I have finished my fifth book for the book challenge. I read The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor. The premise of the book is that the book Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, the pen name of the Rev. Charles Dodgson were fabrications of the true story of Alyss Heart, who was adopted by Dean and Mrs. Liddell and renamed Alice. Alyss ended up in London through a portal through the Pool of Tears in Wonderland as she tried to escape death from her aunt Redd who killed her mother Queen Genevieve and her father King Nolan and took over the queendom of Wonderland on Alyss’s seventh birthday. Alyss and Hatter Madigan jumped into the portal in the Pool of Tears but became separated; Hatter landed in Paris and Alyss came out in London.
Alyss became involved with a group of street urchins and for a while used her White Imagination to make flowers sing for money that they used for food. But Alyss eventually saw her imagination decline and she could no longer make the flowers sing, so she resorted to stealing food and was caught and sent to a foundling home. From there she was adopted by the Liddells and she met the Rev. Dodgson, to whom she told the story of her life in Wonderland. But he embellished it and manufactured a totally different land and even misspelled her name. Alyss was very upset and refused to ever speak to him again, but she settled into her life in England and grew to womanhood while never forgetting Wonderland.
Meanwhile, Hatter was traveling the world searching for Alyss. Eventually, he found her in London just as she was about to marry Prince Leopold, the son of Queen Victoria. In the middle of her wedding, she was whisked away back to Wonderland through a puddle portal to her waiting troops, the Alyssians, who had remained faithful to her and were willing to fight for her to regain her rightful place as the queen of Wonderland.
The rest of the book describes the battles that Alyss and her followers go through to defeat her aunt Redd and her minions. The odds are stacked against Alyss but she seeks the counsel of the caterpillars and they tell her to navigate through the Looking Glass Maze and she will regain power and be able to defeat Redd. She does this and gains power and the use of her White Imagination and the crystal scepter. These, along with her loyal followers, help her to defeat the evil Redd and gain the queendom of Wonderland. Now, instead of Princess Alyss Heart, she has become Queen Alyss Heart, keeper of the Heart Crystal.
There are other books in this series. Redd is not dead and will come back to try to reclaim the queendom and Alyss must fight to control the Heart Crystal and her queendom. But that is for another book.
Sounds super cool!