...(book review) chronicles of alice by christina henry

Having just completed the final book in the Chronicles of Alice series, I wanted to share my respect for this author's incredible retelling of the classic story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol.

Christina Henry is an author of Horror and Dark Fantasy, and every book in the Chronicles of Alice series is evidence of that.

The series began with book one of the chronicles, 

ALICE published in 2015.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Alice is a dark, fantastical introductory novel to what has become an epic series that I am recommending to everyone with a love of this genre. The story has already taken a turn when we realise that Alice's family, unsympathetic and disbelieving of Alice's experiences, have resorted to locking her away in a mental institution from which she is bound to escape.

The rabbit warren of streets in the old city is corrupt, and mobsters such as the Walrus and the Carpenter claim territories that Alice and her fellow inmate/escapee Hatcher have to navigate. 

The creative advancement of Lewis Carrol's traditional characters fascinated me, carrying through to the second novel 

RED QUEEN published 2016.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Alice and Hatcher emerge into lands that were supposed to be a lush, green refuge from the unsavoury characters of the old city who have so long pursued them. But the green fields are nothing but ash.

They advance on a quest to find Hatcher's daughter, wandering into the clutches of the mad White Queen and her goblin.

Alice has to harness more of her own magic, and learn what she and Hatcher are both capable of.

The books conclude with the greatly anticipated 

LOOKING GLASS published 2020.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The final book consists of four novellas titled Lovely Creature, Girl In Amber, When I First Came To Town and The Mercy Seat.

Lovely Creature was my favourite of these novellas, following a young girl called Elizabeth who bears uncanny resemblance to Alice. 

We discover more of Hatcher's mysterious past in When I First Came To Town, before he became the mad Hatcher and ended up alongside Alice in the asylum.

And Alice and Hatcher continue their search for somewhere safe to spend their days, encountering danger and magical obstacles at every turn in Girl In Amber and The Mercy Seat.

When reading Looking Glass, I did so unaware that it was in fact the last book in the Chronicles. I suspected there was more of Alice's story to tell, but I like that a little is left to the imagination, and I was nonetheless satisfied by the way the book climaxed.

I recommend all of Christina Henry's dark retellings, not just the Alice series, but I will save her other books for another blog.

I hope you'll take my recommendation of this series if dark twists on traditional tales are your cup of tea. I've been captivated by every word in these books, and I hope you'll be too!

Zuzu 🖋

Find me in-between blogs on Instagram Facebook Twitter @zuzuspages

...solstice

In folklore, the Oak king and the Holly King beautifully personify the summer and the winter. Locked in an endless battle, the shift in power between the two kings causes the constant shift in the light and dark that we’d recognise as the seasons’ perpetuating cycle. It’s a story that feels fable/fairy tale like. But I loved it, and I think it’s worth sharing. Particularly since the Summer Solstice was observed this past weekend – June 20^th.

Owing to Lockdown, I had more time to contemplate the longest day of the year than usual, spending time in my garden’s festooning sunlight with family around me - all social distancing adhered to, of course.

The sun used to be considered the greatest strength, and was greeted on the longest day of the year to celebrate.

Bonfires were lit to represent the fiery aspects of the sun. People would jump over or through the fires for good luck, and dance around them to raise energy. To this day, to anyone acknowledging Pagan or Wiccan traditions, it’s a day of inner power and brightness.

The traditional observations of the seasons have recently taken on a new importance to me, owing to research I’ve been doing for THE BLOOD DRAGON’s sequel.

I’ve hinted, whispered and teased the importance of the sun and the moon in THE BLOOD DRAGON. An importance that I only intend to intensify in the sequel I’ve recently returned to writing. Much of the magick and the mystique in my books stems from the sun and the moon. They’re characters in their own rights, worshiped by the witches, guarded and protected by my main character. They’re responsible for controlling so much in the world, most notably the light and the dark, and therefore the seasons.

THE BLOOD DRAGON is set in a world of darkness, long depraved of the sun and moon’s precious light. And so, the luxury of observing the seasons has long been lost to the people, as have the traditions of celebration.

The seasons, like the folklore of the Oak King and the Holly King suggests, are of course a constant shifting between the sun and the moon, causing the days to shorten and lengthen into what we know as Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.


