Kingdom Collection: Books 1-3 (Kingdom Series Book 1)

There was once a fairy godmother who was assigned to finding true love matches for her charges. The fairy rulers told her that she had only one year left to find matches for her remaining five or each would die. Sounds like an easy feat, however her charges are all villains or bad boys of legend. In this collection we follow The Mad Hatter (really more of a Johnny Depp Mad Hatter), Gerard (aka Gaston from Beauty & the Beast), and the Big Bad Wolf as they find true love. I reviewed each book separately, giving Her Mad Hatter 5 stars, Gerard’s Beauty 5 stars, and Red and her Wolf 4 stars (though it really should have been more of a 3, but I’m too nice to rank lower). Despite the fairy tale basing, these are really meant for an adult audience with plenty of sexy R-rated scenes.Her Mad Hatter had all the imaginative touches of Wonderland and Hatter certainly did have all the madness of the original character (I would have called him Bi-polar since his personality swung from warm to cold at the drop of a hat). While he was very much based on Johnny Depp’s Hatter with the darkness surrounding him, the nihilistic vibe, quoting passages, and oozing seductiveness making him an easily desirable romantic dark hero. Even Alice had her own quirks with being a Wonderland fan girl, her Hawaii upbringing (BTW, considering I live in Hawaii, thought it came off rather authentic sounding) complete with the stereotypical Japanese lady neighbor. Admittedly, it took me a little bit to warm to the story since the beginning came off like a contrived set-up, but once Alice appeared in her cake shop, the story took off and sucked me in so much that when I wasn’t reading it, I was itching to get my hands on it and continue reading. The body of the story is really Alice and Hatter’s relationship—trying to overcome Hatter’s seeing her as just another Alice or worse yet, linking her to an Alice who had betrayed him in the past, and her trying to reconcile that he was real and wasn’t the idealistic creation of her memory and could scare her, thrill her, aggravate her, or totally laugh in her face and let her down. This a definite must-read for people looking for romance amid the madness of Wonderland.In Gerard’s Beauty, Gerard, even with being a giant, ham-fisted, sexist pig, had such charm (and room to grow for improvement, which he definitely did do during this piece, since he couldn’t just seduce the girl this time around. He actually had to get to know her and woo her). Yes, the ending was predictable, but honestly in a romance, I would have been upset of things had turned out differently and I did think there was enough in between the pages that kept things interesting and swiftly paced so I was eager to pick up the book whenever I could. Things could have gone crass and crude so easily in this story, but I’m so happy that it didn’t since that’s a quick turn-off for me. And I loved Betty, too (I’m just as much of a genre geek and yes, I cosplay, too, so the moments at the convention rang true).And Red and Her Wolf, I felt obligated to finish as a link in the chain so I don’t miss important information, but this one fell short. I can’t stand the alpha type. Ewan, though wildly, darkly sexy, made me hate him early on when he “marked” (bit Violet, making her his) without her consent. He forced loving him on her just because he had to have his mate and wasn’t willing to even chance getting no for an answer. Ugh. Then I noticed the Scottish accent. Eh gads, could we be more stereotypical? I can come up with at least a dozen books I’ve read with Scottish Alpha werewolves (at least his name isn’t Connal). It’s like they’re Scottish more often than not in indie paranormals. Then there’s Violet. Even though she’s drenched in blood, and has been decimating wolves for several years, she’s oddly naïve and acts like a damsel in distress the large majority of the time. And her powers of drinking other people’s souls in are disgusting and nauseating. The storyline really didn’t have much to do with the Red Riding Hood story at all. And I was bored and irritated by all the fairy politics. Even Dannika was rather scary at times. The storyline itself is the typical fantasy journey with the journey feeling overly long, and honestly I’m glad to finally put Ewan and Violet behind me so I can move on to Jinni!

