A Dream So Dark

September 15, 2019
McKinney's sequel to A Blade So Black (2018) delves into the corruption of Wonderland's peaceful existence. After an epic battle against the Black Knight and his Fiends, Dreamwalker Alice Kingston works to reckon with the death of her best friend, Chess, who was stabbed during the melee. When Chess is reanimated by Slithe, literally the stuff (blood) of Nightmares, and kidnaps the Poet Maddi, Alice must deal with her mother's declining trust in her as well as attacks from a mysterious bloody lady in order to find her friends. She journeys from our world to Wonderland and literally somewhere In-Between, which is "not here nor there, nor anywhere...it's pretty much everywhere," eventually being forced to face the deepest fears held in her heart. Wonderland takes shape through its ethnically diverse peoples, such as Xhosa-speaking healer Naette, and fantastical, Carrollian creatures, like Duma the Bandersnatch, a doglike animal with hooved feet, multicolored fur, and a purple tongue, and is much more interesting than the underdeveloped settings in our world. Readers meet characters whose personal relationships contribute to a complex intrigue that nicely complements the interspersed fight scenes, creating great balance and pacing. The addition of queer-coded Dreamwalker Haruka, a young Japanese woman, and a broader portrait of the Black Knight's history effectively complicate the plot without making it clunky. Rousing, nonstop twists help make this sophomore entry a success. (Fantasy. 14-18)

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Starred review from October 1, 2019
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* McKinney's follow-up to A Blade So Black (2018) proves she is a master of urban fantasy. The dust hasn't settled from Alice's last battle, and she already must journey back into Wonderland to permanently defeat the Black Knight and save her friends. But in this installment, her friends aren't the ones who ultimately need saving; it's Alice herself who's in the gravest danger. A mysterious evil, the Poet, has been manipulating events and using Nightmares to raise the dead?and this dangerous figure seeks to possess Alice's newfound powers. To defeat this new menace and save the day, Alice must look deep within herself to face the worst of her nature?and the flaws of those she loves?because the only way to conquer darkness and fear is to face it straight on. McKinney gives readers the pleasure of revisiting beloved characters from A Blade So Black as well as of getting to know entirely new and fascinating ones. The imaginative, lush qualities of Wonderland are further developed, and McKinney provides readers with a sweeping, staggering fantasy world brimming with magic and wonder. The twists and turns of this novel are explosive from start to finish and guaranteed to send readers gleefully down a rabbit hole from which they'll emerge begging for a third installment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)