Title: Hooked
Author: Bobbi JG Weiss
Publisher: Independent Self Publishing
Publication
Date: July 21, 2014
Pages: 518
ISBN: 978-0990360001
Genre: Dark Fantasy / Horror
Format: Paperback, eBook, ePub, PDF
He is not Captain
Hook.
His name is Jonathan
Stuart, and he’s just an ornery post-alcoholic bookstore owner from Pasadena
with a mania for fencing and a bad habit of disappointing his girlfriend. He
doesn’t want to be in the Neverland, impossibly trapped aboard the Jolly
Roger with a horde of greedy stinking pirates. He was tricked there by
Peter Pan.
Pan happily invites
children to come to his wondrous magical island, but he has to trick adults. No
adult in their right mind would go willingly. Adults, you see, don’t have a
very good time in the Neverland. The fairies and mermaids are against
them. The island itself is against them. Most of all, Peter Pan is against
them.
In particular, Peter
Pan is against Jonathan Stuart. Why? Jonathan had better figure that out, and
he’d better do it fast before his mutating memories insist that, not only does
he indeed belong in this nightmarish hell of bloodthirsty children, ticking
crocodiles and vengeful boy gods, but he’s never existed anyplace else.
So you see, he’s
definitely not Captain Hook.
Well, not yet.
Book Excerpt:
Stuart didn’t laugh when he saw himself in the mirror this time.
At first he wasn’t sure why, because he certainly looked like a lunatic who had
just escaped out of a billboard for Captain Morgan rum. And then it hit him.
“Everything fits.”
“ ‘Course it fits,”
Smee said with exasperation. “It’s yers, ain’t it? An’ here, sar, the final
touch.” Smee held it out.
Stuart wasn’t surprised
to see his grandfather’s saber laying across those callused palms, tucked into
a beautiful silver scabbard. “Of all things,” he said with a mixture of wonder
and dread, “this makes the most sense.” His hand gravitated toward the hilt.
“Sense, sar?” Smee
asked.
Stuart drew his hand
back, slowly, with effort. The air grew heavier. “Oh, yes,” he replied as Smee,
ever the dutiful valet, settled a red baldric across his charge’s left
shoulder, the wide and heavily ornamented belt holding the scabbard at Stuart’s
right hip. Stuart fought down panic. His flesh was tingling with a sudden black
energy, the same energy he had felt during his ghostly saber battle that night
at home. How long ago had that been?
Guided once more by its
own objectives, his left hand reached to his right hip and this time succeeded
in drawing the saber out. He gripped it, feeling the same marvelous balance
between blade and hilt, the same eerie sense of sentience. It had him. He was
on its home turf now, and he couldn’t
run from it, not here. Something dark closed around him like great black jaws.
“Ah, yeh cut a fine
figure, sar. The boys’ll be glad to see yeh.” All smiles and bounce, Smee
plucked the saber from his hand and slid it back into its scabbard. He pulled
out a rag hanging from his pocket, flapped it over Stuart’s clothes like a
butler giving his master a final dusting, then propelled Stuart towards the
door. “Come on, sar!”
The doorway was small.
Stuart had to stoop to avoid bashing his head. The heels of the jack boots
boosted him three inches beyond his own six foot height, and the wig and the
hat added another three or four inches easy. He had to remain stooped as Smee
led him along a short passageway, and then he went blind as sunlight — not from
one sun but two — smacked him full in the face.
His eyes may have been
useless, but his nostrils flared at the intense smell of salt and sea. His ears
heard vast expanses of heavy canvas flap overhead while waves rippled below.
The clamor of many gruff male voices all chattering at once was interrupted as
Smee cried out, “All right, ya scurvy scugs! All hands fall in abaft the
mizz’n!” Then Smee conducted him up the starboard ladder.
Stuart could do nothing
but stumble along, shading his eyes with his hands and blinking, trying to
adjust to the brilliance. As he did, he took in more sounds from below — the
pounding of bare feet running every whichway, the creak of ropes, the deep
grunts and moans of the vast wooden hull. When he could finally see, he found
himself standing on the quarterdeck of a three-masted ship, looking down into
the faces of forty or so swarthy pirates who stared back up at him, most of
their mouths hanging open to reveal an alarming absence of teeth. Eight or nine
more men up in the rigging hung like monkeys, gaping down at him.
Stuart gaped back. It
had been much easier to deal with Smee. One man. One apparition. One entity to
deny as a dream. But try as he might, Stuart couldn’t simply dismiss this
motley and very real crowd before him. If nothing else, the overwhelming stench
of the men couldn’t be explained away as a dream. A pig farm smelled better
than this. He thought he could actually feel the hairs inside his nostrils
cower down and try to flatten out rather than conduct such nauseating
information to his brain.
Smee nudged him. “Say
somethin’!” he whispered.