Marie Hall's Kingdom Series had me from "Her Mad Hatter"(Book#1),which I was fortunate to get while it was free.I gobbled it up so quickly that when her "Kingdom Collection:Books 1-3" became available I read it from the beginning.Sure I had already read "Her Mad Hatter",but that didn't stop me from starting it again from page 1.I love my Fairytales,especially if they are twisted,fractured or cracked! One may wonder just,how does one go about fracturing a fairytale? Well,there are 4 different ways:#1.Make the villain a hero...#2.Make the hero a villain...#3.Tell what really happened...Or, #4.All of the above...And she does it all! She has written each one with a style,and a graceful flow that it makes even the confusing parts easier to understand and so easy to see in the mind's eye. And the sound effects(especially of so many clocks ticking at once!) are spectacular! Sure, there's a "White Rabbit" babbling of course about running late,only this time it's Alice's fault-not his!...But pardon me,I'm getting ahead of myself...Did I mention the bakery? No,well I won't say much about it, and wouldn't have mentioned it but the scrumptious smells and mouth watering,decadent eye candy(that might cause one to break their diet-not a spoiler!,just fair warning!),that can only be gotten at such said bakery(which I'm not telling you about)...Is however,where the weird and the adventures truly begins... Can you tell that I really enjoyed Book#1 Her Mad Hatter?And get this,please come a little closer though first.(cause maybe you can't tell but I'm actually whispering this part,because I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a secret or not...) At the end of "Her Mad Hatter",but only in the Kingdom Collection will you find,some of the decadent recipes mentioned to try for yourself.It is such a great bonus feature one that not many authors even think to include.I for one know that I'll be trying some of them very soon.Thank you Marie Hall for the recipes! Now for book #2 "Gerard's Beauty...Fairy Godmother Danika is back! Although very proud of herself for finally pairing the Mad Hatter with his mate,there's no time for celebrations!She's down one with four more to go,a Fairy Godmother still on a mission! She's in a race against time to save "The Bad 5",her boys,who's fates are in her hands(and she takes her duties VERY seriously!).Oh,come on,seriously?Maybe I neglected to mention Fairy Godmother Danika,but how could you not think for even a brief moment that there wasn't a Fairy Godmother at (or in) the heart of Kingdom? Where was I? Oh yeah,Gerard,well,he was a special case indeed and in need of learning a lesson(or two),thankfully for him(and us,I got many a chuckles out of his predicament,even made me wish I had a wand like Danika's) she was not one to flinch at the words or thoughts of tough love.Infact she rose to the occassion,embraced it if you will one could say.Forcing someone to realize that they must change their ways is never an easy task,and yet Danika found a way by the end to even make him believe that it was his idea sort of all along,you know-find that someone who completes him and settle down kind of idea...Another HEA for Danika Fairy Godmother extrodinaire!... But alas,there is still no time for rest,Fairy Godmother Danika must face much,and leave much to destiny for Book#3 Red and Her Wolf...It's a heart wrenching tale,full of lies whose truths should have been known long before the last hour...It made one see how minds can be twisted,hearts hardened,and in the end,of course nothing is ever what it seems to be.Allowing love to conquer all,although there was many a times when things were touch and go.If I hadn't read Her Mad Hatter(who by the way his mind was so fracture that it threatened to destroy him),first my faith and hope for Red and her Wolf would have been stretched to the max.They overcame their obsticles and now live their HEA,if you thought Romeo and Julliet had it bad...well,I think Red and Wolf had it much worse. Read their story and you'll think so too I'm sure. By the way this review probably reads like one very long run on sentence,for that we have my computer to thank.My computer seems to think it's funny to not allow me to start a new paragraph.Any spelling errors though I fear of are my own doing,hope there's not too many.By the way,if you're still reading this,I'm grateful,this has taken me a better part of the day to write.However now would be a good time to get your copy of Kingdom Collection:Books 1-3 and leave the world outside behind and enter Kingdom.Mature readers enter at risk of learning the truth about the"bad boys",and see for yourself that they deserve to be loved too! Three cheers for Marie Hall,my new favorite author! Esther.

