🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️4 / 5
This features many explicit scenes with lots of detailed language. This book is heavier on the spice, but the plot is still there and doing something interesting. Also, it's probably at least a little kinky.
 The Smut / Kinks include: breathplay, knife (hook) play, blood play (light), fear play, pain play, light BDSM, dubious consent, edge play, and a lot of literal swordfighting as foreplay. 

This book was everything I hoped it would be based on the pitch: a grown up Peter Pan and Captain Hook having a queer fairytale romance. It's been 14 years since Peter left Neverland and Captain Hook would tell you he's never been happier (outside of the shadow consuming more and more of Neverland) but that is a lie. Meanwhile, Peter is living a totally normal life having forgotten Neverland: he's 26 years old and working at a college teaching music but haunted with a loneliness he can't seem to escape (and that no amount of dating Perfectly Nice Guys seems to fix).

My absolute favorite part of this book, and what really sold me on this dynamic, is how much Peter and Hook both live for the game. They both need adventure and battle and an equal to fight against. It appears immediately in their dynamic and the smut was incredibly fun because of it. Hook feels like a villain and certainly has his red flag moments, but it is also genuinely so sweet how he never wants to actually do real permanent harm to Peter or anyone he cares about.

I love a villain/hero romance, and this also delivers on both ends of the enemies to lovers dynamic. Hook doesn't want to like Peter and has a very good reason to hate him (small spoiler, and not much of one if you know the original story:

y'know, the whole cutting his hand off thing

). It is so funny to see Captain Hook have to deal with searching for Peter in 21st century America because he needs his nemesis of hundreds of years to come back and fix Neverland. Peter's half of the dynamic is made even more complicated by memory shenanigans, but once he does remember, he also has a perfectly good reason to hate Hook (bigger spoiler, unique to this story:

He thinks Hook killed Tinkerbell. It's more complicated than he thought, but that's the place he's starting from once he has his memories back

). Their romance is incredibly spicy and also ends up surprisingly sweet by the end. 

There is a plot here outside of the numerous excellent sex scenes and romance, and I enjoyed it even though the main focus of the story is definitely the romance. They also both have interesting relationships outside of each other, and I enjoyed all the side characters which is always a bonus. This isn't a groundbreaking novel, but it isn't trying to be, and it succeeds at delivering exactly what it set out to do. Like other good fairy tale re-imaginings/sequels, this delivers the beats I expected in a way that I enjoyed. I am really looking forward to checking out this author's other work, especially the next book in this series of stand alone romances.