Stuart couldn’t move. Say something?
“Call all hands from
below!” came a bellow from the main deck.
Smee nodded down at the
man who had spoken, a handsome Italian pirate with a long black ponytail.
“Cecco,” he informed Stuart. “Yer first mate an’ a fine feller.”
“I can’t take this…”
“Aw, c’mon, compose
yerself, sar. Fer Chrissake, this here’s yer crew!”
Stuart clutched the
edge of the rail hard enough to make his fingers cramp. “This is not my crew.”
“Sar—”
“This is not my crew! I
don’t have a crew!” He glared down at
Smee, noticing how the layers of heavy clothing restricted his movements. In
order to tilt his head — Smee wasn’t short so much as Stuart was tall, especially
in the jack boots — he had to strain against his cravat. He wasn’t used to
anything around his neck, and it contributed to the trapped animal feeling he
already had. He struggled for control. “This isn’t real. I refuse to believe
this is real, and I am most certainly not—”
“Captain Hook!”
The exclamation came
from a young boy no more than eight years old, dressed in a filthy white shirt
and black knickers. Stuart turned toward the voice, squinting to see its owner
against the dazzling suns. He saw that the boy had climbed up out of the hatch,
his expression a strange mixture of relief and trepidation. Come to think of
it, all the pirates wore that expression.
“’Course yeh remember
Lil’ Lad Jack,” Smee told Stuart. “Hard worker, he is. Good learner.”
“Captain Hook,” Jack
repeated, quieter this time. He almost sounded reverent.
“Hook?” Stuart spat out
before he knew what his mouth was doing. “Hook?” He held up his hands. “I’ve
got two hands, you stupid little
brat! I haven’t got a hook! How can I be Captain Hook if I haven’t got a hook?
Anybody in this looney bin got an answer for that one?”
“He’s a bleedin’
ghost!” someone in the crowd muttered.
At that, Cecco turned
on a tall, lean pirate whose every inch of visible flesh was covered with
tattoos, including his hands and bare feet. Even his face was tattooed,
although it was half-hidden by a hat bespangled with coins, jewels and a
potpourri of shiny baubles. “What’s that you say about the Captain, Mister
Jukes?” Cecco asked sharply.
Feet shuffled. Someone
coughed. Jukes tried to duck behind one of his fellows, who roughly pushed him
away. “Nothin’,” Jukes squeaked. “I didn’t say nothin’.”
“Aye, nothing,” Cecco
repeated with satisfaction. “That man up there is no ghost, ya slackjawed
jackanapes!” he boomed, and the men jumped. Stuart jumped, too — Cecco might as
well have been using a bullhorn, he was so loud. “That’s the only man the
Sea-Cook fears! He’s the only man who ever snared a siren, ate of her flesh and
lived! He’s the only man who outsmarted Pan, outsmarted the croc, outsmarted death itself, to come back and beat Pan
at his own game! Now act like his crew, by thunder, or you’ll feel the kiss o’
the cat!”
A roar went up the
likes of which Stuart hadn’t heard since the last time he went to a Lakers
game. They were cheering him! And not one of them, Smee included, seemed to
care about his obvious lack of a hook.
Purchase
The Book:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Bobbi-JG-Weiss/dp/0990360008/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1411257379&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=Hooked+Bobbi+JG+Weiss
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hooked-bobbi-jg-weiss/1120077616?ean=9780990360001&itm=1&usri=hooked+bobbi+jg+weiss
About the Author
Bobbi JG Weiss made her world debut one Christmas
morning (cough-mutter-mutter) years ago, and as long as she can
remember, she’s wanted to be a writer. Why? She has no idea. Probably a birth
defect.
After several boring
“normal” jobs, her writing wishes came true — she and her husband/partner David
Cody Weiss began to make their living as full-time freelance writers, focusing
on Hollywood tie-in merchandise like movie/TV novel adaptations, comics, and
other related and often ridiculous products. After 20+ years of this, the
“WeissGuys” decided to enter the wild world of self-publishing.
You can find more
information about Bobbi, her books, her life, and her weird husband at bobbijgweiss.com. She also posts on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest
and Facebook unless her passwords mysteriously stop working and she can’t get
on, which seems to happen a lot. Why? She has no idea. Probably computer
voodoo.
Author Links:
Author Website: http://www.weisswriters.com/
Hooked Website: http://www.hookedthenovel.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BobbiJGWeiss
My review:
I just finished reading Hooked and although it is not the usual kind of book that I read I did like it. The storyline is okay and the characters are described well. This is not your usual fairytale. Be prepared to read a completely different kind of horror story. Who is Jonathan and why is he here? I give this book a 4/5. I was given this book by Pump up Your Books and all opinions are my own.
Thank you for hosting the virtual book tour event. - Kathleen Anderson, PUYB Tour Coord.
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