Hooked: A Dark, Contemporary Romance

Although James and Ru run a criminal enterprise, are they bad people? What do each of these characters do or feel that shows a capacity for sympathy and kindness, and do these points of goodwill outweigh their crimes?

Emily McIntire prefaces the book by saying that this is not a story in which a villain becomes a hero. Who is the real villain in the text, and who could be seen as transforming from a villain to a hero? Be sure to use specific examples from the text to support your analysis.

There are many explicit sex scenes in the novel, but rather than being gratuitous, they each have elements of narrative importance. What points of plot development arise in the sex scenes of the novel, and why is it important that certain topics are discussed or revealed during these violence-tinged sexual encounters?

Wendy is aroused by asphyxiation, or choking, and this sexual preference serves as a metaphor for other aspects of her life as well. What elements of her relationships with James, Peter, and Jon can be understood through the perspective of choking, and how might this impact readers’ understanding of Wendy’s character?

James participates in a cycle of abuse in which he was abused as a child and he now abuses others. What evidence in the text shows James’s traumatic past, and how does it relate to Smee’s accusation that James is too harsh with his employees?

Throughout the novel, Wendy perceives her relationship with James as being one between equals. What evidence is there to support her perception—or, conversely, what evidence works to counter it? Are Wendy and James equals during the novel or afterward? Support your analysis with examples from the text.

Moira, Maria, and Tina all express jealousy toward Wendy, but Angie does not. Why might some of Wendy’s peers be jealous of her and others not? What is the root of that jealousy, and how might these characters overcome their differences?

As a fractured fairy tale, Hooked does not have much in common with the original Peter Pan stories. What elements of Peter Pan’s original stories, including adaptations like the 1954 Disney film, remain the same in Hooked, and why might McIntire have chosen to change some elements while keeping others? Likewise, what aspects of McIntire’s reimagining of Peter Pan might be inherently problematic? (Consider, for example, the decision to reinvent the Indigenous character of Tiger Lily as James’s yacht.)