Little Darlings by Melanie Golding

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Crooked Lane Books in exchange for an honest review.

Ooh. Normally I am not a fan of thrillers where you don't know whether something mystical is happening or not. However, with Little Darlings it really works. This is the story of new mum Lauren who, after giving birth to twins, starts to really struggle with motherhood and finds changeling stories filling her mind. Her husband Paul is not as helpful as she'd hoped he would be and it culminates in Lauren being convinced her babies have been swapped with fairy alternatives. To get them back though, she must make a dark decision...

This is a fairly straightforward story for a thriller but honestly that is one of the book's greatest strengths. The whole time you are guessing whether there is a mundane explanation for Lauren's beliefs or whether perhaps something magical has occurred. The book never loses focus of this key element and as a result, it is a tightly-wound and atmospheric read. You're kept at a slight distance from most of the characters but again, it really works. Can you trust Lauren's perception as our narrator? Is her husband just selfish or is he up to something more sinister? The detective character adds a much-needed outsider viewpoint and her thoughts mirror that of the reader's. It all adds up to a great reading experience and Golding clearly has writing talent.

I will not give anything away about how the story ends or whether the book crosses into full-fledged fantasy or not, but rest assured that the ending is both satisfying and excellently built to. This is a fantastic debut novel from Golding and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for her future work. If you enjoy thrillers that slowly suck you into their world and deal with some harsh aspects of reality at the same time, I highly recommend checking this out.

Overall Rating:

Odd One Out by Nic Stone

This book!!!

This book has reduced me to a rambling wreck. The first thing I have to say is that I absolutely love it and I want you to go read it right now. This was soooo close to being a perfect read for me. It was 5 stars literally until the last few pages and I was so disappointed by how it ended that I had to knock half a star off just for that. Having said that, this is one of the most important and well-crafted books I have ever read and I literally think every teenager should at least try to read it, if not every person.

Let me backtrack a little. This is the story of two best friends, Coop and Jupiter. At the start of the book, Coop is crushing hard on Jupiter who is quite vocally and insistently a lesbian. They have a very intense and intimate friendship which confuses a lot of people. Then through Rae into the mix. She initially identifies as a straight girl but as she is welcomed into this intense friendship group, finds herself crushing on Coop and Jupiter. And they're both crushing on her.

The way this book handles the queer elements is beyond my highest expectations. At the start, I was worried Coop would be unlikable and problematic. Not the case at all thanks to fantastic writing and characterisation. Similarly, Jupiter does some pretty shocking things at various points but she remains so understandable and three-dimensional that I couldn't help but like her. This is honestly one of the best portrayals of queer teenage characters that I have found anywhere. I stress 'teenage' because they do act like teenagers and so their actions must be viewed through this lens. I can see some people detesting Jupiter and that might be fair enough, but for me she rang so true of the way a lot of queer teenagers might worry and think about things. Rae was just super likable and also raises some good points about how someone can be questioning and the guilt and complexities surrounding that. Her section rang particularly true to me as I have recently identified myself as demisexual and am experiencing attraction to women for the first time. I have many queer friends and for the longest time, I was afraid to say anything in case they thought I wasn't 'queer enough' or just jumping on the bandwagon.

The ending...I won't spoil it but I had a perfect ending in mind and alas, it didn't end that way. Normally I wouldn't mark a book down for that alone but because it did such a good job handing some complex queer questions and issues, I really wanted it to tackle one particular thing. HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILERS The book seemed perfectly set up to have all three protagonists enter a polyamorous relationship with each other. Instead, Rae gets shafted and pushed to one side in my eyes. Things end positively but I don't understand why polyamory wasn't considered given that all three are attracted to each other and have such a strong bond. Polyamory isn't for everyone but it really was an ideal solution in this case and it's a missed opportunity in my eyes.

Despite this, I still very much love this book. Nic Stone is swiftly becoming one of my favourite authors and I love how she is able to cover something like this so intelligently and with so much life woven into the characters. I cannot recommend it more and I hope you will give it a try.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Heartbreaker by Mark Young

I picked this collection up on a whim through my Kindle Unlimited subscription and I am very glad I did! At first I was a little worried when I started because the first story is not really horror at all and I'm not much of a sci-fi/fantasy person. Thankfully the rest are primarily horror. As per usual with my anthology reviews, I will go through each story and my opinion of it.

