Colleen Oakes, Queen of Hearts, HarperCollins, 26 April 2016, 320 pp., $19.99 (pbk.), ISBN: 9780008175399
Although this version is missing the random wildness and insanity of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, this origin story is still an interesting read. In Queen of Hearts we are introduced to the future villain of Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts, 15 year old Dinah. Unloved and abused by her widowed father, her days are filled with mind-numbing croquet, etiquette, history, dancing lessons, fantasising about Wardley and feeling in her bones that something bad is going to happen. And as her 18th birthday and her coronation loom nearer she is proven correct.
Familiar characters of the traditional tale are reimagined and cleverly woven into the story as humans; the Cards are soldiers, the White Rabbit is Dinah’s tutor Harris, the future White Queen is Dinah’s half-sister the beautiful Vittiore, the Mad Hatter is her beloved brother Charles, the future Knave of Hearts is the boy she is in love with, Wardley, and the Cheshire Cat is the King’s advisor.
Excitedly, I applauded the main character, Dinah, who is independent, feisty and strong. She cares for the citizens of Wonderland and anticipates how much better her rule will be to her father’s. She looks after her servants and cares deeply for her unstable brother, Charles. When a charming stranger arrives at the crumbling palace the author conveyes the overwhelming and uneasy premise that Dinah is about to lose her right to rule the kingdom. Characters can still have flaws and the reader will still empathise, but, unfortunately, the character of Dinah lost her appeal, as the author had her clumsily wavering between overwhelming anger, arrogance and ineffectual romantic twittering.
The only character with believable depth for me was Dinah’s brother, Charles. He played the role of Lewis’s Mad Hatter, resonating with the same innocence and tortured mind. Unfortunately, the character of Charles is the only part of the book that I felt the capacity to connect with in this story. And the most attention grabbing moment was when I envisioned the tortures hinted at when Dinah went into the Black Towers.
Although the writing style flowed easily and it was a quick read, this whole book lacked substance with plot being poorly developed. There are hints of intriguing possibilities, a dangerous, mysterious place and a dark, ambiguous figure, but these were falsely planted promises. Character development is sadly lacking. Some background would have helped to explain why each character behaved the way they did and this would have anchored their place to the core of the story. Even the villain was badly portrayed… not much of a villain if he doesn’t play a major role in the plot!
Queen of Hearts is the first book in a trilogy by Colleen Oakes, but I’m afraid I won’t be looking for the second. However, Colleen seems to have a penchant for fairytale origin stories which I enjoy and, as I never base my opinion of an author on one book, I may be encouraged to read Colleen Oakes’s Wendy Darling.
Reviewed by Sharon Smith
