What’s Sera Reading? 📚 The Queen of Hearts Saga by Colleen Oakes

Colleen Oakes is the bestselling author of books for both teens and adults, including the Queen of Hearts Series, the Wendy Darling Saga and Sister of the Chosen One. The first two books in the Queen of Hearts series were published by Sparkpress before being picked up by Harper Collins, who repackaged, re-edited and republished them in 2016, starting with Queen of Hearts, then Blood of Wonderland and finally, the long-awaited finale, War of the Cards, released in November 2017.

Queen of Hearts

Fans of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will enjoy the twists Oakes gives to familiar adapted characters. Dinah is not yet Queen of Wonderland, but already she must be quick-witted and fight to survive in order to one day wear her crown; alongside her ruthless father the King of Hearts. Dinah knows that she has enemies such as the forever scheming Cheshire and the new potential risk to her crown, her recently introduced half-sister Vittiore, who obtains her father’s full attention and desire to wear the crown. Dinah can only trust two people in her small world within the castle walls; her mad hat-making brother Charles and Wardley her childhood love the Knave of Hearts.

Wonderland does come to life in this book. It’s seeing it through new eyes, and it works so very well. New elements such as the Horn Hoofs, the Black Tower, Yurkei Warriors and little things like pink snow are amazing world-building tools that really help sell this story, giving it a more original feel than a simple retelling.

The latter half is the very best action and storytelling. Despite Dinah’s discovery of the half-truths and the plot to kill her, many more questions are generated. By the end we are in a fast passed drama; I’m immediately picking up the next book to continue Dinah’s next chapter.

Blood of Wonderland

Diana has been exiled and is being chased by her ruthless father, the King. Diana started off in that first book as a bit of a spoiled brat. The reader gets to watch as she evolves in this book. Now a lovable badass, she learns how to fight and last long enough in the woods without dying (having a monster horse helps). We unfortunately do have a lot of being in Dinah’s head moments which I think I’d rather exchange for more dialogue. However, I do find the concept of the “black fury” inside of her a great way to harness that well know Queen of Hearts temper. There is the classic “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”, and it is dramatic from the start.

Again the latter chapters are the best. She is reunited with the love of her life, only to have her heart stomped on. A wonderful fun twist with Diana’s history and a cliffhanger of an ending that has this reader scrambling for the next book. Great stuff! [and easy to read, so very accessible for young teens]

War of the Cards

The exiled princess of Wonderland is marching to war with her army of Spades and Yurkei warriors. On the way to Wonderland Palace, she has to deal with and settle the tensions in camp between old enemies while also trying to ignore the dark fury inside of her and her broken heart. All of this is observed by Cheshire and the elusive caterpillar, who seem all too pleased with her dark mood. And as the war begins, secret upon secret is unravelled, turning Dinah’s life upside-down once more. Any reader who loves a battle will not be disappointed with this war; we get plenty of furies, blood and malice.

The boy she gave her heart to shatters it completely and then when we think it is all over Diana breaks his heart spectacularly! [a real Queen of Hearts manoeuvre] Yet we do get a happy ending…of sorts. The bit with Wardley and Lewis at the end was such a clever concept. It ties in well with the Alice revelation and connects it to the original story.

To sum it up, I was pleasantly surprised. I do not normally like writers raiding the classics to achieve their own fame; it had always seemed lazy to me. However, I eat humble pie here and say this was brilliant. There is plenty that makes this trilogy original and still respectful of its historic story world and characters. The pacing of the narrative only gets better with each chapter of each book. Our lead character the Queen of Hearts has a brilliant coming-of-age story. entiteld brat to clever young woman. Easy to read, not too graphic with romances or war. I would be happy to put this on my daughter’s bookshelf. – Seraphim Bryant 2023.

What’s Melody Reading? Half Bad Trilogy by Sally Green

My daughter Melody and I have been reading The Half Bad trilogy.  A young adult fantasy that began in 2014 and is set in modern-day Europe, mainly in Britain, where witches and humans (fains) live together. White Witches and Fains live in a strained peace together. However, the Black Witches are outcasts. The 17-year-old protagonist, Nathan, is half -White Witch and half-Black Witch.

*bisexual content.

*it is a tear-jerker of an ending.

More than a story about witches. It’s a heart-achingly visceral look at survival and exploitation, the nature of good and evil, and the risks we take for love.

Melody Falcon

Two warring factions of witches live amongst humans. It may not be that original, but it certainly is exhilarating. The ‘Hunt’ is animated and thrilling to read. Nathan is an abomination, a half-code, not to be confused with half-bloods who are half-witch, half-human. Nathan is the illegitimate son of the world’s most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. The twist being Nathan’s only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers before his blood kills him. Knowing the good guys from the bad guys is very tricky in this story, and you feel how Nathan’s whirlwind life could drive a person crazy. With constant thrills and drama, this is a brilliant novel, if not a bit adult in some themes of relationships, family and lovers. Also, don’t expect magic even though we have witches. This is not Harry Potter!