The Heartbreaker-This was not a great start to the anthology, mainly because it's much more of a sci-fi/action story. This is about a soldier who gains a mysterious power and wakes up in a facility after an accident. Not really what I was expecting and so I didn't enjoy it much.

Black Mist-This was a surprisingly deep story about a young girl who has been abused by her stepdad and gets the chance for mystical revenge. It felt on the cusp of problematic with some of the details, but this was one of the stories with the characters I was most invested in and I couldn't predict where it was going.

Curse of the Dreamweaver-This was a solid little fable about a footballer who doesn't appreciate what he has in his life. It's predictable and a little confusing in its description near the end. It also had some imagery that made me feel physically sick which wasn't great. However, it told a good story and there was some interesting stuff happening.

The Artist-This is about an actress who catches the eye of a mysterious man who decides he wants to paint her. It was fairly predictable but told well and had some nice elements revolving around the main character being an actress.

Let's Not Talk About Kevin-A boy named Kevin has been chained up by his family. This story has an interesting start and subverts expectations but it felt a bit lacking? I wanted more detail about what had happened to Kevin and less of the repetitive action sequence it ends with. I feel like this story had more to tell.

Heavenly Waters-A man goes fishing and encounters a mermaid. Sexy times ensue followed by horrific times. A fairly linear plot but it doesn't suffer for this. The sexual elements are...interesting.

The Good Boy-This was about a man whose son has gone missing. His wife claims to be visited by their son's ghost and tells him to go search a cave for him. Again, there was a little confusion in the details of what was happening but it had a cool premise and a creepy atmosphere.

Living With Your Parents Can Be Murder-Did not like this story. It's about a 42 year old man living with his parents and he has like a devil on his shoulder talking to him the whole time. There were no surprises and the ending was abrupt and weird.

The Vanished-A boy who is bullied accidentally wishes away the entire world except him and his bully. I feel like this could have been better than it was but again, it was a little weird in the execution. It's low on horror elements but it was more my speed than the first story.

The Unforgiving-This one was really cool. This is about a man and his son, and the dad was responsible for bullying someone to death when he was a child. He's experiencing guilt from that in the present day so he goes to talk to his dad about it but creepy stuff starts happening from there. A lot happened in this story and it was all so interesting and hard to predict. It felt like it had enough detail to be fleshed out into a full book, compared to some of the others which are more like snippets of horror.

Gone-Oh god, this one is weird. A man gets bitten by a mosquito and then...stuff happens. Very gory and full of disturbing details, but also it doesn't go where I expected it to which was a nice surprise. Perhaps the weirdest story which is saying something.

The Diary of Ethel Edie Browne-A woman moves into her new house and discovers an old diary with dark secrets. The characters in the present day were very odd-acting but the diary part was compelling and I really liked where the story went, even though it used something I'm usually not a fan of.

Protege-A man goes to interview someone and bad things happen. This was a really good story to end on and has some genuinely scary/disturbing moments in it. This was probably the story closest in tone to a modern horror movie.

So overall, this is a good little collection of horror stories. The writing style is decent and straightforward which is how I like my horror. There is a fair amount of gore, some sexual content in certain stories and also gross-out stuff (which I am particularly sensitive to and so found difficult to read). I would recommend checking this out if you're looking for some short horror to devour quickly. There are definitely some gems in here.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Stranger Inside by Laura Benedict

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Mulholland Books in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this was a rough read. And it started off so promising! The Stranger Inside is about what happens when a woman comes home from a long break to discover someone else is living in her house. That alone is a great thriller premise but unfortunately that's pretty much the only great thing about this book.

A lot of other reviews have complained about the main character, Kimber, being incredibly unlikable. This actually didn't bother me much because a) I don't think anyone deserves horrible things to happen to them and so I have a high tolerance for terrible people in thrillers, and b) Kimber was so flat that she didn't have much of a personality for me to dislike. I just could not understand her actions at any point. From the very first chapter, the way she reacts to someone being in her house is just..off.

There is also unfortunately a serious case of the plot only happening because certain people act like morons. Pretty early on Kimber discovers something which could get the stranger out of her house. Does she tell the police? Nope. Instead she keeps it to herself and decides to investigate and continue not being allowed to live in her house. I understand curiousity but what she knows about the stranger isn't intriguing enough at this point for her to want to investigate further. From that point onwards I was just frustrated because everything could be stopped if only Kimber went to the police with what she knew.

