The Crown vol. 1
by Colleen Oaks
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Published: 2014
Publisher: SparkPress
Genre: Fairy Tales, YA
Paperback: 222 pages
Rating: 4
Queen of Hearts series:
The Crown
The Wonder
Not every fairytale has a happy ending.
This is the story of a princess who became a villain.
***
A Father’s Betrayal. A Kingdom with a Black Secret. A Princess Slowly Unraveling.
As Princess of Wonderland Palace and the future Queen of Hearts, Dinah’s days are an endless monotony of tea, tarts, and a stream of vicious humiliations at the hands of her father, the King of Hearts. The only highlight of her days is visiting Wardley, her childhood best friend, the future Knave of Hearts — and the love of her life.
When an enchanting stranger arrives at the Palace, Dinah watches as everything she’s ever wanted threatens to crumble. As her coronation date approaches, a series of suspicious and bloody events suggests that something sinister stirs in the whimsical halls of Wonderland. It’s up to Dinah to unravel the mysteries that lurk both inside and under the Palace before she loses her own head to a clever and faceless foe.
Part epic fantasy, part twisted fairy tale, this dazzling saga will have readers shivering as Dinahs furious nature sweeps Wonderland up in the maelstrom of her wrath.
Familiar characters such as Cheshire, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter make their appearance, enchanting readers with this new, dark take on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
My two-bits:
I have mixed feelings for this. Being that this is an origin story for the Queen of Hearts, Dinah, from Alice in Wonderland, it was hard to like her character. She does not come across as a love-to-hate characters either. But then, this could be because she really is a baddie which we will see her transform into in book 2.
A bit of Dinah's rocky relationship with her father, the King of Hearts, brewing hatred for half-sister, Vittiore, and affection for brother, Mad Hatter are explored to explain some of her background. Ack! she even has a love interest.
The story ends in a kind of cliffhanger as a mysterious person comes into play with helping Dinah along her path to being Queen.
As this is a dark story of Wonderland, I missed the light-hearted whimsical Wonderland point-of-view. But again, this is about the Queen of Hearts, the crazy loon who wanted to off everyone's heads.
See, me and my mixed feelings.
Colleen Oakes is the author of the Elly in Bloom series and the YA fantasy Queen of Hearts Saga, both published via SparkPress, a BookSparks imprint.
She lives in North Denver with her husband and son.
When not writing, Colleen enjoys swimming, traveling, and immersing herself in nerdy pop culture.
She is currently at work on the last Elly novel and her second YA fantasy series, Wendy Darling.
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Queen of Hearts (2nd book in series)
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