I really enjoyed the first couple of parts of this book. The writing was beautiful and really helped me visualize what I was reading, and I loved Natashas Pov in the beginning. There is a sort of dark wizard who "blessed" or cursed the twins and ever since that has been the role they lived. One light, beautiful and loved by all, and one dark who at best is plain, and easily forgotten by everyone including her family.
We focus on Natasha the dark twin, who witnesses Clara as she basically gets whatever she wants, including the one thing that was supposed to be hers.
All the characters in this book are obviously flawed and I enjoyed following the story through Natasha's eyes. I loved the dark and ominous atmosphere throughout the story, especially when Natasha ends up in the Kingdom of Sweets. However, once she returns to the real world I felt like the story lost a lot of the magic. We follow Natasha as she gets to live her wish, and it kind of turns into just following her day-to-day life as days turn to months to years and I kept waiting for something to finally happen. We do get a couple of dark and sinister moments sprinkled throughout which helped me want to continue to see how it was all going to end.

The Kingdom of Sweets is a darker retelling of the Nutcracker—usually retellings of classic stories mixed with darker undertones are my bread and butter, but something about this book didn't quite land fully for me.

One thing is clear; Erika Johansen is a strong writer. She has a way of building a world and introducing it to the audience; I was instantly wrapped inside the novel and loved all of the visuals. It's clear that she had spent a lot of time, during the planning, creating these worlds and had you could tell she had that vision.

I have mixed emotions about the characters. On one hand, I don't mind when you have an unlikable main character or cast—and that was very much the case in The Kingdom of Sweets. All of the characters' faults were on full display and it was hard to find redeeming traits. I think, for me, part of the disconnect is that while she was very intentional in the 'why' behind Natasha's actions, it almost felt like Johansen was hammering in on the point too much. It was repetitive without moving the character forward and at a point, I remember wondering why she was telling us so much rather than show it.

I also felt like the pacing was off. The novel covers many years and while I understand needing to pin-point certain aspect, it felt off-kilter. Especially the ending—overall, it felt very rushed and I didn't love the sudden mixing in the real world with this magical story she had created.

It ended up just feeling fine to me, at the end. It was the perfect time of year to read it and it had all the fixings of my favorites, but the actual execution just didn't land for me.

I really enjoyed this book. I hope the author continues to write more books in the future. I can't wait to see what this author releases in the future.

Johansen's new take of The Nutcracker breathes a new life into the story. It's light hearted enough for the Holiday season while still having the seriousness of a normal read to grab those who don't like holiday reads.

🍭The Kingdom of Sweets 🍭
Author: Erika Johansen
Pub Date: November 28, 2023

Thank you @duttonbooks for the #gifted copy of this e-arc!

As the holiday season quickly approaches I find myself wanting to dabble a bit in that spirit of Christmas. One of my favorite plays growing up to go to was The Nutcracker so when I found out this one was based on the magical story of the two sisters I easily obliged to reading this one!

Light and dark. Dark and light. Complete opposites. The two sisters, Clara and Natasha were born with a curse bestowed upon them since birth by their grandfather Drosselmeyer. Growing up it seems Natasha was always overshadowed by Clara’s beauty and status in the family. However on Christmas Eve one year she’s given the chance to get even. Drosselmeyer gives her access to a whole new world, Kingdom of Sweets, that will change her future and outlook forever. Not to mention the Sugar Plum Fairy also makes an appearance. 🧚
These sisters, set up to fail, will have hard decisions to make to determine just which world they belong in!

Thoughts: If you’re a lover of all things Christmas and The Nutcracker I think you will be pleased to watch this dark magical story unfold. It was more of a character study between the two sisters to watch the decision and why they made the ones there did. This book is not a warm and fuzzy story as it does shed light on a broken sibling relationship and a ruinous curse set up from birth. If you’re looking to get in the Christmas spirit served with tragedy a side disaster grab yourself a copy of this one!