The other major problem is that this book really dragged for me. This is a combination of poor pacing, a dull protagonist and a really weird way of doing plot reveals. One spoiler-free example goes like this: Kimber finds out the name of the stranger in her house. A flashback chapter then reveals who that stranger is in regards to her life. Then in the present day, Kimber finds out who that person is through a friend. Then another character tells her who that person is. Then she finds evidence to confirm who that person is. Then another character tells her who the person is. This is the same bit of information talked about again and again with no new details, and we have to sit through characters talking about stuff we already know.

The ending as a whole was a mess. There is one very weak 'twist' which you actually again, get told earlier on through narration. This basically amounts to Kimber going at one point 'Hmm, that mysterious person reminds me of X. But that's silly haha.' and then at the end, 'Omg, that mysterious person is X! Who could have seen this coming?'. I came dangerously close to not finishing reading this and I skimmed the end as a result. The final few pages hold another 'twist' which just erases a pretty major thing and it's about as awful as that sounds.

I really don't feel good when I dislike ARCs that I've requested but sadly, The Stranger Inside just did not do it for me. If characters really aren't important to you and you don't mind not being surprised by a thriller, then you might get more enjoyment out of this than I did,

Overall Rating:

The Pupil by Dawn Goodwin

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Aria in exchange for an honest review.

The best word for this book is...messy? Honestly I was confused from page one when I opened it and found out that Viola wasn't the main character. The blurb heavily implies that you are going to be reading a story about Viola trying to work out if she's met Katherine before, and if she has then what to do about it. Instead almost the entire book is told from Katherine's point of view with her being the protagonist. This is confusing at first and makes for a very different plot/atmosphere than the blurb implies.

The Pupil is actually about Katherine Baxter, a woman who takes a writing class with an author she admires and then gets selected to be mentored by him with the goal of getting her published. The author's wife is also his agent and she seems welcoming but suspicious (again, the blurb kind of gives away why she is acting this way). Katherine's husband is a controlling and miserable man who doesn't really want her to write. Neither does anyone else Katherine knows.

As far as thrillers go, there really isn't a lot going on here. It's well-written but the plot is very linear and there aren't really any twists. The ending is easy to work out by the time you've reached it and so it feels more like a forgone conclusion than an explosive finale. The characterisation is fairly good on the whole (excluding the children who are just named props), as is the pacing and general atmosphere. Honestly there isn't much to critique about this thriller, there just isn't a lot that particularly makes it stand out either. The literary aspect is interesting and there could have been more done with it, but again it isn't the story promised by the premise.

Goodwin is a decent writer and I would be interested in reading more from her in this genre. It's just a shame that this book is a little low on the thrills and has such a misleading blurb attached to it. Ultimately I think this book should have either focused on Viola or made it clearer from the blurb that this wasn't a thriller about whether or not someone was being tormented by someone from their past but rather, a woman not sure if she can trust the people offering her new career choices.

Overall Rating:

For Better and Worse by Margot Hunt

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Harlequin-Mira in exchange for an honest review.

The blurb of this novel is pretty vague so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I think I kind of imagined two married people working together to murder someone to protect their son when he gets into bad stuff. For some reason I wasn't expecting their son to be a young child, and this book is actually about Natalie wanting to take revenge on a teacher who she believes has been abusing young students of his, including their son. I can't really give anymore detail than that without getting into spoilers, but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by For Better and Worse.

The main reason I wanted to read this book was because I am getting a little tired of thrillers where the husband plays a minor or non-existent role. Far too often it is the case where the husband is relegated purely to a suspicious figure with little or no personality. This book seemed to hint at a larger role and indeed, Will becomes one of the two narrators later on in the story. Both Natalie and Will made for compelling characters to read about and I found myself invested in their plotlines and intrigued as to what decisions they would make.

Compared to some thrillers this is more of a slow burn, which isn't to say that's a negative. I personally enjoyed the pacing as the focus remains on the choices the characters make and how far they are willing to go to both protect their son and themselves. There aren't really any big twists (again, not a negative) but there are a few minor things which keep you guessing. The writing style is spot on and I loved how Hunt built up suspense using the dual narration. There are plenty of uncertainties to prevent you working out how it's going to go, and I was very invested the whole time I was reading it.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this thriller for people who enjoy a tense story without the need for huge twists or a breakneck pace. It explores an interesting marital relationship, the intense bond of family and the fallout that can come from when an adult sexually abuses a child. It puts a nice spin on the usual cat and mouse story and I will definitely be seeking out Margot Hunt's other work now.