Half Wild: Nathan has his father’s ring, the Hunter bullet removed from his flesh, and his life. With three gifts received, Nathan is hunted from all sides, nowhere is safe, and no one can be trusted. Sounds thrilling but wait, we are for the first few chapters trying to find and save Annalise. “Oh, please save the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white chick who’s landed herself in some kind of magical coma.” yes, I’m being sarcastic. It’s like Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, Nathan’s dreams of Annalise, of touching her, exchanging bland conversation, staring at her skin-coloured skin! [“Her skin is soft and skin-coloured.”] She is white. So what if I’m not? Should I be to read this novel? Accidental racist faux pas to one side; Character deaths! There are lots of folks being ended, and some major ones too. So, not just running around in the woods being confused in love. It took Nathan long enough.

Half Lost: The Alliance of Free Witches’ greatest weapon is dead. The mighty Marcus is robbed of his heart, and his body is left in the wilderness. Nathan is, as always it may seem, on the run. Forced to consume his father’s heart, he is out for revenge. But wait, first, he must learn to master the powerful new gifts absorbed from Marcus. The decimated Alliance’s only hope for survival is Nathan. Nathan’s only chance of defeating Wallend and Soul and their army of Hunters is to find the reclusive black witch Ledger so that he might reclaim the other half of a valuable treasure which may make him invincible. What a rollercoaster! This totally makes up for the messing about at the start of Half Wild. Green has cleaned up the hunt and made clear the motivations of each character. I screamed, I cried and bit my nails. Confession; there were things set up in the previous books that I didn’t even realise until Green resolves them here. The back-and-forth, loss and gain, as neither side will back down chapter after chapter, makes this unputdownable. Just when I dared to breathe a sigh of relief at the pace of adventure, I was left sobbing at the end.

 Netflix announced a TV adaptation which was released on 28th October 2022 as “The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself.”

What’s Sera reading? Cari Mora by Thomas Harris

 A story of evil, greed, and hidden pasts. This one is more of a crime thriller than a horror. Famous for the character Hannibal Lecter, Harris is usually putting his readers through gore and hopeless risky battles with a killer.

Caridad “Cari” Mora is a refugee. She has escaped Colombia, and her history of involvement in FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] as a teenager has her trying to evade the authorities and ICE’s radar. Cari now lives in Miami Beach under temporary protected status. Working odd jobs, her favourite being wildlife rehabilitation at Pelican Harbor Seabird Station. Cari is housesitting a house once owned by the notorious Pablo Escobar. Two crime gangs are looking for the $25 million hidden somewhere in that house.

A plot line anchored in contemporary pop culture from a legendary writer should be a recipe for success. However, the story doesn’t feel fully fleshed out. (no pun intended) so much more was going on that Harris seems to have edited out. The story is more like an episode of Cari Mora than the film. This is a massive shame as Cari is a strong female character who I absolutely love; she is a skilled and triumphant survivor. The villain is great ‘bad guy’ material. He has that mindset of a ‘born criminal’ and sadistic psychopath whose dark obsession becomes his cause of death, almost poetic. But I was left wanting more information.

For folks not so familiar with Harris, this is a great book to wet your pallet with and give you the feel for the type of story Harris is most famous for. But for ‘Silence of the Lambs’ and ‘Red Dragon’ fans, this just isn’t enough…

…(Well, maybe the salt-water crocodile moment is)

What’s Sera Reading? The Travelling Bag by Susan Hill

Susan Hill was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, in 1942. She is a highly decorated author of several genres, but her favourite is always ghost stories. She has written over 55 books in several genres, including the ghost story THE WOMAN IN BLACK. The stage adaption is still running in London’s West End after 25 years. I’M THE KING OF THE CASTLE has been a GCSE set text for over 10 years.

The Travelling Bag And Other Ghostly Stories was initially a 2016 collection of four short stories. The 2017 paperback edition, which we have at Stourport Library, included a fifth story, ‘Printer’s Devil Court’.

The collection of short stories all have the setting and content of dark and menacing but not gruesome Hill likes to sneak into your uneasy feelings and draw them out. ‘The Travelling Bag. is a classic victorian ghost story. It’s the revenge of genius and fear of moths. (my sister would agree moths are creepy) narrated by a detective who concentrates on the travelling bag brought to him by a widow and finds the truth about the bag and its winged contents. In ‘Boy 21’, it’s the loneliness and the sense of the unwanted or rejected that causes the oddness. A lonely boy finds a friend, but years later, the odd friendship has the man questioning his sanity. ‘Alice Baker’ is the odd one out for me. I love the description and tone. The smells of death and decay around her, the foreboding, but it ends all too quickly and not fully unravelled. ‘The front room follows the slightly more modern family drama haunting 1950s suburbia. I love how much we, the reader, are drawn into hating the character of stepmother Solange. The sinister way she draws on the energy of the children, much like she did to Norman’s Father. I don’t mind the giggle at the Sunday sermon being taken a bit too literally. Finally, the ‘Printer’s Devil Court’ tale is creepy and tense. It has the feel you get from an old Hammer House of Horror movie. The raising of Lazarus has been debated in science before, and I love this version of collecting the final breath to give to another person to prevent them from dying completely. The consequences undoubtedly pursue one of them to the grave – and perhaps beyond.

In all, this is a beautiful collection of stories and a great way to be introduced into the occult/ghostly genre. They are quick and easy to read, you won’t be disappointed.