Queens of Wonderland
A Novel
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Enter through the looking glass into Queens of Wonderland, Book Two in the Defenders of Lore series, in which Knights of the Round Vanessa and Michael must follow Captain Hook into Wonderland alongside Alice to crush his treacherous plan and deal with an ongoing war between power-hungry queens
After saving reality and overcoming the numerous challenges that Neverland threw at her, Vanessa has been tasked to save Michael Darling from himself: he’s grown obsessed in his role as a Knight of the Round and will stop at nothing to find the ghost of James Hook, nearly getting expelled from the Knights in the process. It’s up to Vanessa to keep him safe, she can’t lose her partner to Hook’s sword.
So together it’s off to Wonderland in pursuit of the pirate.
Except, unlike Neverland, neither Vanessa nor Michael have ever been there before. But someone they know has: the Lady who leads the Knights…who turns out to be none other than the legendary Alice. Her extensive knowledge about the land could change the game and bring them one step closer to finding Captain Hook…and in a world where games are taken quite seriously—and no less than six queens are vying for power—it will take them putting all their heads together to make it through.
Or they just might find them lopped off.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Martinez's lackluster second Defenders of Lore fantasy novel (after 2022's God of Neverland) has versions of J.M. Barrie's creations interact with some of Lewis Carroll's characters, but the conceit can't make up for weak characterizations and an overreliance on uninspired action sequences. The Knights of the Round were established to protect humanity from "mystical threats." Michael Darling, of Peter Pan fame, is demoted by that order, after his obsession with thwarting Captain Hook, who's unleashed "an army of ghosts" on London, costs innocent lives. But even this won't put him off Hook's scent. His pursuit takes a surprising turn when Darling learns the pirate has crossed into Wonderland. Fortunately, the White Lady, a master of magical arts including divination and prophecy and one of the leaders of the Knights of the Round, agrees to accompany Darling and his friends into that realm and reveals herself to be an expert on Wonderland from her time spent there back when she went by Alice. The group encounters predictable dangers and only slightly reimagined takes on classic figures such as the Cheshire Cat. The result is an uninspired mash-up of well-loved worlds with little to say about any of them.