Overall Rating:

Kill Creek by Scott Thomas

This is such a treat for horror fans. Honestly, I'm not entirely convinced I shouldn't just give this 5 stars straight off the bat because I loved it so much. The only thing that is stopping me is that I listened to the audiobook rather than reading it which is quite a different experience (the audiobook is many, many hours long). I would very much like to read this again and I'm almost certain I will be giving it 5 stars when I do.

Kill Creek tells the story of four horror authors, brought together to a haunted house in a publicity stunt. Each of the four authors represents a different kind of horror. You have Sam McGarver the protagonist, kind of a Steven King type everyman. There is TC Moore, a female writer who loves gore and graphic sex scenes. Sebastian Cole is the elderly pioneer of the genre while Daniel Slaughter is a loose parody of RL Stine. All four of these characters are incredibly fleshed out and I truly enjoyed reading about them. You can tell Scott Thomas is a lover of the horror genre and this shines through his writing.

Only the first part of this book is about the publicity stunt visit. I was expecting more of the story to be taken up by this but, while I was initially disappointed, ultimately the story is stronger for this not being the case. Instead of a bog standard haunted house story, you get something a little deeper and more interesting. I was unsure where the story was heading and there is a lot of creativity to be found here. Again, Scott Thomas clearly loves horror and I was impressed by how he managed to invoke a lot of tropes whilst still putting his own spin on them.

There were a few elements I wasn't so keen on. There is some weird sexual stuff earlier on in the book which sadly isn't uncommon in horror. Thankfully this did not play a big part in the story and there were only two instances overall which I was glad about. I found the ending a little hard to follow as well in parts, though this could easily be due to me listening to the audiobook. Overall, I would strongly recommend the audiobook itself. The narrator had an easy-to-listen-to voice and gave each of the characters distinctive voices, which made for a very enjoyable listening experience.

I have made it my mission to read more horror that isn't by Stephen King in 2019 and Kill Creek has gotten this off to a fantastic start. The blurb may sound like a cliche storm but it is a well-paced, fantastically detailed and above all entertaining horror book. Fans of horror will appreciate the nuances of each of the author characters, and those less familiar with horror will appreciate the strong plot and intriguing story. I cannot recommend this more.

Overall Rating:

.5

Hunting Annabelle

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Harlequin-Mira in exchange for an honest review.

It is so hard for me to pin down how I felt about this book. On the one hand, I felt it was fairly well-written and I was definitely engaged throughout most of it. On the other hand, I absolutely hated the ending and felt like it got very rambly and repetitive about 50% of the way through.

One thing I would like to make clear is that this should definitely be considered a YA thriller. Hunting Annabelle is about a teenager named Sean with severe mental health difficulties (labelled schizophrenia but as a psychologist, I'm not entirely convinced). Sean meets a girl called Annabelle, goes on a date with her and then sees her get kidnapped in front of his eyes. He goes straight to the police but due to his mental health difficulties and some dark things from his past, they don't believe him. He then decides to take matters into his own hands and investigates her disappearance.

For the first half or so of this book, I was very engaged and intrigued by the story. I don't really enjoy reading thrillers with unreliable narrators anymore because I tend to just switch off and wait until the author reveals what really happened at the end, but Sean's potential hallucinations are sort of kept to a minimum and aren't too intrusive. The mental health rep in this is pretty shocking but then, I don't expect a lot from thrillers. There is a fair amount of accuracy in terms of treatment and that side of things but the actual details about the condition are few and far between. Maybe this was meant to add to the ambiguity aspect but it felt lacking to me. I can definitely see it angering some people.

The problems start to kick in around 50% of the way through. Firstly, the story becomes incredibly repetitive. Sean goes to meet someone from Annabelle's past, he finds out a little more about her and then he gets the name of the next person to go see. Rinse and repeat for like 100 pages. Secondly, Sean discovers something very incriminating about a person in Annabelle's life which seems like it would be important to the investigation. An intense fight happens and Sean escapes with evidence of this incriminating thing and then...nothing happens? It isn't mentioned properly until the very end and it's incredibly distracting to have this plot device just hanging there like the elephant in the corner. I initially expected this encounter to be a hallucination of Sean which would explain why it was just forgotten about but this turns out not to be the case and it's just a really baffling writing decision.

