Nicki's Random Musings

The Queen of Hearts Volume One Book Review

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The Queen of Hearts Volume One Book Review

I don’t think I’ve ever been a fan of Alice in Wonderland. I remember seeing the Disney cartoon as a child but it wasn’t really a favorite of mines. I received a copy of The Queen of Hearts Volume One from Book Sparks as a part of their summer reading program.

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I picked up the book fresh off of reading the romance novel After I Do, I didn’t know exactly what to expect but I started reading the novel slowly in hopes I would be able to finish it soon. The book tells the back story of The Queen of Hearts from the popular Alice In Wonderland Books. Dinah The Princess of Hearts is the main character in the book and it starts off when she’s 14 telling a story of her journey to the crown. Dinah and her father have a very complicated relationship, he loathes her and nothing she can do ever pleases him. Early in the book Dinah is taken to a meeting in the castle’s Great Hall and there her father the king tells a tale of his unfaithfulness and out of that he reveals he has a second daughter. She’s nothing like Dinah and you can clearly see the King prefers her over Dinah.

A few chapters into the book I was hooked, I just had to know what was unfolding and I loved the idea of learning of the back story of The Queen of Hearts. It’s rare that we get a look into the characters we may not like and this book tells a story that will make you look at her differently. She’s just a young girl in this book, yearning for the affection and respect of her father. Her innocents could end up costing her all that she holds dear. We slowly get to see her evolve and start to explore her kingdom in a mad dash to unlock secrets that threaten her life. She wants to learn more about her sister, where did she come from, why was she at the castle. She dreams of becoming queen and ruling besides her father. She has daydreams of her childhood friend Wardley, who’s training to become the Knave of Hearts and she believes he’s the love of her life. The years past by and before you know it, she’s 17 and it’s he year before her coronation.

Her father used his power to keep her in control by threatening to get rid of her servants, he wants to keep her in line and keep his control over her. She receives a cryptic message at a banquet one night and he leads her to start to question all she believes. She ends up in places she never dreamed of going and when a stranger shows up with a devastating message, nothing she knew or believed was ever the same again. This book tells a great story and includes some other well-known characters from Alice in Wonderland, all woven into Dinah’s story. By the end of the book I was won over. I can’t wait to read the second volume in this saga and see how the story all unfolds.

About The Queen of Hearts Volume One:

Queen-of-Hearts-Vol-OneFor Dinah, Princess of Wonderland Palace and the future Queen of Hearts, days at the palace are an endless monotony of tea, tarts, and a stream of vicious humiliations at the hands of her father, The King of Hearts. Her only relief are her visits with her childhood best friend Wardley, the future Knave of Hearts—and her heart’s greatest desire.

When an enchanting stranger arrives at the Palace, Dinah watches as everything she’s ever wanted threatens to burn. As her coronation date approaches, a series of bloody events suggests that something sinister stirs within the halls of Wonderland.  Driven by her furious nature, Dinah must unravel the mysteries that lurk both inside and under the palace before she quite literally loses her head in a game of treachery against a clever and faceless foe.

Part epic fantasy, part twisted fairy tale, readers will delight in familiar characters such as Cheshire, The White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter in Volume One of this new, dark take on Lewis Carroll’s classic story.

But readers be warned…not every fairytale has a happy ending.

For this is the story of the Princess who became a villain.

Title: Queen of Hearts Volume One: The Crown
Author: Colleen Oakes
Publisher: Spark Press
ISBN: 978-1-940716-02-2
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Price: $15.00
Connect with the author on Facebook and follow @colleenblooms

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About Nickida

Nickida is a first-generation Trinidadian American wife and mother of four. She enjoys sharing recipes from her childhood growing up in Trinidad with her readers. Nickida has a son with Autism and shares posts around traveling with a child with special needs to help other families like her own. She loves television, movies and is a true 80's baby.