Briefly born identical, twins Clara and Natasha are declared to be “light” and “dark” by the interloper/sorcerer Drosselmeyer, who crashes their christening. While Clara grows up beautiful and trusting and believing in fairy tales and dreams, Natasha, the ugly “lumpen” one, has an “evil eye” that sees the darkness in the souls of men. Now on the eve of their 17th (not their 7th) birthday, their mother is addicted to mediums and Dr Sackler’s (hmmm? interesting choice of a surname) Mood Tonic and their Father is unfaithful and in debt to Drosselmeyer, but hiding behind a sumptuous Christmas party. Not-so-innocent Clara is pregnant, and quickly needs a rich, unsuspecting nobleman to fix her and her father’s problems. Natasha has be smitten with Conrad for a year — not-the-handsomest young man, but he’s the heir of a Duke. Conrad has been visiting Natasha at night for sexual favors, but never professing love. Of course, Drosselmeyer has underwritten an engagement between Clara and Conrad, a shock to Natasha. Quite a different take on the classic Tale of the Nutcracker. And add in a killer clown…

The story is told from the dark twin, Natasha’s POV. She has been only defined ever in comparison to her sister and follows Clara in a dream-like state to the Kingdom of Sweets. But there Natasha meets the Sugar Plum Fairy first — who wants revenge on Drosselmeyer for something he stole, and Natasha decides to chase Clara in the macabre world, much like Alice and the White Rabbit.

I couldn’t quite file this under a single genre — part fantasy, part dark folklore, part Gothic thriller (the mechanical six foot clown alone makes it a horror story, as does the child arsonist). Johansen’s story is definitely twisted, but the main character, Natasha, although declared to be “dark,” is smart and more complicated than sweet, insipid Clara. The descriptive prose is fantastic and the author has created a world far more nuanced than castles of candies. There’s also Faustian bargain to consider in a surprising midway twist. I had no idea how this tale would end, and even as it became darkly layered and somewhat pessimistic as the story went on, I needed to finish it as soon as possible. 4 stars.

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO Lots of green velvet and green bottles, but no green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO In the enchanted world of shortbread forests, nothing is out of place or imagination, even when it rots.

Thank you to Penguin Group/Dutton and NetGalley for a free advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

The Kingdom of Sweets is a loose Nutcracker retelling. It focuses on twin sisters, Clara and Nat, who have been blessed/cursed with a life of light and dark by their godfather Drosselmeyer. Clara has always had everything she ever wanted, while Nat has watched her sister live a blessed life. When Clara finally steals the one thing Nat thought was hers, a boy named Conrad, Nat breaks. On this night, Clara and Nat find themselves in the "land of sweets", and Nat bargains with the sugar plum fairy to take back what her sister stole.

Honestly, I felt this book was all over the place. The nutcracker story really only shows up at the beginning. From there, the story becomes super dark, following Nat and the repercussions she faces from stealing the life her sister had. There is a lot of seeing Nat struggle through this new life, continuing to make poor decisions, and ultimately have a change of heart. I just didn't have it in me to care about the characters because there was not one character that was good; they were all godawful.

The story takes a weird turn near the end when all of a sudden it becomes a historical fiction and thrusts the reader into the history of Russia in the last few chapters. All of a sudden Raspustin and Lenin are involved, and the story loses any magic and mystery it seemed to have.

Personally, I just did not love the story. When I hear fairy tale retelling, I understand it might be dark, but I was excited about a Nutcracker retelling! This really had the barest elements of the Nutcracker and was too dark for my taste. I was hoping for something more magical, as I grew up attending the Nutcracker Ballet each year.

Something I did like was the pacing of the story; despite not loving the book, I read it real quickly, over the course of a few days. It never dragged, and I still wanted to find out what happened to the characters despite hating them all. I think this could be for readers who enjoy the darker tales, who are interested in history (Russian revolution), and who don't mind a very vague magic element.

I would rate 3.5/5

Thank you to Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This absolutely dripped with lush world-building. Everything in the setting came to life absolutely brilliantly. This was a dark retelling of The Nutcracker story (one which I have never read, until now) which follows two sisters--one of the light, one of the dark. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this considering I tend not to enjoy many classic works or retellings, but the writing style and the lavish world just sucked me in so completely. Until about the middle mark. The beginning was fast and compelling, but the middle slowed way, way down from a few places. The cohesion of the story was a bit lost in the middle there--the characters made some weird choices, started to seem like people other than the ones we had been following up until that point, the plot and pacing fell apart a little bit, and overall the story just really screeched to a halt. The ending does pick back up a bit, but that super compelling interest you have in the beginning is already gone, unfortunately. I wish that the middle part hadn't suffered so much in the pacing department because I was loving this and then I just wanted to race to the end just to stop the slog.
This was pretty good overall, but the pacing issues dragged the rating down for me a bit!

The land was stunning in every way possible. The sun shining brightly, the foliage vibrant, the world breathing in a perfect way. But underneath the glitz and glam, the perfection and unspoiled beauty, resides a darkness simmering and ready to take over.

The Kingdom of Sweets is a dark retelling of The Nutcracker following twin sisters, Natasha and Clara. One blessed with light, the other cursed with darkness.

