Heartless

Heartless is a fantasy novel by the American writer Marissa Meyer, published by Feiwel & Friends in 2016.

The book is set in the world of Alice in Wonderland and follows Catherine years before she became the Queen of Hearts. She is one of the most courted young women in the kingdom and the favourite of the unmarried King, and what she actually wants is to bake and open a shop with her best friend, which her mother regards as beneath a possible future queen. When she meets Jest, the court joker, she falls for him, and the two of them begin a courtship they keep secret because the King and her parents would never allow it. Catherine decides that she will make her own choices about who she becomes, in a country where magic and madness are both close at hand, and the novel is set some years before the story most readers already know.