My Lady Jane – Review

Authors:  Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton & Jodi Meadows
Published: June 7th 2016 by HarperTeen
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Humor
Rating: ★★★★★

The comical, fantastical, romantical, (not) entirely true story of Lady Jane Grey. In My Lady Jane, coauthors Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows have created a one-of-a-kind fantasy in the tradition of The Princess Bride, featuring a reluctant king, an even more reluctant queen, a noble steed, and only a passing resemblance to actual history—because sometimes history needs a little help.

At sixteen, Lady Jane Grey is about to be married off to a stranger and caught up in a conspiracy to rob her cousin, King Edward, of his throne. But those trifling problems aren’t for Jane to worry about. Jane gets to be Queen of England.  (goodreads summary)

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Man, Owlcrate really nailed it this month. I was hooked from just reading the dedication – “For everyone who knows there was enough room for Leonardo DiCaprio on that door.

And for England. We’re really sorry for what we’re about to do to your history.” 

This book. This. BOOK. Where do I even start… I LOVED THIS BOOK! The term LOL was invented just for this book. Because that’s how you will react every 5 minutes to reading this book. You will laugh out loud and chuckle and snort loudly and giggle and sigh happily and grab your husband’s arm and scream in his face OMG THEY MADE A TANGLED REFERENCE!! Ah, this book was just so great. Seriously, I was reading this with a giant smile on my face the entire time and guys I am not a smiley person. Big Deal.
This is obviously a fictitious retelling of just a blip of English history. Basically the only truth to the story is that Edward VI did pass over his crown to Jane Gray when he died at age 15. Jane Gray was queen of England for 9 days and was married to a Guildford Dudley. Then the Privy Court changed allegiances to Mary who was proclaimed queen and then it was off with their heads! That’s it. Not even one of the 491 pages in the book. But that is ok! It was filled with some of the funniest lighthearted writing I have read in a long time. There were references to The Princess Bride, Monty Python, Reign, and even Disney’s Tangled!

For being as silly as it was it worked. The plot was solid, the characters were well rounded and it flowed perfectly. We had three different ladies writing this book but the only way you would know that is if you looked at their names on the front cover. The writing flowed so seamlessly between character POVs that you could never tell that three different hands and minds wrote them. That gets an A++ in my book.

The world building was well done. Our three lovely narrators created a great fictitious world with Verities and Eðians. Eðians being people with magic in their blood that can transform into animals and Verities being the synonym for muggles and they hate the Eðians. This can be compared to the Catholic vs. Protestant issues of true history. I prefer the magical animals vs. muggles. Makes life more interesting! It took place in about the same time frame as the reign of Mary Queen of Scots. I really like the TV show Reign and there was a bit of a cross over with the French court in our story and the fangirl in me came WAY out! I loved how the narrators would pop in and somewhat correct themselves or explain themselves every now and then.

“He pretended to stretch his arms, in order to shift even closer to her. (This isn’t in the history books, of course, but we’d like to point out that this was the first time a young man had ever tried that particular arm-stretch move on a young woman. Edward was the inventor of the arm stretch, a tactic that teenage boys have been using for centuries.)” 

I loved Jane. I loved her love of books. I loved her tenacity and stubbornness. I loved her relationship, or lack of relationship, with G. Their bickering back and forth was so amusing and a little snort-worthy at times.

“Firstly, bears are always hungry. So when you encounter the bear, don’t act like food.”
“Huh?”
“I read it in a book last summer, called—”
G held up a hand. “Don’t tell me the name! No time.”
“Right. As I was saying, bears are always hungry. Try not to act like food.”
“How does one act like food?”

I loved this world, I loved all three of our main characters and our supporting characters. I loved people randomly turning into animals! I can’t sing enough praises about this book.I think I’m going to need these ladies to write more twisted obscure historical fiction. If you like historical fiction, or magic, or are really in need of a good laugh or can read and enjoy words I highly HIGHLY recommend it!

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