The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

Brought to you by OBS Staff Member Sophie

“You think you know the true story of Alice in Wonderland? Well think again…Alyss is destined to become Queen of Wonderland, until her parents are murdered. She flees to the safety in our world. Years pass, now it is time to return.”

When my friend handed me this book and told me I would love it, I was not 100% sure if it was my thing. I am a huge fan of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and I did not know if this story would be my cup of tea but oh how I was wrong. From the moment I started to read this novel I was hooked.

Where the story came from: Frank Beddor wrote at the beginning of the novel that he wrote the true story of Alyss after seeing an incomplete deck of cards at a display at the British Museum. The images on the cards resembled Wonderland characters and the cards them self seem to have a glow about them, Frank later went to a playing card collector who had the missing cards from the deck and told him the story of the Looking Glass Wars.

The Looking Glass Wars tells the true story of Princess Alyss Heart of Wonderland. Her seventh birthday ends in blood and tears and Princess Alyss Heart is forced to leave her best friend (the love of her life) Dodge Anders, her tutor Bibwit Harte, her recently murdered parents and the person who killed them, Alyss’s aunt Redd behind in her Queendom and flees to our world with her bodyguard Hatter Madigan by jumping though the pool of tears not knowing where it leads. Hatter Madigan and Alyss get pulled apart, Hatter Madigan popped up though a puddle in Pairs, France and Alyss popped up though a muddy puddle in Victorian London.

Alyss struggles in our world to keep her imagination alive and to prove she is from Wonderland but after being adopted by the Liddell family and meeting Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a family friend becomes the only person who has ever believed Alyss about Wonderland, he changes his name (enter Lewis Carroll) and wrote two books about Alyss even if they were very unlike her Wonderland andseems like lies. This upsets Alyss so much she puts her past behind her and grows up as Alice Liddell a proper young lady who later becomes engaged to England’s, Prince Leopold.

While Alyss has moved on from Wonderland and knows there is no way back, Hatter Madigan searches all around the world hoping to find Alyss and after thirteen years of hunting for the princess he finds out how to get back to Wonderland and finds Alyss on the night before her wedding to Prince Leopold. Mean while back in Wonderland, Alyss aunt Red has taken over the Queendom, all of the Wonderland people have been living in fear since the takeover or they have become a Alyssians, the resistance against Redd, Dodge is all grown up and still alive and fighting to get pay back.

Will Hatter Madigan get to Princess Alyss before she is married? Will they ever get back to Wonderland and back to Dodge? Or will Alyss chose to stay in our world? Will she ever become Queen and defeat Redd?

Anyone who loves Alice in Wonderland will love this even more, it puts a stop to all the nonsense. At the end you really do feel like Alyss is real and this is her true story…