Title: Heartless

Author: Marissa Meyer

Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

Published: 8th November 2016

Format: Paperback

Pages: 464

Price: $18.99

Synopsis: Long before she was the terror of Wonderland, the infamous Queen of Hearts, she was just a girl who wanted to fall in love.

Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland and a favourite of the unmarried King, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, she wants to open a shop and create delectable pastries.

At a royal ball where Cath is expected to receive the King’s marriage proposal, she meets handsome and mysterious Jest. At the risk of offending the King and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into a secret courtship.

Cath is determined to choose her own destiny. But in a land thriving with magic, madness and monsters, fate has other plans.

~*~

Heartless by Marissa Meyer is the story of Wonderland before it became Wonderland, before the Mad Hatter became the Mad Hatter with his tea party, and of course, before Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole into a world of food and drink that changed ones size, of Mock Turtles and before a White Rabbit is late for something. In this world, there is only Lady Catherine Pinkerton, and her parents the Marquis and Marchioness of Rock Turtle Cove, and Catherine’s dream of opening a bakery. Her parents do not share her dream, especially her mother, who spends all her time trying to force a courtship and marriage between Catherine and the King of Hearts.

As all this goes on, a terrible monster called the Jabberwock threatens Hearts, where the main characters live. The King is useless, so it will become the destiny of an unlikely crew to save the kingdom, even if this means that their fates will be sealed – whether they are fates they seek out or not. It is this climax that will lead the reader into the fate of Hearts, The Looking Glass, and everyone who will come to populate Wonderland.

Marissa Meyer’s origin story for the Queen of Hearts borrows from the world created by Lewis Carroll, but also incorporates other elements of literature. A couple of Shakespeare’s plays are given nonsensical titles to fit in with the nonsense theme, Raven is often known to quote from The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, and of course, from the works of Lewis Carroll. Meyer has woven all of these together to create a story befitting the world of Wonderland before it became Wonderland. Set in a quasi-Victorian setting, where nonsense survives and the real world norms of the Victorian world are topsy-turvy – it wouldn’t be Wonderland if they weren’t – Heartless is a delightful story that has a bit of everything: fantasy, romance, humour and nonsense, and a sense of adventure that will appeal to many readers who enjoy fantasy or retellings of classic tales, fairy tales or origin tales of key characters and lands. It is well written with well rounded characters.