Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hooked | 2021 | Emily McIntire | Buy |
| 2 | Lapeni | 2021 | Emily McIntire | N/A |
| 3 | Scarred | 2022 | Emily McIntire | Buy |
| 4 | Wretched | 2022 | Emily McIntire | Buy |
| 5 | Twisted | 2023 | Emily McIntire | Buy |
| 6 | Crossed | 2023 | Emily McIntire | Buy |
| 7 | Hexed | 2024 | Emily McIntire | Buy |
The Never After series takes fairy tales everyone knows and turns them inside out. Instead of the hero getting the happy ending, it is the villain. Emily McIntire writes each book as a dark contemporary romance set in the real world, drawing on the themes and character dynamics of the original stories rather than copying them directly. Hooked, the first book, reimagines Peter Pan with a brooding Captain Hook figure at the center. Scarred pulls from The Lion King, Wretched from The Wizard of Oz, and Twisted from Aladdin.
The series gained a huge following on BookTok, where readers gravitated toward the morally grey love interests and the slow-burn tension McIntire builds in each book. Crossed draws on The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Hexed closes out the main run with a Little Mermaid retelling. Every book works as a standalone, so there is no required reading order, but characters and settings occasionally overlap. Lapeni, the second entry, is a novella connected to the Hooked storyline. With seven entries published between 2021 and 2024, Never After is McIntire’s most popular and best-known series.