David D. Hammons

4.5 stars
Contrary to what you may have read or had read to you, Alice did not live in 1870’s England. She actually came from recently modern day Missouri, Strafford to be precise. Ever since she fell out of the rabbit hole (that exited through the large curved mirror) and onto the sidewalk in front of Lew’s Drive-Thru her family has been concerned with her tales of Wonderland. Ten years on she’s taking little blue pills and starting to believe Wonderland was all in her imagination (or show more so she repeatedly tells herself, especially when she asks questions and her mother gives her “that” look) when the white rabbit appears in her parent’s bedroom and leads her back through the rabbit hole.
Wonderland is no longer…it’s a place without a name, a place that’s systematically having all the wonder sucked out of it and it’s inhabitants by the Ace Of Spades. The Mad Hatter, one of the last hold outs, sends Alice off in his flying machine to the second star to the right and straight on till morning in search of Sleeping Beauty. Alice learns that fairy tales are indeed real, though not quite the way they are in the stories.

Fantasy lovers rejoice. ALICE TAKES BACK WONDERLAND is a wildly imaginative and creative melding of fondly remembered fairy tales. However, they all have twists, turns, and spins that readers were unaware of; they’re the same yet not because they’re real. This is what I call high fantasy and should delight fantasy and fairy tale lovers alike.

Underneath the hijinks, adventures, and general mayhem created by saving the day, or not, is a more serious thread. How we, as adults, lose the wonder and joy so inherent in children. How much better would we and the world be if we could grow up, be responsible, but still have that wonder, that freedom of imagination and simplicity? Just imagine it….

Do Alice and her fellow fairytale denizens manage to save Wonderland from the Ace of Spades? Does Alice ever return to modern day Missouri where they ply her with little blue pills to make Wonderland go away? The answer to these questions and more can only be found in ALICE TAKES BACK WONDERLAND, so what are you waiting for?
Reviewed for Novels Alive TV & Manic Readers show less

Witches, vampires, ghosts, trolls, they all may be monsters but just like humans they need love. That's where Rasputin's Supernatural Dating Service comes in. The famous mystic Rasputin didn't die in 1916 like everyone thought. He came to America and decided the best way to keep monsters from eating people was by getting them dates. He now goes by the name "Love Machine" and his biggest problem is weeding out the wannabe monsters that just want to date monsters from the real monsters looking show more for love.

So he had to hire a team of certifiers, one of them is Eli and he has a gift for figuring out who the real monsters are. While meeting with a client, Eli is given an ancient tablet that has the power to kill all supernatural creatures. Eli soon becomes the target of a powerful witch who wants the tablet to destroy all monsters. It's up to Eli, the witch's ex-girlfriend, Rasputin and a supernatural policing Agency to stop monsters from being exterminated and get back to finding them love.

Rasputin's Supernatural Dating Service by David D. Hammons is a supernatural comedy that shows monsters in a way that you have never seen them before. From the opening scenes where a woman tries to pass herself off as a vampire and Eli knows she isn't because vampires are so polite, you know this isn't your average paranormal romance. We then get into how Eli became an employee of the dating service by not running in terror from screaming ghosts, blood running up a wall and convincing a lizard man he wouldn't taste good on a pizza. From the first couple of chapters you know this book is something special and it's filled with laugh out loud moments.

I loved the character of Rasputin, he's just a cool guy looking to make the world a better place by getting everyone laid. In Rasputin's first scene we see him having a hot tub party with a group of United Nations delegates. He then starts a game of kick ball where the winning team gets a seat on the security council. Anything goes here, from a mystic kept alive because love won't let him die to a troll in a Japanese girl school outfit to a group of orcs who go to a church run by a poisonous snake. The wide variety of monsters and the back story for how monsters exist in a world full of humans is what makes this book so good. I also liked the character of Eli who thinks of himself as nothing special but shows he has a talent for making others happy.

I really liked Rasputin's Supernatural Dating Service and I hope the author decides to do a lot more in the universe he created. While I felt the story was a little weak, it didn't really matter. The characters were so good and the book was so funny that it didn't need a good story, in fact it would have been better without it. I would have liked to have heard more stories about dating monsters from Eli's point of view and gotten more into Eli's love life. If anything I felt the monster apocalypse story line took a little bit away from what is overall a good horror romantic comedy. I'm hoping David D. Hammons next book is just about the love lives of supernatural creatures, because that in itsself is a great story. show less

Originally posted on Book for Thought.