This review is spoiler free but the final and biggest problem with this book is the ending. I found it very unbelievable and frankly a bit of a cop-out, and it soured the tone of the whole book for me. Overall, I can see some people really liking this book but I'm just not convinced it brings anything new to the thriller genre. I think the writing has real potential and there are a lot of nice elements at the start of the book. I would want to read more by the author but I can't really recommend this to people, and the problems far outweigh the good points. Sadly this was not a winner.

Overall Rating:

.5

Truth and Lies by Caroline Mitchell

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and Amazon Publishing UK in exchange for an honest review.

It has been a while since I've read a police procedural thriller as engaging as this. It isn't uncommon for them to have the basic plotline of 'serial killer takes a special interest in the main detective character and plays games with them' but this is the first one I've heard of that has the added layer of the main character being related to the serial killer. I was uncertain how well this would work in execution but I am pleased to say that it did not disappoint. Truth and Lies not only delivers on its premise, it is a fantastically written and engaging thriller on the whole.

Truth and Lies is about our main character, Amy Winter, who receives a letter from an infamous female serial killer confessing that she is Amy's real mother. Once more, the serial killer is willing to reveal the locations of her last three victims if Amy plays along with her requests. What follows is a tense cat-and-mouse game where Amy is trying to keep their connection secret from her coworkers whilst also wrestling with the serial killer's demands. The stakes get raised when a young girl is kidnapped in the present day and Amy is uncertain whether it is connected to her birth mother or not.

As a main character, Amy was immensely likable and very understandable in her actions and motives. There are plenty of side characters in this and they were all well-developed and interesting to read about. Ultimately this is what drives the story, along with the trail-of-breadcrumbs reveal of what happened in Amy's past and what the serial killer is demanding in the present. The pacing is pretty much spot on, although I wasn't as invested in the modern-day kidnapping story as perhaps I should have been. The ending as well is satisfactory but not really more than that. This didn't bother me as there was plenty of other things to be invested in and I wasn't really reading for a shock ending, but I can see some people potentially being unsatisfied by the resolution of part of the plot.

Overall, Truth and Lies is an excellent example of the police procedural thriller genre done right. The writing is very skilled and there is plenty of meat in the plot to keep you interested in what's going on. I'm intrigued to see if another thriller with the same detective character could be as engaging without the 'related to a serial killer' aspect (assuming this isn't involved in the plot of a sequel) but I would definitely be interested in checking out more from the author and she has managed to capture my interest in a thriller genre that is not my favourite.

Overall Rating:

Hark! the Herald Angels Scream: A Short Story Anthology

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review.

Ooh boy, this was right up my street! I am one of those people who love to read seasonal books in December and so many seasonal books end up being contemporary romances. Finally I have found a book to satisfy my horror needs in the colder months. This is a wonderful collection of short winter/holiday-themed horror stories and most of them are pretty decent reads. As per usual with an anthology, I had some favourites and some least favourites so I'll go through a couple of those now:

Christmas in Barcelona-The second story and the one that let me know I was in for a good time. A man is on holiday with his wife and child when he encounters a woman selling something magical. A well-paced slow build that ends explosively. 4/5.

Snake's Tail-The only story I truly hated. This is kind of rambly horror and I couldn't work out what it was actually about. My personal least favourite of the collection. 1/5.

Doctor Velocity-This again had a really weird premise and the character names were too distracting for me. 2/5.

Yankee Swap-A woman gets kidnapped by a crazy guy who has special presents planned for his hostages. Very straightforward horror but with a seasonal twist and written excellently. 5/5.

Hiking Through-A wintery ghost story about a hiker who has recently been dumped that again, is written excellently and weaves a great atmosphere. Kind of easy to predict but that doesn't take away from its impact. 5/5.

The Hangman's Bride-My absolute favourite without a doubt. An immersive tale about a chimney sweep child who finds more than he bargained for when he goes up the chimney of the local hangman. I was utterly gripped every second of this and the collection would be worth getting for this story alone, never mind the other excellent ones, 5/5.

All of the others ranged from 2.5-3.5 ratings. My overall rating for the anthology mathematically was 3.75, which I rounded up to 4 stars for argument's sake.

