jmsullivanbooks.com – Some retellings feel like costume parties: the original story shows up, everyone waves, and nothing truly changes. The better kind uses the old scaffolding to build a new structure—one that keeps the mythic shapes but rewires the stakes. That’s the lane many readers look for when they start browsing j. m. sullivan books, because the titles most associated with the name don’t just “reference” classics; they push them into genre collisions.
Two entry points come up again and again: Alice (The Wanderland Chronicles, #1) and Second Star. They’re different worlds, but they share a sensibility—familiar characters placed into unfamiliar pressure.
The signature move: classic tales, modern tension
J. M. Sullivan’s best-known series are linked to two famous story universes: Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. On Goodreads, the author’s main series listings include The Wanderland Chronicles (three books) and Neverland Transmissions (three books).
That matters because it hints at how to read the work: not as one-off experiments, but as longer arcs where the “retelling” premise is only the opening door.
Alice (The Wanderland Chronicles, #1): Wonderland after the world breaks
In Alice, the framing isn’t tea parties and playful nonsense. The setup is harsher: an outbreak reshapes daily life, and the story follows a teenage Alice Carroll as the situation turns personal. Goodreads also positions the book as a YA retelling with horror/sci-fi energy—Wonderland filtered through survival and threat rather than whimsy.
What makes that interesting is the way the original Alice logic still fits: Wonderland was always a place where rules shift mid-sentence. In a darker setting, that same instability becomes suspense instead of comedy. The result tends to appeal to readers who like their nostalgia slightly “wrong,” in the best way.
Reading order for The Wanderland Chronicles
If you’re starting with the series, Goodreads lists three primary works in this sequence:
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Alice (Book 1)
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Broken Glass (Book 2)
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The Grey Queen (Book 3)
That order is the simplest path, especially because the later titles assume you already understand how this version of Wanderland operates.
Second Star: Neverland as a space transmission, not a bedtime story
If Alice leans into dread and distortion, Second Star leans into momentum. It’s presented as the first book in the Neverland Transmissions series, and the premise tilts the Peter Pan myth into science fiction: Captain Wendy Darling receives a strange transmission connected to the long-lost Captain James Hooke and is sent on a mission that pulls her toward “Neverland.”
That single shift—Wendy as captain, Hooke as legend, Neverland as destination—changes the emotional wiring. Instead of childhood escaping adulthood, the story plays with duty, hero worship, and the cost of chasing a signal that may not want to be found. Even the word “Neverland” lands differently when you approach it like an uncharted system rather than an island map.
Reading order for Neverland Transmissions
On the author’s Goodreads listing, the Neverland series is shown as three books.A clean “start here” approach is:
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Second Star (Book 1)
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Lost Boy (Book 2)
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Neverbound (Book 3)
If you’re the type who likes to commit only after book one, Second Star is written to work as an entry point: clear mission, defined crew dynamics, and a mystery that can expand later.
Why readers enjoy these books when they’re tired of “safe” YA
A lot of YA retellings keep the plot beats and change only the wardrobe. Sullivan’s better-known work is often discussed in terms of genre blend—retelling plus dystopian horror in Alice, retelling plus space adventure in Second Star.
That blend gives readers two pleasures at once:
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the comfort of recognizing names and archetypes
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the curiosity of not knowing where the story is willing to go
When it works, it feels less like fan-service and more like alternate history for fairy tales.
Retellings invite comparison. It’s tempting to read with a highlighter in your head, constantly checking what’s “the same” and what’s “different.” Most readers enjoy these books more when they loosen that grip—treat the original as a reference point, not a scoreboard.
If you’re reading in short bursts (commute, lunch break, before bed), it helps to keep one light palate-cleanser nearby. Some people do puzzles; some keep a comfort reread. I’ve even seen readers swap to something as simple as a go fish rules pdf for five minutes—just enough to reset attention—then dive back into the darker or faster-paced chapters.
If you’re browsing j. m. sullivan books for the first time, the cleanest path is straightforward: start with Alice (The Wanderland Chronicles, #1) if you want a tense, genre-mixed Wonderland, or start with Second Star if you want Neverland reframed as a mission-driven sci-fi retelling.Either way, the draw is the same: familiar myths, rebuilt with sharper stakes—and enough series runway to let the new worlds breathe