The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

The Myth: Alice was an ordinary girl who stepped through the looking glass and entered a fairy-tale world invented by Lewis Carroll in his famous storybook. 

The Truth: Wonderland is real. Alyss Heart is the heir to the throne, until her murderous aunt Redd steals the crown and kills Alyss' parents. To escape Redd, Alyss and her bodyguard, Hatter Madigan, must flee to our world through the Pool of Tears. 

But in the pool Alyss and Hatter are separated. Lost and alone in Victorian London, Alyss is befriended by an aspiring author to whom she tells the violent, heartbreaking story of her young life. Yet he gets the story all wrong. 
Hatter Madigan knows the truth only too well, and he is searching every corner of our world to find the lost princess and return her to Wonderland so she may battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts.


I thought that The Looking Glass Wars was an interesting parallel to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I like the fact that Beddor changed some of the characters to make things more interesting, such as The White Rabbit into Bibwit Harte (an anagram of White Rabbit) into Alyss' tutor and Hatter Madigan (The Mad Hatter) into her bodyguard. The Cat was an evil character in this book (was he good in Alice in Wonderland? I have no idea. Been AGES since I last read it!) and was like an "Assassin" and it was really cool how Beddor used the idea of cat's 9 lives. 


The Looking Glass Wars is magnificently put together, almost making it seem that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland IS the Myth and we got it wrong the whole time.


I'm currently reading the second book of the series, Seeing Redd and will write a review soon!