Celia wakes up in a house that’s supposed to be hers. There’s a little girl who claims to be her daughter and a man who claims to be her husband, but Celia knows this family—and this life—is not hers… There were nods all around the circle from everyone except Brom, who scrubbed his face with his hands, a gesture that meant he was irritated, and doubly irritated on top of it because he wasn’t allowed to express that feeling. In the end, Alice will have to find out who the real monsters are and what made them monsters to begin with. The little girl reached the end of the drive just as a yellow school bus pulled up in front of the mailbox. She clambered onto the bus and it pulled away. Papa’s face went from ruddy to white in a moment, and he looked at Mama and said, in a warning voice, “Althea!”

And in truth, she had nearly forgotten the Incident at Breakfast until later, when she climbed the stairs to get a book and heard Mama making muffled noises in her bedroom. Elizabeth had put her ear close to the keyhole and listened. When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in the town of Smiths Hollow, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won’t find the killer. After all, the year before her father’s body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids. Mattie can’t remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they’re not alone after all.The world created here is not our world and it is not Wonderland. It's a horor-fantasy style setting in a fictional place called the Old City. Ever since Alice returned to her parents after going missing as a child, with blood running down her legs, missing memories, and strange inexplicable abilities, she has been deemed mad. What happened to the big bunny and the rescued girls felt like a major copout. They deserved better to receive more than a mere reference given everything that happened to them in the first book.

I actually had to push myself to finish this book. I hate saying that. I really wanted to love it. Because I swore, and still do, by Alice (the first book). Christina Henry". Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . Retrieved 2020-08-22. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status ( link) It’s a good deal more likely than the mythical Headless Horseman.” Brom didn’t believe in a lot of the things people in the Hollow believed in. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard him refer to someone else’s ideas as nonsense. Not one of them glanced left or right, so they didn’t notice the tops of our heads. They didn’t seem to notice anything. They all appeared grim, especially my opa, who never looked grim for anything. It won’t be the same on another night,” Miranda said. “I can’t believe you dragged me all over town to get a bunch of stupid little candy bars and we’re not even going to watch a scary movie now.”Papa’s face looked strange then, a kind of cross between chalky and mottled, and he seemed to be swallowing words trying to escape out of his mouth.

mysterybkluv: ngl it would be great to live in a small town where there are lots of low-stakes murders and I could solve them while working in my family restaurant If I hear one word accusing the natives of this murder I’ll know who started the rumor,” Brom said, stepping closer to Smit. “Just remember that.” The news is now official so I can announce that I’ll be writing two more books for Berkley – NEAR THE BONE, a horror novel about a woman who lives on a mountain with her abusive husband and discovers there’s more than one kind of monster in the woods, and HORSEMAN, a dark reimagining of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. Release dates, covers and more info to come! After spending ten years in a hospital ward for the insane, Alice is finally free. Alongside her fellow prisoner Hatcher, they’d made their way through the Old City, escaping the evil clutches of the Magician crime lords. But now they’ve come to the outskirts, a land that is supposed to be full of lushness and beauty, only to find that everything—including their hopes—has been burned to ash. But Hatcher still has to find his daughter Jenny, so the two of them decide to press on towards the mountains.The characters from the book are well developed and are depicted with so many layers that are peeled away as per the situation thereby projecting their true self and colors. The main character, Alice, is portrayed as a hopeful character with a bit of realistic and genuine demeanor that makes her sane and relatable into the eyes of the readers. Alice is strong, but gradually she learns to believe herself and the way she handles and faces all the hurdles is pretty amazing and the readers will be bound to root for her journey. The rest of the characters don't stand out that much yet they are quite striking enough to make the story fascinating.

Sander began to snort, but since his voice wasn’t too deep he didn’t really sound like a pig—more like a small dog whining in the parlor. Now that we have answered all the important questions, let's get going! Mild spoilers for Alice and Red Queen to follow. In other news, the release date for THE GHOST TREE has been moved up to September 8, 2020. I’m so excited for all of you to read this book, which is very close to my heart. More information about THE GHOST TREE can be found here. Footsteps sounded overhead and Celia glanced up at the ceiling in alarm. The steps moved across the floor, and a moment later Celia heard someone large coming down the stairs. She couldn’t see the stairs from where she stood. The kitchen was attached to a dining room on one side and a hallway on the other. Celia peered into the hall. The bottom of the stairs was at the far end.Margaret was quite a lot older than Elizabeth— twenty years older, in fact, and had two little girls of her own. These girls were ten and nine years old to Elizabeth’s eight but had to call her “Aunt Elizabeth” and she did rather enjoy exerting the authority that came with being the aunt. It meant that when she said that they had to play a certain game they had to listen or else she could tell them off without getting in trouble for it. I also wanted like a big epic thing with the queens. The Red Queen whole thing (if you read the book you'd know what I am talking about) was weird. I wasn't very completed with it. LOOKING GLASS, a collection of four novellas set in the ALICE universe, releases April 21, 2020. For more info you can read an excerpt here. Our story is a continuation of the first book. Alice and Hatcher have fled the city and are travelling through a forest. To give this book a purpose, it is revealed that Hatcher has a daughter that he obviously hasn't seen in forever, so they are going to look for her. I don't recall her being mentioned in the first book at all, but I'm hoping she was, because that's super weaksauce if not. Not since the Crisis came, decimated the population, and sent those who survived fleeing into quarantine camps that serve as breeding grounds for death, destruction, and disease. She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that doesn't look anything like the one she grew up in, the one that was perfectly sane and normal and boring until three months ago.