Overall, I was very impressed with this anthology. It has such a great range of themes horror-wise, and I like that the stories vary from very Chrismassy to just vaguely wintery. It is definitely worth checking out 

and fills a perfect niche in the market for non-romance holiday books.

Overall Rating:

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao

Those of you who have read my blog before will know that in general, I am not a big fantasy reader. I do enjoy fantasy and I have a soft spot for YA fantasy where the details and world-building tend not to be as dense. I have recently started a Booktube channel and as part of that, I wanted to take part in the Fantasy Readathon Penguin Teen were hosting. This book has sat on my TBR forever and I am so glad I finally got round to reading it.

This is described as an Asian-inspired retelling of the Evil Queen story from Snow White. I personally think that description is a little limiting. There is far more in this story that is original than from Snow White, and the elements that are taken from it (one person rising to power, occasional apples and reflection references) are so broad and scarce that it really could just be a completely original story in my eyes. Indeed, a captivating story is one of this book's greatest strengths. It was fantastically well-written and almost perfectly paced in my eyes, which was aided by the fact I couldn't put it down.

The characters in this book are pretty great too. Xifeng is a very compelling protagonist and I think her moral questionability is handled very well. You get to see her evolve from someone who is aware of her potential destiny but not of the reality of the consequences, to someone who is willing to do whatever to get what she wants. There is no sudden jump from good to bad person and she doesn't just start off as someone naive either. The weakest character is Wei I feel, but the emperor is great and I liked pretty much everyone else as well. In particular, I like that the emperor isn't some repulsive or creepy older guy. He's interesting in his own right and it adds depth to both Xifeng and the story that he isn't a stereotype.

There are only a few elements that stopped me giving this 5 stars. There is a mini twist at the end regarding one of the side characters that I was not overly keen on. I quite liked the character as they were at face value and I felt the mini twist disrupted some of their characterisation. The other thing was that the ending felt a little bit rushed. I understand that this is only a duology and so the author wanted to set up the next book, but it felt like a little more time could have been given to the final couple of events. It wasn't awful by any means and the rest of the pacing was pretty much perfect, which is why that tiny flaw stood out.

Overall, this is a wonderful fantasy story. I could hardly fault any element and I am so excited to read the sequel. My only concern for the sequel is that I loved Xifeng so much and the second book appears to focus on a different character which might be a shame. However, whether you love fantasy or typically stay away from it, this is a book worth checking out.

Overall Rating:

.5

Alice by Christina Henry

THIS BOOK HAS MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR SEXUAL ABUSE.

This was not what I was expecting at all. Even after reading and falling in love with Lost Boy last year, I was somewhat apprehensive about reading this. I adore Alice in Wonderland and I had high hopes for Henry's version of it. However, while Lost Boy is primarily a fantasy story with some slow-developing horror elements peppered in, Alice is definitely straight-up horror.

The entire premise of this book is heavily focused on sexual abuse so that is something to be aware of if you don't enjoy reading about that topic. In this universe, Alice has been sent to an insane asylum by her family after she was kidnapped by the White Rabbit, a fantasy crime lord. This world is run by various crime lords all themed around characters from Alice in Wonderland and most of them guilty of abusing girls in increasingly horrific ways. Early on, Alice escapes from the asylum with her friend 'Hatcher' and they go on a quest to defeat the Jabberwocky/avenge Alice's past.

The fantasy world itself is a blend of Victorian/steampunk elements, Wonderland, generic fantasy and magic. The worldbuilding is woven into the story excellently and I don't feel like you are missing anything super important, although certain things are left a bit sparse if they're not directly relevant to the plot. There is a lot going on in this book and it is impressive how Henry sets everything up without it cluttering the story.

Honestly, I wasn't sure how I felt about this plot for the majority of the book. Maybe it is because I am much more emotionally invested in Alice in Wonderland than Peter Pan but it felt very uncomfortable to have one of my favourite stories warped into a tale of such graphic sexual and physical violence. Ultimately though I did really enjoy the story and by the end, I was very much in love with it. I still prefer Lost Boy for its subtlety but Alice packs a powerful punch and it isn't a book I will forget for a long time.

Overall, if you think you can stomach the intensely graphic nature of this book then I would definitely suggest checking it out. It is a fascinating read and Henry remains one of my favourite authors for her superb writing style and skill in creating both characters and worlds. I just hope maybe my next read of hers isn't quite so brutal.

Overall Rating: