{"id":2296,"date":"2025-03-17T11:49:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T11:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=2296"},"modified":"2025-03-17T11:49:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T11:49:00","slug":"book-review-the-hatters-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=2296","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Hatter\u2019s Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Hatter\u2019s Daughter<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by W.A. Simpson<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Fantasy \/ Classics<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9781787589117<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 272 pages<\/p>\n

Publisher:<\/strong> Flame Tree Press<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>A dynamic coming-of-age adventure in Wonderland <\/strong> <\/h2>\n

Two young royals must leave their home\u2014what we know as Wonderland, and they call Brigantia\u2014to find someone who can rescue their homeland from a mysterious, powerful, rapidly expanding darkness. <\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need to be deep into the Alice in Wonderland<\/em> lore to understand or enjoy this story, but if you are, you\u2019re about to have a blast. Author W.A. Simpson has transformed this world into something new, interesting, and totally dynamic.<\/p>\n

In this world, Alice is known as \u201cthe Heroine,\u201d and her adventures form the base of local legends. This isn\u2019t her story, even if she does show up at the end. Our protagonists are Faith and Rowan, and the story is told from their alternating perspectives. Faith, the titular Hatter\u2019s daughter, lives a charmed life in Simpson\u2019s interpretation of Wonderland. Brave and bookish Rowan, the Prince of Hearts, is the son of the Queen and King of Hearts. Unlike Faith and \u201cunlike the rest of his family, Rowan desired to explore what lay beyond the borders of Brigantia.\u201d <\/em><\/strong>The Hatter is Faith\u2019s adoring, supportive father; the Cheshire Cat, whose fur tickles Rowan\u2019s nose into sneezing, appears as a helper when needed.<\/p>\n

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We meet Faith on her birthday\u2014literally, the story opens on the day of her birth, during which she remembers being held by her mother and almost immediately sent down into what we know as Wonderland to live with The Hatter.<\/p>\n

The story jumps to Faith\u2019s 21st birthday, which is (at first) another perfect day in her perfect world. But then everything changes: Faith has a dream, a vision of a future where something dark is trying to invade Brigantia, and the natural world is crying out for her help. She isn\u2019t certain what it is, and she\u2019s not sure why she\u2019s the vessel to deliver this message and carry the responsibility of rescuing Brigantia, but she knows that it is urgent and important.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At the beginning of this story, when all she had to worry about was which of the royals from other palaces would be attending her birthday party, she realized that there was only \u201cone person she really wanted to be there. Rowan, Prince of Hearts, son of the Queen and King of Hearts.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Both of them, it turns out, individually inspired by a love of their homeland, embark on the same adventure. Lucky for us, they reunite along the way. Together, they discover a dark magic that has turned crops to poison, put people into a permanent slumber, and radiates a putrid smell that lingers. The effects are like a decay in the once-idealistic Brigantia, turning not only their plants to death, but the eyes and hearts of people to black sludge. It even happens to Rowan at a point, when he\u2019s caught up in a fierce spell of anger and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror: \u201cHis eyes were coal-black in their sockets. Rowan cried out, filled with fear and surprise.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their partnership is so authentic. It feels true to the experience of reconnecting with someone at that age after so long, equipped with the same ego and attitudes that arise with the way they were both raised. And yet it still feels so honest in that they genuinely want to reunite and trust each other.<\/p>\n

Both Faith and Rowan gain wisdom, courage, and more independence as they go through the trials and tricks the darkness throws at them. There\u2019s a really fun dynamic at first where they\u2019re interested in seeing each other again but also find the other person annoying. Still, they\u2019re both mature enough to put their kingdoms first and move past the annoyance to solve the problem plaguing their home. <\/p>\n

I loved reading their relationship strengthening and them growing more protective over each other (in equal measures). It\u2019s a union between two brave young people but also of two loving families who love their kids. It\u2019s satisfactory in a way that will appeal to readers who love an adventure and aren\u2019t interested in investing too deeply in a romance plot\u2014though readers who want a blossoming romance won\u2019t be disappointed either.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Author W. A. Simpson made sure to include laugh-out-loud funny moments, too: Faith and Rowan have lived quite an isolated life, raised in palaces and never having left Brigantia, which apparently has meant they never tasted spicy food. It\u2019s genuinely hilarious when, \u201c<\/em><\/strong>\u2018He could swear his tongue was on fire. \u2018How do we stop this?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I giggled more than a few times along the way, from heading out to find Alice, their Heroine, without knowing anything else and expecting to find her, to Faith having never opened a faucet before. This is the first time in twenty-one years that Faith must fend for herself at home, and she\u2019s stunned by the way she can get water of two different temperatures from different levels. The possibility of this seems almost another feature from a new magic. <\/p>\n

This is an effortless and believable read. Whether we\u2019re exploring Faith\u2019s perspective on her adoptive home, Rowan\u2019s perspective on his father\u2019s behavior around his all-powerful mother, or their shared narration on the rot, we\u2019re discovering what feels like truth. Simpson explores themes of men who can\u2019t (or won\u2019t) control their emotions, to the detriment of kingdoms, and women who break all the rules they\u2019ve known to save as many people as they can. There are family dynamics of various types, and there\u2019s joy in the angles of reference to Alice in Wonderland<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shocking plot twists await in the second half of the book too, right until the very end. The Hatter\u2019s Daughter<\/em> is a breeze to read, complete with the whirlwinds of a dynamic leading couple. I loved every minute of it!<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph\u2019s book review of The Hatter\u2019s Daughter <\/em>by W.A. Simpson! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post Book Review: The Hatter\u2019s Daughter<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hatter\u2019s Daughter by W.A. Simpson Genre: Fantasy \/ Classics ISBN: 9781787589117 Print Length: 272 pages Publisher: Flame Tree Press Amazon Bookshop Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph A dynamic coming-of-age adventure in Wonderland Two young royals must leave their home\u2014what we know as Wonderland, and they call Brigantia\u2014to find someone who can rescue their homeland from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}