I’ve been enjoying adapting existing traditions to suit my story and creating my own magickal variations of seasonal festivals.

I love it when the fantastical is founded in fact!

To the Wiccans and the Pagans, the solar events that mark out the year were celebrated as festivals known as Ostra (Spring Equinox), Litha (Summer Solstice), Mabon (Autumn Equinox), Yule (Winter Solstice).

Mine will likely be referred to the same way.

I’d forgotten how enjoyable the research behind writing could be. My process has always been exploring and creating in equal parts as I write, and I usually find myself greatly influenced by what I discover along the way.

Who knows, next year when the restrictions of Covid no longer rule over us, I might be hosting a Summer Solstice party and applying some of these old traditions to our gaiety.

~Zuzu 🖋

You can find me in between blogs @zuzuspages on Instagram Facebook Twitter

...howling at the moon

If you're awake to bear witness, you'll know me as a creature of the night, for whom productivity flourishes between the hours of 9pm to 3am. I know that this is the time I can sit at my desk and tap away at laptop keys undisturbed by the world, knowing that most distractions have been removed by the unsociable hours I keep. Just me and the moon, and the beautiful silence that its beams cast over the world at 3am, that can often trick the mind into thinking you're the only person on the planet that's still awake.


As a solitary soul, it works for me. I'm a lone wolf, howling despair at the moon when I can't find the words, and howling victory when they suddenly come together, as if presented to me by the moons unique magick.

It's at this late hour that I feel most at one with the world I've created in my stories. Darkness is such a crucial part of THE BLOOD DRAGON, and it creates the most introspective setting for writing.

Today, after a very long unwanted break, I'm finally writing again, resuming my chiselling to sculpt the sequel to THE BLOOD DRAGON (still informally known as THE SEQUEL until inspiration strikes).
The setting of the sequel has evolved, and I wonder if the darkness will no longer feel fitting to write in. The seasons are becoming increasingly important in all my chapters, and, just like writing about the dark when its light, it suddenly feels wrong to be writing about the first snow of winter when in England it's humid with the threat of summer rain.

Since I am nocturnal by nature, I don't think I could change my hours of productivity if I tried. I'm forever cast as a 3am writer. A three cups of coffee writer. A three hours until I go to work writer. And perhaps that's for the best; for we all know, three is a magick number...

~ Zuzu

Find me in between blogs on social media @zuzuspages Instagram Facebook Twitter

...it's a kind of magick

When describing the magick of my characters, particularly the many witches of variant abilities in THE BLOOD DRAGON, I always use the archaic spelling that refers to magick of an occult nature, meant to differentiate from the performance magic of magicians.

Magic, to me, is parlour tricks, still displaying a level of skill, but skill that's been learnt rather than existing naturally as an extension of the body, as a witch's might.
Magic is the sort that belongs to magicians who might delight children by pulling a rabbit from their hats. Or at the next level, Derren Brown, performing skilled tricks and illusions that deceive the mind.

Magick in my story is a gifted ability born onto you, or inherited, that you can't always help or control.
The witches in my story are dark wisps of women consisting of little more than magick and air. Their power is what fuels and sustains them - too omnipotent for me to be able to think of it as mere "magic".

Magick typically is meant to be neutral, neither dark or light in nature. Neither good nor evil. But fairy tales have warped our perception of it, and it's hard not to be influenced by them. However, in my book, the line between good and evil is blurred and confused, I hope lending a sense of realism to the idea that nothing is ever simply black and white. There are always extenuating circumstances that will affect a story and a characters' journey through it.

I love fantastical magick that is decidedly otherworldly in its charactristics. However, I do my research, making sure there's grounding in my supernatural creation. If it's so far out as to be unbelievable, then what's the point? I want the magick in my book to feel unreal-ly real!
I'm aware that I sound like one big walking contradiction. But doesn't magick always come across as the impossible made possible? The improbable, made probable?

Think of the most magickal books you've ever read... For me, the lines between the real and fantasical are always best when they're seamlessly blurred. "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern is a perfect example of this, "Practical Magic" by Alice Hoffman, "Caraval" by Stephanie Garber. And from middle grade literature, "The Divide" by Elizabeth Kay, and the ultimate example of magickal surrealism, "The Adventures of Alice In Wonderland" by the fantastical Lewis Carrol.

I admire all variants of magic/magick in literature. Fantasy is my preferred genre to read and to write. I've said before that it knows no bounds!
If you'd like more reading recommendations, I've got a fair selection of book reviews in blogs, and also a list of recommended books.

Don't forget, you can follow me across social media in between blogs @zuzuspages Instagram Facebook Twitter


Zuzu 🖋

....(book review) daughter of smoke and bone series by laini taylor

ERRAND REQUIRING IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. COME.

The note was on vellum, pierced by the talons of the almost-crow that delivered it. Karou read the message. "He never says please", she sighed, but she gathered up her things.

When Brimstone called, she always came.

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor

Published: 2011

Genre: YA High Fantasy Fiction. Fantasy Romance.

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.
This is an incredible opening to any book and the story that follows is worthy of the thrill it issues.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor is the first in an impeccably written trilogy of YA high fantasy romance novels. The books that follow, Days of Blood and Starlight and Dreams of Gods and Monsters are equally worthy of attention and rapture, so I'll do my best to elucidate without spoilers.

As we all know by now, fantasy is a genre I often reside in, and there is so much to be admired in the way Laini Taylor approaches it.
Her characters range from humans to beasts, chimera to be exact, and they all possess well rounded, believable traits that make them engaging to read, to route for, or to despise with every fibre of your being. These books provoked some strong emotions in me, to be sure.
The chimera, in their variant forms, account for many of the book's characters. The inspiration for which I assume was taken from Greek Mythology, a chimera being a creature compounded of incongruous parts: a lions head, a goats body and a serpents tail, whose appearance was considered to be an ill omen. However, there are many other references found across cultures and beliefs.
I'm in awe of the way this mythology has been compounded and expanded upon to create something innovative and engaging. Angels verses demon's from en entirely new perspective. This story is unlike anything I've had the pleasure to read before. I love being able to say that about a book. It reminds me of nothing, which perhaps doesn't sound like praise, but trust me it is praise in its highest form. A true original is as rare as a golden unicorn.

The main character, the ultramarine haired Karou is a story all by herself. A seventeen-year-old living alone in Prague, studying at the Art Lyceum of Bohemia; dropping everything as the summons of Brimstone, a monstrous chimera and the closest thing she has to family, by whom she is sent between worlds collecting human and animal teeth: purpose unknown.
Karou is a brilliantly complex character whose layers continue to peel back, revealing more and more of her as the trilogy unfolds.
Her counterpart, an angel called Akiva, is equally complex and engaging. Their romance does more than indulge the YA teenage "angst" for lack of a better term. It's embedded in the story and crucial to its telling.

Laini Taylor seamlessly overlaps her worlds and flits between them as easily as if she has traversed them herself. Perhaps she has.
Everything about this book was unexpected. It was full of twist and turns, adventure, action, sorrow, love and friendship.

I demolished the trilogy too quickly for my own liking, for I was genuinely devastated to have finished reading them. So many authors conclude their work too abruptly after an incredible, jaw clenching build up, but not this time. These books were good to the last drop - and, of course, I thoroughly recommend.

It is a new habit of mine to read the acknowledgements that you often find at the back of books, almost as an extension of the story in some cases. A lot of the time, it's the acknowledgments as much as the book itself that endear me to an author. The acknowledgements written by Laini Taylor revealed her to be humble and quirky, and above all else real.
It gives me hope to read about an author and find comparison to myself. It solidifies my belief that my book too can be published.

There we have it: Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Days of Blood and Starlight, Dreams of Gods and Monsters, published 2011, 2012 and 2014 respectively. The consistency of the titles thrills me by the way - yes, I know that makes me terribly sad, but unashamedly so! I can't believe it took me so long to come across this trilogy,  but I'm so glad I did! I've since been singing their praises to anyone who'll listen.

Let me know what you though if you've read them, and if you now intend to if you have yet to have the pleasure!
Until next week, find me across social media for book and writing updates: Facebook - Instagram - Twitter

Zuzu 🖋

#bookreview #daughterofsmokeandbone #lainitaylor