To Escape a Wonderland: An Alice in Wonderland Retelling by Cece Louise (Shattered Tales book 3)

Years ago, Alice fell in love with the wrong man, leading to an attack that left her sister dead, and her nearly so. Now she has the chance to make things right again, but she’ll have to make a clean escape with the princess’s horse first.

Bayne has been a loyal knight for years, but an encounter with a jabberwock nearly stole his life and his sanity. He quits his job and sets off in search of something he’s not sure of. Instead, he finds a maid with the princess’s horse. 

Bandits trick them into participating in a treacherous plot, and the pair end up in a topsy-turvy world where nothing makes sense. Will Alice learn to trust again and will Bayne share the truth of his past with her? If they can’t work together, they might be stuck in the wonderland forever.

“Why was it that we could so easily believe the best about each other, but not believe it about ourselves?”

This was a really fun story, and I loved seeing how the many elements of Wonderland were brought in. Also there’s a gorgeous color map at the start, which is always a win in my book.

Bayne and Alice were cute to watch together, from their initial frenemies stance to learning to trust each other to falling in love.

At the beginning, Alice sets out in search of her sister; this is never resolved in the book, and we only get the answer to this in the epilogue, without any of the details to answer our many questions. 

Cece Louise did an amazing job shattering the story of Alice in Wonderland, and I can’t wait to read more by her.

4.5 Roses
A few kisses
Characters swear, but nothing on the page
Minor injuries, a character is beaten for information, a couple of non-descriptive deaths.

(Thank you to the author for the ARC of this book. This is my honest review.)