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The best fairy-tale retellings work by making you understand the villain. Not excuse them — understand them. By the time you reach the final pages of Heartless you will understand exactly how someone who began as Cath — kind, ambitious, desperate to be loved on her own terms — became the Queen of Hearts, screaming for heads. You will also feel wretched about it.
What’s It About?
Catherine Pinkerton is the daughter of a noble family in Hearts, the most eligible young woman in the kingdom, and the King’s clear favourite as a future queen. She doesn’t want to be queen. She wants to open a bakery with her best friend. She falls in love with Jest, the new court jester, who is not quite what he appears. She makes choices that feel right in the moment. She ends up somewhere she never intended to be.
The story runs in parallel with events from Alice in Wonderland — the White Rabbit is present, the Cheshire Cat features significantly, the Jabberwocky turns up — but Cath’s story is entirely distinct from Alice’s and stands completely alone. Knowledge of Carroll is not required, though it enriches the experience.
The Tragedy
Meyer structures Heartless as a tragedy in the classical sense: the outcome is known from the first page, and the novel’s purpose is to show how inevitable it becomes. This is considerably harder to execute than it sounds — the reader needs to root for Cath while already knowing she fails, and Meyer maintains that tension remarkably well.
The romantic plotline earns its place in the tragedy. Jest is a compelling character — charming, morally complicated, carrying secrets — and the relationship between him and Cath feels genuine. When the hammer falls, it falls on something real.
The World
Hearts is rendered with warmth and wit. Meyer has absorbed Carroll’s Wonderland deeply and extrapolates from it sensibly — the talking animals, the nonsense logic, the underlying menace dressed in bright colours all feel like organic extensions of the source material rather than borrowed decorations. The food descriptions in particular are extraordinary — Cath’s baking is central to her character and Meyer writes pastry with genuine ardour.
What Works
The pacing is excellent — this is a propulsive read that doesn’t drag. The structural decision to write a known tragedy as a romance is well-executed. Cath’s transformation feels psychologically real rather than merely decreed by plot necessity.
The supporting cast is strong. The Cheshire Cat’s appearances are used sparingly and land well. The Hatter is handled differently than most adaptations and the choice is an interesting one.
What Doesn’t Quite Work
A few secondary characters are underdeveloped. The King — a crucial figure in Cath’s story — never quite becomes a three-dimensional person, which makes some of Cath’s decisions feel less fraught than they should.
Who Is It For?
Readers who love fairy-tale retellings. Fans of Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles who want her at her most emotionally ambitious. Readers who want a fantasy novel that knows exactly what it’s doing and delivers it with real craft.
Rating: 4/5
Rated 4.3 Stars on Amazon. Buy Heartless here.
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Check out Sunset In the East — a mind-bending short story collection from Ben Luxon.
