, but she was beautiful because of her character. I love that it didn’t feel heavy handed, even though it was so clear that the author wanted to make a statement about character being more important than looks.
There were a few times when it seemed like we lost track of hands … but that happens sometimes. It’s a debut novel. It’s not perfect. Someday I’ll have to debut novel and it won’t be perfect.
This is a good story with great characters. The Steampunk twist on this well-loved story really works. There was suspense, drama, a fair touch of romance … a note on the romance: I think Spinale did a great job of drawing this out and recognized the suspense of a kiss is almost more powerful than the kiss itself. Well done.
If you like Peter Pan, you’ll love Everland. If you like Steampunk, you’ll love Everland. If you like fairytales retold, you’ll love Everland.
Add it to your list of books to read and support a brand new author!
