My memories of Peter Pan and The Mists of Avalon may never recover.

There are a whole host of mythologies and faerie tales at play here.  My first thought was that this was a dark retelling of Peter Pan, which is not all that far off the mark.  This is a twisted gory ode to Peter Pan and Avalon and other faerie stories.  If you really think about Peter Pan, even the Disney version, he's basically I child predator--a kidnapper.  Then if you think on the original, non-watered down version, Peter is pretty cruel, he kidnaps children and sends them to war against his enemies.  His lost boys are frequently killed in battle, or put out to pasture if they begin to "grow up".  That's really messed up!

 

All that being said, Peter, is a child thief who tricks runaways, or kids from bad situations into following him into the mists of Avalon.  And if they manage to make it through the mist, they're trained as soldiers in his personal army.  Everything Peter does is for the Lady Modron and to protect Avalon, but it all comes at a cost.  The child thief has lead countless children to the deaths.  

 

This story had loads of deaths, battles, magic and just general craziness.  All-in-all I really enjoyed it.

Not at all what I expected, but very interesting! 

Wow, this escalated from the first paragraph!

World building is where this novel is at its strongest. It was very atmospheric, and the descriptions of Avalon were beautiful and captivating.

I didn't love this novel for a few reasons:
- The novel just felt gory for the sake of being gory, and I frequently skimmed through the long action scenes.
- The ending felt really abrupt and unsatisfying.
- I also didn't find the novel's characterization of women to be very kind (lots of unflattering physical descriptions of older women's breasts, for example). It was almost enough at the beginning that I abandoned the novel altogether.

I'm glad I stuck it out, because some of the characters were really intriguing. Sekeu, the witch and her children, Cricket, and Lady Modron were standouts. I find it really interesting that the best characters were women and girls, and at the same time the writing is incredibly harsh towards mortal women in the real world. Not sure what that means.

And while I found this novel a bit too gory for my tastes, I appreciated the way that it stripped Peter Pan down from its lyrical prose and exposed the darkness underneath.