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This pretty much sums up my thoughts on this book. I simply LOVED it!! If you've been here before, you'll have probably realised by now that I love fairytales and retellings with a passion. So this mashup of all the major fairytales was right up my alley. And boy, did I enjoy reading it!

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Ok, so you probably don't want to hear me go on and on rambling incoherently about all the things I liked about this book, so I'll try to keep it short and show more make some sense.

The premise is very interesting: after Alice left Wonderland, the Ace of Spades took power for himself, and started taking the wonder away from Wonderland in order to make it a more logical and rational world. When things start taking a terribly dark turn, the White Rabbit decides to go fetch Alice again, so that she may bring back everything that Ace has taken away. Of course, this isn't all too easy for poor Alice, who in the meantime has been labelled as crazy in her own world and had just managed to stop believing in Wonderland. And things take an even crazier turn when she discovers that the only way to defeat Ace is to journey to other mysterious lands where all the fairy tales she grew up reading are very real indeed, and very different too.

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I really enjoyed journeying with Alice. I especially liked to see her develop so greatly throughout the book. She starts out being very insecure, constantly questioning herself and her ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and feeling like she isn't up to the task that she's been entrusted with. But as she journeys on and makes new friends, Alice grows to be the leader she is supposed to become, a strong-willed woman who's not afraid of doing whatever it takes to save the ones she loves.

It's okay to be scared. You just can't let it keep you from doing what you need to do

The other characters were great, too! I particularly liked the new spin the author gave on old stories, and I had a great time trying to recognise the characters from the little hints to their identities spread throughout the story before they were fully revealed. It was really great to see all my favourite stories come together, Peter Pan with Pinocchio, Snow White with Robin Hood, all coming together in one great story. I really liked the romance as well, how it developed slowly and didn't take over the whole book, but was still cute enough to have me root for my ship until the very end. My only complaint (because I really should have at least one) is that I would have like to see more of the villains. I mean, there were several and they all had their role to play, but they weren't quite as villanous as I would have expected them to be. That being said, it did still all work very well within the story as a whole.

Overall, this was definitely one of my favourite reads this year, and one of the best retellings/mashups I have read! Really relatable characters, great world building and an adventurous quest make it a must read for all fairytale lovers out there.

And if you've already read this, you'll certainly understand why we must say goodbye like this...
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I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way. show less

This was a truly great book! This has actually been one of my favorite retellings! So in this book, the Ace of Spades has taken over Wonderland and he is removing all the wonder from everything including the creatures. Ace wants to make Wonderland more like the world where Alice is from and he sends the White Rabbit into Alice's world to collect weapons and such. While the White Rabbit is there, he brings Alice back to Wonderland in hopes that she can stop Ace. After Alice's first trip to show more Wonderland as a child, her parents, doctors, and school counselors spend years convincing Alice that Wonderland was just a dream and that it was ADHD complicated by a serious case of schizophrenia that caused her to see Wonderland in the first place. Eventually Alice begins to believe them, so when the White Rabbit takes her back to Wonderland, she thinks she is going crazy and having an episode. She very quickly realizes that Wonderland is actually real and she isn't crazy after all, but she doesn't like what is happening to Wonderland and wants to help. The Mad Hatter sends her off in a flying machine to go and gather an army to defeat Ace. Along her way, she meets all kinds of different fairy tale (also mythological and folk tale) people and creatures like the Gingerbread Man, Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Davy Crockett, and so on. I really loved how all of these stories wove together and how certain characters were parts of multiple fairy tales. (If you watch the show Once Upon A Time, it works a lot like how Rumpelstiltskin was also the Beast from Beauty and the Beast and was also the crocodile from Peter Pan.) It wasn't all happy endings though because in war people die and in this fairy tale world that was no exception. While I was reading this book, it was totally playing out in my head as a movie, but the style of movie kept changing in my head. There were times that I saw this playing out as the original Disney animated characters. Other times I saw it playing out in my head as live action characters, and other times it was more CGI like Shrek! I highly recommend this book! show less