Synopses & Reviews
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. He appears to lonely, lost children — the broken, hopeless, and sexually abused — promising to take them to a secret place of great adventure, where magic is alive, and you never grow old. But his promised land is not Neverland. . . .
With this haunting, provocative, relentlessly thrilling reconsideration of a timeless children's classic, the acclaimed artist Brom dramatically displays another side of his extraordinary talent. Exploring the stygian blackness that gathers at the root of the beloved Peter Pan legend, he carries readers into a faerieland at once magically wondrous and deeply disturbing.
Fourteen-year-old Nick would be lying dead in a Brooklyn park — murdered by drug dealers — had Peter not sprung out of the trees to save him. Now the irresistibly charismatic wild boy wants Nick to follow him into a strange and unsettling mist swirling around the bay. Even though he is wary of Peter's crazy talk of faeries and monsters, Nick agrees. After all, nowhere in New York City is safe for him now. And what more can 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. He must learn to fight or die as he struggles to fit in with the Devils — Peter's savage tribe of lost and stolen children.
Beautifully illustrated by the author with haunting portraits and indelible images, Brom's The Child Thief is a daring novel of darkest contemporary fantasy that will, at once, haunt and exhilarate any reader who agrees to follow Peter on his desperate crusade.
Review
"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
Review
"[A] fascinating work of dark epic fantasy that blends elements of the Peter Pan story with characters from Celtic and Norse mythologies." Tulsa World
Review
"Beautiful and authentically dark." Sci-Fi
Review
"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
Review
"Ancient magics combine with feral logic to culminate in Brom's ,i>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
Synopsis
The acclaimed artist Brom brilliantly displays his multiple extraordinary talents in The Child Thief--a spellbinding re-imagining of the beloved Peter Pan story 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 fantasy at its finest--casting Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, even Captain Hook and his crew in a breathtaking new light.
--Kim Harrison
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Brom first won acclaim illustrating for TSR's Dark Sun role-playing world. He has since lent his distinctive vision to all facets of the creative industries, from novels and games, to comics and film, working on such notable titles as World of Warcraft, Magic the Gathering, Diablo, Doom, Batman, Galaxy Quest, and Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. He is the author of two award-winning illustrated horror novels, The Plucker and The Devil's Rose. Brom is currently kept in a dank cellar somewhere just outside of Seattle.