Darling Girl

In a contemporary reimagining of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, the Darling family's connection to the famous story is not fiction but fact. Wendy Darling really did fly to Neverland, and the consequences have shaped generations of Darling women. Holly Darling, Wendy's granddaughter, runs Darling Skin Care from Fifth Avenue in New York. Known for her ageless beauty, she publicly attributes it to genetics, but beneath the polished surface she guards devastating secrets.

Years earlier, a car crash killed Holly's husband, Robert, and one of their twin sons, Isaac. The surviving twin, Jack, was left with catastrophic injuries. While Holly was alone in the Darling family's London house, consumed by grief, Peter Pan came through the nursery window. He was beautiful and dangerous. Over three nights he visited, but the encounters escalated from tender to violent. On the final night, Peter forced her facedown on the bed, then demanded she come to Neverland, threatening to kill Jack. Holly threatened to expose him, and Peter retreated, warning he would return for the next generation. Holly discovered she was pregnant shortly after, and the pregnancy progressed far faster than normal.

The child, Eden Estelle, proved extraordinary from the start, fast-growing and precociously intelligent. At age two she was the size of a five-year-old. One afternoon at Grace House, the family's Cornwall estate, Holly stepped inside briefly and returned to find Eden and Jack sitting on a high branch with no ladder in sight. When Holly shouted, Eden leaned forward and fell, striking her head. She never woke. But her blood, which soaked into Jack's wounds, miraculously healed him: The boy who could barely walk suddenly ran. Holly discovered that Eden's blood has regenerative properties, though the effect is temporary, and she has been drawing Eden's blood and injecting Jack ever since. She installed Eden at Grace House with round-the-clock nurses and relocated with Jack to New York, building a company whose lab could fund her research.

The novel opens as Holly's company prepares to launch a cosmetics highlighter called Pixie Dust. Her assistant interrupts the meeting with an urgent call: Eden has vanished from Grace House. The nurses report her room empty, the window open, and no footprints on the damp ground. Holly confides in Barry, her lawyer and business partner, that she has a daughter he never knew about, and flies to England with Jack.

At Grace House, the nurses offer no explanation for Eden's disappearance. The gardener recalls an unusually large, black shadow that seemed to reach for the house. Charge nurse Maria reveals that the refrigerated safe containing Eden's stored blood has been emptied. Holly finds a red feather beneath the tree where Eden fell and recognizes it as a sign from Peter.

Holly installs Jack in the Darling family's London house, where her mother, Jane, lives. Jane has spent decades hoping to meet Peter Pan. Holly sleeps in the third-floor nursery with the windows open and a knife under her pillow, hoping to lure Peter. Through Barry, she hires Christopher Cooke, an ex-soldier who lost his right hand to a bomb in Afghanistan and left the police force after violent conflicts. At their first meeting, Holly discovers Christopher wears a metal hook in place of his hand. The coincidence unsettles her, given her family's history.

Christopher's investigation uncovers a street drug targeting teenage boys that causes euphoria followed by devastating crashes. Several boys are comatose, dubbed the lost boys by police. The drug is packaged under the name pixie dust, and descriptions of the dealer match Peter. Meanwhile, Jack's health deteriorates as the last injection wears off. When he discovers a photograph of himself in a wheelchair beside a young girl, Jane reveals the girl is his sister, Eden. Jack is furious. He later deduces the injections come from Eden's blood and refuses further treatment.

Holly spots Eden at Hay's Galleria, a London shopping atrium. Eden, now looking about 25 with cropped white-gold hair, explains that Tinker Bell, whom she calls Bell, woke her from the coma to warn that Peter was coming. Eden is angry that Holly left her with strangers and used her blood. She reveals she stole the missing blood bags herself, hoping they would slow her rapid aging, but they accelerated it instead. Eden needs to reach Neverland to stop the aging, but Bell is too weak to guide her yet. Before Holly can respond, Bell summons a cyclone of starlings and the two vanish.

Holly learns that Barry has fired Elliot Benton, her lead scientist, who discovered human blood components in Holly's lab. Jane calls with worse news: Jack has been missing for two days. Holly traces his phone to an abandoned flat, where she finds a message with a new address and instructions to tell no one. She also discovers that Nan, Jane's housekeeper, is the sister of a boy named Ed whose absent father is Peter, meaning Peter has been planting people in Holly's life. Both Jack and Ed are missing.

Holly follows the address to Saint Ormond's School for Boys, where Peter works as a teacher. Now ravaged by age, Peter explains he has been using boys' blood mixed with Tinker Bell's fading pixie dust to slow his own aging, selling a version as a street drug. Some boys have died. He wants Eden's blood, uniquely potent because she is both his daughter and a Darling. He forces Holly to choose: Deliver Eden, or Jack will never wake from the drug-induced sleep. Peter also reveals that Captain Hook was actually Neverland's guardian, who fought to stop Peter from bringing people in and harming them, and that Barrie changed the story based on Wendy's biased account. Holly finally tells Christopher everything, and Christopher goes to Peter's cottage, where he finds Ed dead.

Eden returns through the nursery window and reveals Jack is held inside Big Ben, in a hidden room behind the clock face. Jane intervenes with a plan of her own. She secretly drugs Holly and Eden with sleeping pills dissolved in whiskey, then injects herself with the last vial of Eden's blood. The blood transforms her into a young woman who could pass for Eden. She flies with Bell to Big Ben, where Peter, now ancient and crumbling, mistakes her for his daughter. Jane gives him a drink laced with crushed sleeping pills. He collapses. Jane grabs the unconscious Jack and flies home.

Holly wakes to find Jack barely breathing on the nursery floor. Eden slices her own wrist and presses it to his, transfusing blood directly. He revives. Eden tells Holly she must go to Neverland to stop her accelerating aging, and Jane announces she will accompany her, arguing Eden should not go alone. Holly gives Eden a creased photograph of Eden as a toddler sitting in the Grace House tree, to serve as the talisman of happiness that will guide them. Jane toasts the Darling women, kisses Holly and Jack, and leaps from the nursery window with Eden and Bell. White doves fill the room, and when they clear, all three are gone.

Months later, Holly sits in Hyde Park. Jack is healthy and heading to captain's practice for his new school's lacrosse team. Holly has sold Darling Skin Care and is considering opening a research lab in London. Christopher arrives with a puppy named Rosie, short for Rosemary, for remembrance. He tells Holly that when he reached Big Ben, Peter had already disintegrated into gray dust, which a golden light swept toward the stars. They kiss. Holly wears a locket containing Eden's photograph, having learned that loving her daughter enough to let her go is itself a source of happiness. She looks at Christopher, closes her eyes, and leaps.