Alice and the Blade of Spring

This one starts out with a variation on Alice in Wonderland and how she ended up there. In this case Alice follows a turtle and falls into a stream and that's what leads her to Wonderland.

She, of course, ends up in a mess of trouble. There are four queens and they have an agreement that each one will rule one season and not a day over. One of them has violated that agreement and this has led to war.

You've got beings made out of straw, wrath momes and the jabberwocky. You've also got King Arthur, the Lady of the Lake and a sword that's related to Excalibur and which Alice ends up with. She meets some of the soldiers that are opposed to the Harvest Queen so she now, with them, she has to fight her way across Wonderland to get to the Harvest Queen's castle and try to stop the war.

There's a lot of fighting, a lot of climbing and some nice sneaking around a castle.

This book falls into my category of 'it's not really an Alice in Wonderland-type of book.' Yes, you have an Alice and you have a way to get from one reality to another. But the girl could have been any girl. The Queens could have been any Queens. The enemies could have been anyone. It only has an extremely loose relationship to Alice in Wonderland.

Also, the ending was a little rushed, in my opinion, and a little too easily solved.

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