A set of 3 novellas, which I'll review separately.Her Mad Hatter - An adult twist to Alice in Wonderland which introduces us to Hatter years after he fell in love with 'Alice' - the only problem was, she didn't love him back. Danika, fairy godmother to the bad boys, has to find his Alice before he completely loses is mind forever.When Danika brings who she believes is the 'right' Alice, things take a turn, for the slightly odd and, quite frankly, erotic.A great twist on a very familiar tale.Gerard's Beauty - Another adult twist, this time Beauty and the Beast. It took me a bit longer to settle into, and begin enjoying this story, but once I did, I was able to enjoy it, just as much as Her Mad Hatter.Once again, Gerard (the Beast), has to find his mate, but she doesn't live in Wonderland, she lives on Earth, and he's been expelled from Wonderland and has to stay with his mate, Betty, who has sworn off all men.More of a slow burn than the previous story, it's yet another great take on on a tale most readers already know.Red and her Wolf - For some reason, I didn't enjoy this as much as the two stories before it. Not because its not as well written, but because Red Riding Hood isn't one of my favourite stories.The Wolf, or Ewan in his human form, has been separated from his mate, Violet, for over 100 years as he is taken to Earth to protect her from the black witch, Malvenna.Eventually, she and Ewan are thrust together, but she has an innate and inbred hatred of all wolves, but this is overcome during their time together.This story has the most action out of the three, but it felt a little rushed, and I admit to getting confused a little with the narrative.All in all, this is a good collection of novellas following Danika and her bad boys of Wonderland. I did enjoy them, and I am going to read the rest (I've started book 4 already), yet Her Mad Hatter is my favourite thus far!

Her Mad Hatter:In order to stop the madness, the Hatter needs to find his Alice, and though his fairy Godmother, Danika, has tried to find that special Alice she's never succeeded...until now. Alice Hu has always felt different, and always felt drawn to the Mad Hatter from the story of Alice in Wonderland, so much so that she has just set up a bakery themed on the story and the characters. One night a strange woman leaves a card with a white rabbit on it and the words 'rub me', intrigued by the card, and aware that no one was watching, Alice rubs the card and finds her way to Wonderland. But things aren't as simple as turning up, the stream of Alices before her have left the Hatter sceptical and unbelieving...so much so that having Wonderland accept her may not be as straight forward as she thinks. This is the first book that I've read in the Kingdom Series by Marie Hall (I've previously read the two books that are currently out in the Night Series) and I'm glad I did. If you're looking for a read that you can be (fairly) certain of the end to, and a twist on fairy tale characters, then this is definitely a good choice. I did something that I don't normally do with Her Mad Hatter, and that was read other reviews before I wrote my own (I'm not sure why, I just do sometimes), and I'm a tad confused by some of them. Most notably those that say that the Hatter isn't true to character (though everyone is entitled to their opinion, this is just why I disagree with that). It is clear, and somewhat necessary, that the Hatter isn't the old man depicted in Disney's version, or indeed Lewis Carroll's, however I did think that he had the necessary qualities of the Hatter; he spoke in riddles and nonsense at many points as well as having his obsession with time, which was included in the story so that it made sense and fitted well. More to the point though, if all Hall did was recreate the other versions of the story then it wouldn't be original...plus some things needed to be changed, don't know about anyone else but a 7 year old Alice would not have fit with the story! There is a small cast of characters in Her Mad Hatter and I thought that that worked, especially as some of those characters are going to be expanded in other books in the series (that would be an assumption based on the titles!) and it gave time for Hall to develop Alice and the Hatter as well as Wonderland itself. Again I thought that the strange way in which the world worked was in keeping with the basic story but had its moments of originality, which was both refreshing and enjoyable. I really enjoyed this adult take on Alice in Wonderland, the characters interacted well and the setting was well constructed and imaginative (I will refrain from saying it felt real though! This is Wonderland after all!) and I'm looking forward to reading more from this series!Gerard's Beauty:Gerard was caught with his trousers around his ankles...with the daughter of Cinderella and Prince Charming, and now he's in big trouble. His fairy Godmother, Danika, has her work cut out for her. Not only does she have to try to save him, but she has to find him his mate within a year. Realising that the only way to save him is by saying that he is mating, she banishes Gerard to earth until the hearing is over, and sends him almost straight into Betty's arms. Though quiet librarian Betty is wary of Gerard at first she can't help but be drawn to him and want him as her own. When the sentencing arrives, Gerard is given one month to prove that Betty is his mated, and to make things more difficult the head Fairy unmans him until Betty loves him. I'm going to start with the only thing that I didn't like about this book (because then I can go all positive about what I did like!) and even then dislike is maybe not the right word...frustrate would maybe be a better one. What frustrated me was some of the French, and the fact that some of it wasn't grammatically correct (it made sense, it was just things like when referring to a woman it should be ma not mon, unless the following word started with a vowel, then its always mon). So basically...something most readers probably won't be fussed about or even notice (but you know, the French degree has to be used somewhere!) So now the minor niggle is out of the way...minor because actually it didn't stop me enjoying the book...I really liked the fact that the characters couldn't have sex. It led to a very different type of relationship than those that are typically got in books today and I found that I liked it. There was truly a sense of the characters getting to know each other; their likes and dislikes as well as their eccentricities. It meant that two characters I wasn't quite sure would work together in the beginning actually worked really well. Plus there was still crazy chemistry between Betty and Gerard! Gerard's Beauty is the second book in the series, and as such it offered far more characterisation than the first book, Her Mad Hatter, though I enjoyed both, I very much enjoyed seeing the characters being expanded upon more in this book, and it made me especially interested to see what happens with Wolf. There was also more about the fairies in this book, though there is still a lot of mysteries surrounding them, fairies other than Danika play a roll in this book and I found that it left me wanting to know more about how their politics and legal system work. Another thing was the moving scenes which involved a child with learning disabilities, in this case Betty's nephew. Both Betty and Gerard were amazingly good with him and it actually led to a moment of vulnerability on Gerard's behalf which made him become far more human, and more likable rather than just a bit of a play boy. Two books in and I am loving this series, definitely keen to read more!Red and Her Wolf:Red and Her Wolf is book 3 of the Kingdom Series.The Heartsong was born of fairy magic and was protected as such until the Black Fairy decided she should die. Sending her wolves to do the job all goes to plan until Ewan realises that the Heartsong, Violet, is his mate, and realises he'll do anything to protect her. But that is when things start to go wrong, and the Heartsong is sent to Earth to hide from those that would kill her, whereas Ewan must stay in his human form for fifty years. 500 years later, Ewan still misses his mate, though there are signs that he will soon be reunited with her. Danika has hated lying to one of her boys, she knew that it was for his own good, but now she'll do anything to help Ewan get back his Red. Firstly, I thought that Red and Her Wolf was the most traditional of the stories retold in The Kingdom Series so far. By that I mean that almost all of the aspects of Little Red Riding Hood were used in the early story, but they were then expanded upon to make a whole new story for Red/Violet and Ewan. This also took into account the motives of the wolf to eat Red's Grandmother. There was also more of an overlap into other stories, in this case the Jinni played more of a part, and was expanded upon making me interested to see where his story is headed. There was also an update on Alice and the Hatter from book 1, who are happy and just as mad as each other now, and even a mention of Hansel and Gretel. The other difference between this book and the others was that there was more seen of Kingdom itself, and it became clear that the world Hall has created is both vivid and varied. Again making me want to see more of the world and its characters! I found it very interesting that in this book the fairies played a big part, and it became clearer that there are a lot of rivalries between them that cause friction, as well as power play. Thankfully though this did include more Danika time, and each time she is on page it becomes clearer that her motivations truly lie with her boys' happiness. I can't wait to read more from this series! The imagination and variety in this series just keeps getting better!

