Bookaholics book club: heidi schulz

27 Apr 2015

Hook's daughter - Review

Hook's daughter by Heidi Schulz

Available now

doublecluck.co.uk

What's it about?

It's not easy being the daughter of Captain Hook. Twelve-year-old Jocelyn dreams of following in his footsteps - but her grandfather sends her to finishing school instead. When her father meets his unfortunate end, Jocelyn sails to Neverland to avenge his death. But she hadn't bargained on ticking crocodiles, lazy pirates and a troublemaking boy called Peter Pan.

My review

I'll be honest, the first chapters of Hook's daughter, well, they kind of bored me. I knew from the synopsis that she would be going to Neverland, so I was just waiting for her to get there and for her adventure to begin. Don't get me wrong, its good that the author took the time to set up the story and let us 'meet' Jocelyn properly but I really just wanted to get to the fun part and also see the authors take on Neverland and what new, if anything, she could add to this world that's been retold and reimagined so many times already.
That being said, once jocelyn's journey did begin, the book became harder to put dowm, its not just filled with magic but written magically too, it makes you feel like anything is possible and that the strange place of Neverland could be a real place, you just have to be in on the secret of how to get there.
In such a short book we still manage to meet the pirates, of course!, the Indians, the mermaids, the crocodile, the lost boys and Tinkerbell and of course the boy himself, Peter Pan. However it didn't feel like it had all been tightly packed in a smashed together, the story has a real flow to it and each encounter feels natural to the story.
Jocelyn herself was an interesting character, though she may not be completely grown up by the end, she certainly learns some lessons about friendship, love and loyalty and that being completely rebellious will only get you so far in life.
Overall, it was a fun book with a new perspective on Peter Pan and I would recommend it to all.

Find the author
Website
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr
Instagram
Goodreads

6 Mar 2015

Blog tour; Hook's daughter: Ten little known facts

Ten Little Known Facts About Hook’s Daughter

Jocelyn is named, in a way, after Peter Pan’s mother. Peter was inspired by the friendship J.M. Barrie had with the Llewelyn Davies family, or more particular, the Llewelyn Davies children. The boys’ mother was named Sylvia, but Barrie preferred to call her by her middle name: Jocelyn.
I listened to the soundtrack to the 2003 live action Peter Pan film dozens of times as I wrote and revised, sometimes putting a single song on repeat for a chapter or two to help set the right mood.
Eight years passed from the time I first began thinking about Captain Hook’s daughter to the time I held a finished copy of her story.
When my daughter was small, she was fascinated by the American television program, Dirty Jobs. In each episode, the host, Mike Rowe, spent a day working difficult, dirty jobs such as Garbage Pit Technician or Worm Dung Farmer. For some reason, my daughter got the impression that Rowe’s name was Dirty Bob. I thought that would make an excellent name for a pirate.
Blind Bart was inspired by a character—a pirate with eye patches over both eyes—in the picture book, That’s How I Became a Pirate, by Melinda Long and illustrated by David Shannon.
After offering to represent me, the man who would become my literary agent sent me a link to a song by the Decemberists: The Mariner’s Revenge Song. From that point on, I never started a revision session without listening to it to put me in a piratical mood. (You can listen here.)
Nubbins was originally named Stumpy. It was very late in the process—after the manuscript had been through copyedits—that I changed it. I was sitting in church when the new name occurred to me. Divine inspiration?
Years before the character of Nanette Arbuckle came into existence, I caught a glimpse of a man as he drove past me. In the split second I saw him, he was just about to sneeze. I thought, What if he always looks like that? I wrote in my notebook: “He had the pinch-faced look of a man perpetually on the verge of a sneeze that never would come.” When I conceived of Nanette, that description seemed perfect for her.
I don’t know exactly how many drafts I wrote before this story was finished, but I believe it was at least twenty. In the first drafts, Roger was a minor character and only mentioned in a few paragraphs.
The letter Captain Hook writes to Jocelyn, sending her on her great adventure, has only changed by a few words from the version I wrote way back in 2006.

Hook's daughter by Heidi Schulz

It’s not easy being the daughter of Captain Hook. Twelve-year-old Jocelyn dreams of following in his footsteps – but her grandfather sends her to finishing school instead.

When her father meets his unfortunate end, Jocelyn sails to Neverland to avenge his death. But she hadn’t bargained on ticking crocodiles, lazy pirates and a trouble-making boy called Peter Pan.