I must say the writing in this book is stunning. It reads like a classic with language that just flows smoothly and I was impressed with that aspect. But… the story itself was very slow and the plot was quite scattered. I enjoyed aspects in the beginning and was intrigued, but then the middle was so slow… it was very hard to get through. Things were just not pieced together in a cohesive way and the characters were so unlikable. I will say the ending picked up a bit, but overall it was just an okay read for me.

If you love dark retellings, you may enjoy this read!

Book: The Kingdom of Sweets
Author: Erika Johansen
Rating: 4 Out of 5 Stars

I would like to thank the publisher, Dutton, for sending me an ARC. I was actually surprised by a number of things about this one. First off, I was surprised at how dark it was. Second, I wasn’t expecting it to be a twin story-even though it clearly says it in the summary. I normally don’t like dark Christmas stories, but this one was good.

In this retelling of the Nutcracker, we follow Natasha, who has been labelled as the dark twin. Clara is the perfect one, the one who is loved by everyone she meets. Natasha has been the one shoved in the corner, the unwanted one, and the unlucky one. She is the opposite of Clara. She is the one who the family doesn’t talk about. In Natasha’s eyes, Clara has taken everything away from her. She gets the man who Natasha loves, she is the star, and the golden child. Natasha is the one who has to be hidden away. Then, one Christmas Eve magic is in the air. The twins find themselves transported into the Kingdom of Sweets. It seems like a perfect world, but there is darkness there. Natasha doesn’t catch this early on. When she is given the chance to get rid of Clara and live her life (the life of her dreams), Natasha jumps at the chance. Soon, Natasha has Clara’s life and everything she ever wanted. The problem is people think she is Clara and that Natasha is dead. It’s the perfect world. That is until the darkness starts to creep in. Natasha finds herself stuck with an impossible situation. She must describe between her golden life and her sister.

I love the dynamics between the sisters. Both of these girls have been told throughout their life that they were given this role and that nothing they did would ever change this role. We have Clara who was born in the light and Natasha who was born out of darkness. Why? Well, the girls’ godfather has magical abilities. Their parents were aware of this and aware of how Natasha would always suffer. We see woven throughout the story how Natasha believes that people view her versus Clara. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that we are only getting Natasha’s side. We don’t get to see Clara’s and see if these views are true. The jealous and hatred is woven throughout the story. Based on how the others react to the girls, it makes sense as to why they are the way they are. Natasha’s choices make so much sense. Her entire life she hasn’t been wanted. When she is given the chance, she jumps on it. Can we really blame her? Her pain and hurt comes off the page. Once you get to know her character, the why and the what she did makes sense. I am not saying that it is right, but it does make sense. I mean, she has been told that she is one thing her whole life and has never been given the chance to be anything but that.

The book is dark. Now that I do think about it, the original Nutcracker story does have a lot of dark undertones to it. This retelling leans into that darkness. It looks at how even though something may be beautiful and offer you what you want, it may not be in your best interest. Sometimes beauty does actually have a lot of darkness lurking beneath it. It also leans into the fact that every action does have a consequence-even if you don’t think it does. What you do can and will catch up to you. It shows us how our choices to solve one problem can and will create more problems-problems that we have no way of solving.


Overall, I did enjoy this take on the Nutcracker. This book comes out on November 28, 2023.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/fyfk4qiLFSM

When I first heard about a book that was a nutcracker retelling, I was very excited. However, this book was just so long to be enjoyable. It dragged a bit, but also it was very magical! So strange mix but if you are super into magical fantasies, you may like it.

“The Kingdom of Sweets” is a dark and often disturbing retelling of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. It centers around a set of twins, Clara and Natasha, who were born on Christmas Day. I expected the beauty of the Tearling series, but was bitterly disappointed. The twins were both blessed (Clara) and cursed (Natasha) at the christening by the mysterious and unlikeavle sorcerer, Drosselmeyer. I had to laugh at the choice of surnames which were clearly non-Christian in a Christmas tale, but that was just the beginning of suspended belief. Bringing modern references into a time and place where magic and kingdoms were the norm was disconcerting as were the views of the women’s place in the world.

The writing style and character development was outstanding with the exception that there was not a single likable person in the entire book. Greed, death, lies…it’s all there. A truly beautifully written tale that unfortunately you can’t wait to end to just put you out of your misery and be finished with these spiteful miserable people. Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton Publishing for the advanced ARC in return for my honest opinion. Five stars for exceptional writing and character development. One star for the story

This was my first book by this author and I loved her writing. Her characters sprang off the page and Natasha and Clara were written in a way that made you not always like them but sometimes understand them. This followed twins Natasha and Clara as they were given a gift at their birth and one was made light and one dark but nothing is always as it seems. It is a book of jealousy, vengeance and ultimately forgiveness. Also as someone who used to go see The Nutcracker at Christmas I loved seeing the parallels especially in the first half of the book. Overall an enjoyable ride with great description and interesting characters.