The stories caught my interest because of the unique spin on classic tales and I certainly wasn't disappointed! Her Mad Hatter was absolutely brilliant, the characters were beautifully developed and the plot spun you in as many directions as Wonderland! If you are a massive fan of Alice, like me, then read it you won't be disappointed. Gerard' s Beauty was also fantastic to the point where I physically couldn't stop reading it. However, Red's Wolf was a little disappointing with a slow start but it turned good in the end. The only criticism is there is a lot of slang, usually fitting the context but can get a bit annoying, and the odd grammatical error, but it is rare and doesn't divert from the plot one bit! Absolutely loved the stories and will certainly read them again - can't wait to read the next two!

These are definitely a new concept to romantic fantasy. The idea behind them is very clever and taps in to the need many have for the joy and romance fairy tales of old can bring. The only issue is that because they are so linked with the fairy tales we all know and love believing the concept is hard. Why this would be harder than vampires, werewolves, Greek gods or any other fantasy staple character, I just can't put my finger on. Certainly worth the price though.

Great collection, fantastic twist on the fairy tales I grew up reading, but these stories are definitely for adults and enjoyed every story. Lots of detail with the thread of the original, characters grown up and sexy and good in the baddies, can't wait to read the next book in the series. Great author reworking simple stories into fantastic books. Well done and would recommend these for anyone who wants something a bit different