The Child Thief: A Novel

The acclaimed artist Brom brilliantly displays his multiple extraordinary talents in The Child Thief—a spellbinding Peter Pan retelling that carries readers through the perilous mist separating our world from the realm of Faerie. As Gregory Maguire did with his New York Times bestselling Wicked novels, Brom takes a classic children’s tale and turns it inside-out, painting a Neverland that, like Maguire’s Oz, is darker, richer, more complex than innocent world J.M. Barrie originally conceived. An ingeniously executed literary feat, illustrated with Brom’s sumptuous artwork, The Child Thief is contemporary dark fantasy at its finest—casting Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, even Captain Hook and his crew in a breathtaking new light.

Peter is quick, daring, and full of mischief—and like all boys, he loves to play, though his games often end in blood. His eyes are sparkling gold, and when he graces you with his smile you are his friend for life, but his promised land is not Neverland.

Fourteen-year-old Nick would have been murdered by the drug dealers preying on his family had Peter not saved him. Now the irresistibly charismatic wild boy wants Nick to follow him to a secret place of great adventure, where magic is alive and you never grow old. Even though he is wary of Peter's crazy talk of faeries and monsters, Nick agrees. After all, New York City is no longer safe for him, and what more could he possibly lose?

There is always more to lose.

Accompanying Peter to a gray and ravished island that was once a lush, enchanted paradise, Nick finds himself unwittingly recruited for a war that has raged for centuries—one where he must learn to fight or die among the "Devils," Peter's savage tribe of lost and stolen children.

There, Peter's dark past is revealed: left to wolves as an infant, despised and hunted, Peter moves restlessly between the worlds of faerie and man. The Child Thief is a leader of bloodthirsty children, a brave friend, and a creature driven to do whatever he must to stop the "Flesh-eaters" and save the last, wild magic in this dying land.

“Beautiful and authentically dark.” - Sci-Fi

” [A] fascinating work of dark epic fantasy that blends elements of the Peter Pan story with characters from Celtic and Norse mythologies.” - Tulsa World

“A fascinating work of dark epic fantasy that blends elements of the Peter Pan story with characters from Celtic and Norse mythologies.” - Tulsa World

“The book retells the story of Peter Pan in a way that it hasn’t been told before. . . . Brom delivers a fascinating and entrancing version, trading paints for words to create a tale as dark, twisted and stunning as his artwork.” - The News-Star (Monroe, Louisiana)

“A gruesome and darkly fantastical twist on a classic tale. Brom injects pure horror into fantasy.” - Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of Ironside and The Spiderwick Chronicles

“Brom has always been an artist who gave us his nightmares fully realized, but with THE CHILD THIEF, he paints in words. A wonderfully nasty Peter Pan reboot that stands on its own as a dark, twisted adventure.” - Christopher Golden

“Ancient magics combine with feral logic to culminate in Brom’s The Child Thief. A retelling of Peter Pan spanning America’s earliest, magically rich beginnings to today’s bare whispers of belief. Wickedly poetic, The Child Thief makes me want to believe.” - Kim Harrison

“Artist and illustrator Brom’s ambitious retelling of the Peter Pan story, his first full-length adult novel, is dark, disturbing, and thoroughly gripping.” - Booklist