Most portal fantasies open with a door. Alice of Oz by Terence Sullivan opens with an iron tub of ice water in a mildewed London cellar, a soft-voiced doctor standing behind a shivering girl, and a single instruction: no more rabbits. It is 1913, Alice Liddell is eighteen, and the people charged with her care are determined to drown Wonderland out of her.
Alice of Oz by Terence Sullivan knows exactly what it is doing from that first chapter. It takes the girl we all remember falling down a rabbit hole, grows her up, locks her away, and then asks the question the original stories never quite dared to: what if she was right all along?
The Story Behind the Glass (Spoiler-Free)
Alice lives at Pastoria House, a quiet institution for “wayward” young women, under the watchful affection of Headmistress Miss Molloy. Her visions of a rabbit, a pocket watch, and a parlour mirror that once stole forty-three years from her are treated as illness. Then a familiar caretaker turns cold and frightening overnight, Alice is moved into the forbidden East Wing, and she meets Wendolyn Darling, a girl who speaks of a flying boy named Peter with a certainty Alice envies.
From there the walls begin to shift. A sinister manor, a hidden wardrobe, a gown that does not want to come off, and finally a mirror that ripples like water carry Alice into Oz. What follows is a pursuit across the realm, from the rose-scented coast of Ev to the forests of the North, with a quiet young man called Blinkem at her side and very little explained to her along the way. I will stop there. This is a book built on revelations, and it deserves to be met fresh.
Alice and Wendy: The Beating Heart
The finest pages in the novel belong to two girls in a locked room. Wendy braids Alice’s damp hair, and Alice’s scalp seems to remember the rhythm “from before remembering.” They hum a nursery rhyme together, and the line about the crocodile lands like a chill. Sullivan writes their friendship with real tenderness, and it gives the entire fantasy an emotional anchor.
Their bond is what makes Alice of Oz by Terence Sullivan more than a clever mash-up. Every chase, every witch, every palace is measured against one question: will Alice find Wendy again? It is a promise the story keeps returning to, and readers will feel its weight.
An Oz With Roots in the Rot
This is not the sunlit Oz of childhood. Sullivan builds his own mythology, with its own goddess, its own fallen immortal, and its own laws, while leaving room for knowing nods to the originals. Highlights include:
- Lurlicite, a silver mineral that glows only for those with “the spark,” and which acts as the hidden circulatory system of the whole realm
- Whispering roses in a crystal greenhouse at Roseland, the summer “cottage” of Queen Rosemarie of Ev
- Witch’s libres, enchanted books that write a witch’s life day by day
- Gnomes that rise from wells at night, and Lord Roquat, the cursed god waiting beneath his crystal palace
- The Ruby Palace, where Queen Gayelette tests guests over a game of chess
The worldbuilding is generous without becoming a lecture. Lore usually arrives in a library, over tea, or in the middle of an escape, which keeps the pages turning.
The Fellowship Worth Following
The supporting cast is where Sullivan’s sense of fun shines brightest. Tinkerton, a scruffy inventor, and his copper soldier with a twitching mustache are pure delight. Nimmie Minnie, a pint-sized Munchkin officer who takes her law very seriously, steals every scene she walks into. Dinah, a feathered, blue-fire dragon whom Alice names after her childhood cat, is one of the most charming creatures I have met in recent fantasy.
Blinkem is the slow-burn heart of the romance, a pale, guarded young man with cranberry eyes and too many secrets. Their relationship grows through bickering, rescues, and one memorable evening picnic, and it stays closed-door, as the content notes promise. On the darker side, Princess Languidere is a genuinely unsettling villain, vain, childish, and terrifying in equal measure.
Prose and Style: Victorian Manners, Gothic Bones
Sullivan writes in a close third person that mirrors Alice’s own voice: polite, precise, and frequently undercut by her sharp tongue. She calls a rival a “tinsel-tongued twit” and a cruel caretaker a “rabid twin.” The narration mixes period courtesy with flashes of body horror, which gives the book its distinct flavour. One line captures the mood perfectly: “Some thoughts are like wells. One does not lean over them long.”
The structure alternates Alice’s journey with chapters from Molloy, Rosemarie, Evoldo, and the villains, which widens the political canvas and builds dread through dramatic irony.
Themes That Linger
- Madness versus knowing. The book treats a young woman’s “delusions” as truth that others found inconvenient.
- Confinement and control. From asylum treatments to bound magic, Alice’s power is always being managed by someone else.
- Mothers and legacy. Maternal love, protective lies, and inherited gifts run under the whole story.
- Choosing trust. Alice repeatedly decides to believe people with no proof, and that choice becomes a kind of courage.
Who Should Read It
This is adult dark fantasy, and the content notes matter. Expect on-page violence and gore, beheading and body horror, sexual menace including an assault, and psychiatric confinement. Readers who love fairy tale retellings with teeth, gothic atmosphere, and found family will feel right at home. Alice of Oz by Terence Sullivan rewards readers who know the original books but never requires it.
About the Author
This is Terence Sullivan’s debut novel. The story began as a viral TikTok storytelling series that drew more than six million views before becoming a book, and Sullivan brings a background in theatre, film, and screenwriting to the page. You can feel that visual instinct in his set pieces. A sequel, Wendy of Oz, is already announced as Book Two of the Oz Multiverse.
If You Loved This, Read These Next
Fans of Alice of Oz by Terence Sullivan should try:
- Splintered by A.G. Howard, a dark Wonderland return for a descendant of Alice
- Alice by Christina Henry, a brutal asylum-set reimagining for adults
- Lost Boy by Christina Henry, a sinister origin of Peter Pan’s world
- Wicked by Gregory Maguire, the classic adult reinvention of Oz
- Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige, an Oz gone badly wrong
- The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, a Wonderland of politics and power
- Heartless by Marissa Meyer, the tragic rise of the Queen of Hearts
Final Thoughts
Sullivan has taken three of the most beloved worlds in children’s literature and treated them not as props but as pieces of one unfinished story. The result is atmospheric, emotional, often funny, and confidently strange. Alice leaves the book with more questions than she arrived with, and readers will leave it eager for the next mirror.
Where to read Alice of Oz
Amazon lists the current Kindle, print and audiobook editions, and shows whether the ebook is in Kindle Unlimited right now.
To borrow it free, try your library: Libby and OverDrive lend ebooks and audiobooks with a library card, and WorldCat finds print copies near you.
We don’t link to “free PDF” sites. Those copies are pirated and pay the author nothing.