The Kingdom of Sweets: A Novel of the Nutcracker by Erika Johansen is a unique twist on a beloved classic.

This is a unique and interesting spin-off of the beloved Nutcracker story. This focuses mainly on Clara’s sister, Natasha, as she searches and forges her own path…facing temptations and perils alike from many angles, including the infamous Sugar Plum Fairy. In this narrative, she has to overcome internal and external struggles and we follow along to see if she is successful with this endeavor.

While I enjoyed this creative off-shoot, I think I was expecting more of an inclusion of the original classic.


3.75/5 stars

Thank you NG and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton, Dutton for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 11/28/23.

I really enjoyed the twin bond that even over time & ‘realms’ came thru. This was a retelling of the nutcracker but I felt a lot of Alice in Wonderland vibes. The author did a great job painting a rich story full of detail in the background.

I really felt it had two stories going at once & could’ve been two books. But I can’t wait for to be able to pick up a physical copy & put on my bookshelf

I had really high hopes for this one - something new from Johansen and a Nutcracker inspired story? Sign me up! Unfortunately, it gets a little bogged down in dark story telling and didn't keep my attention like her other works have. If you are very familiar with Nutcracker, there are some fun Easter eggs to this story as well, but I'd just been expecting so much more in world building and fantasy. Perhaps with lower expectations for a Nutcracker story, people might enjoy it more as its own stand-alone gothic holiday story.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

The Kingdom of Sweets is a must-read for fans of fantasy and those who appreciate imaginative retellings of beloved tales. Erika Johansen's expertly crafted narrative will transport readers to a world where darkness and light intermingle in a captivating dance, leaving a lasting impression long after the final page is turned

This is a haunting and chilling take on the beautiful ballet The Nutcracker. The sumptuous style of writing used in this story details every creepy piece of this world and its characters. It's a very strange take on the classic, but I couldn't resist this delight.

At times, the story seemed to jump from place to place rather quickly, but it retained the same sinister vibe throughout which held this world together. This is definitely an interesting read!

Out November 28, 2023!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When I got the offer to read the ARC, I accepted it because of the promise of a retelling of The Nutcracker. I love that ballet. And I love retellings in general. This book seemed perfect for me.

I should have paid more attention to the fact it was billed as a “dark” retelling.

First the good.

Johansen’s prose is gorgeous. She has a beautiful way with words, and her descriptions are luscious. I enjoyed the deep interiority of the POV. While I didn’t always like the main character Natasha or agree with her choices, I could always understand where she was coming from and why she did what she did. Natasha was a strong female lead in a time when women had few opportunities to direct their own lives, and her actions always felt believable for the time period of the setting.

Most especially, I enjoyed how Johansen took the familiar elements of the The Nutcracker and revised them for her story. She thought about the time period in which The Nutcracker took place, and threaded real-life tensions into her novel, which added depth and let her comment on social issues in a way that makes the novel relevant to today.

Now for my concerns.

This was much darker than I expected. I am not fan of horror, and even dark fantasy can be too much for me. In this case, it was. I almost stopped reading a few times because I could not stomach what Natasha did or the twists the plot took. Much of the action seemed to focus on cruelty for cruelty’s sake alone, and I had a hard time with this. Perhaps since I am a twin, and most of the story focuses on Natashia’s antagonistic relationship with her twin, I internalized too much of the story. Still, I could never truly like or sympathize with Natashia because of this.

I was disappointed that so much of the novel took place after the events of The Nutcracker ended. The book lost its appeal once I realized this was what was happening. When I read a retelling, I am there to see how the author is taking the original story and changing it. When this draw was over about halfway through the novel, I wasn’t left with much to hold on to.

In summary, this is a beautifully written book that uses The Nurtcracker as a jumping-off point. For readers who enjoy horror and the darker side of dark fantasy, it will probably be an enjoyable read with resonances in today’s social issues. Those readers who prefer to keep the story of The Nutcracker innocent, though, should probably look elsewhere.

The Kingdom of Sweets is a VERY dark retelling of The Nutcracker, with hints of Sleeping Beauty (the sorcerer at the christening, dividing "gifts" between twin sisters).. How like a fairy tale to remind us that nothing is as it seems!