Book Review: Hatter Madigan by Frank Beddor

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Ghost in the H.A.T.B.O.X.
Hatter Madigan #1

Author: Frank Beddor

and Adrienne Kress
Reading Level: Middle Grade
Genre: Mystery & Detective Fantasy
Released: April 19, 2016
Review Source: Automatic Publishing

An exciting new adventure featuring a teenaged Hatter Madigan, one of the most popular character from the New York Times best-selling The Looking Glass Wars trilogy by Frank Beddor!

Combat training! Secret society initiations! Self-serving rivals! Welcome to Wonderland’s prestigious Millinery Academy: where those born to protect the queendom train to become spies, assassins, and bodyguards. With all that to contend with, not to mention following in his popular older brother’s footsteps, just getting through Imagination Class seems impossible already.

And that’s before he starts seeing ghosts lurking in the corridors…

When students begin behaving strangely throughout the academy, Hatter and his fellow cadets must unlock the mysteries behind the ghosts, and the headmaster’s suspicious behavior, before the entire student body finds itself possessed!

Join Hatter and his fellow cadets on their first adventures in Wonderland. Let’s just hope it isn’t their last!

Entitlement runs rampant in the young blooded cadets of Wonderlandia. Everyone strives for being the best, to bring honor to their families and to secure a position as a Brim. Bullying is rampant too, students with different skills or who operate outside of the box thinking get picked on or worst, expelled. What will Hatter do when everyone around him becomes zombies? Not the flesh eating type, but the possessed type. Something is happening to his fellow students, someones plotting against the crown by trying to build an army... but how are they doing it? How does he stop it? Can he even stop it?

I wasn't so big on The Looking Glass Wars, but I did enjoy Hatter in that book. With Ghost in the H.A.T.B.O.X., it's all about Hatter Madigan and I loved it. It's the backstory one always craves for, such a well written character, it fleshes him out and we get to follow him through the Academy as a Cadet and to him becoming a Brim. Will he become a Spade, as he dreams, or a Heart like his brother? Read the book!

I am definitely interested in the next book, and eagerly look forward to it.