My Lady Jane by:Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows

Summary:

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 is about to become the Queen of England.

The Review:

Another book from my TBR list, and the premise really intrigues me because I like alternative history books, and this is an alternative history book with a little bit of fantasy mixed in.

This is a book where I loved all three main characters. The book is told from three POVs, Jane, Edward and Gifford; and they all have distinct personalities so you could easily differentiate the chapters from one another. Jane is a princess who is forced to marry a stranger in order to secure an alliance, Gifford or “G” as he is in the book, who is training to be king and Edward, who is trying to protect his throne.

My favorite is Jane, mainly because I like her snarky attitude especially with her relationship is Gifford. While it does start as the cliched two people who are forced to marry each other so they hate each other in the beginning and than fall in love, the story was framed better because the characters were very well developed. Also with Edward, I did like his relationship with Grace, who is a character I would have liked to see more of.

My main plot is basically a historical retelling with fantasy elements and the fantasy elements involves shape shifters, and as a fan of Animorphs of course I love animal shape shifters, and the book actually did a good job at introducing that elements in the book.It also did a good job at setting up the conflict between the shape shifters and those who hate them. I also like how the book even breaks the forth wall and admits that the story is not true. Basically its Princess Bride meets Monty Python, but I would have liked to see more of the characters break the forth wall.

I also liked some of the supporting characters such as Queen Mary, who was sort of an antagonist of the book, trying to take her cousin Edwards throne, and of course if you paid attention in History you know what happens. But I would have liked to have seen more of future Queen Elizabeth and have her character become more developed, even though you know her story.

In the end, My Lady Jane was a great book that did a good job at retelling historical events, while mixing it with fantasy. I really hope that this isn’t the last I read of all three authors and I would like to see the authors tackle other historical events and retell them.

Grade: 4.5/5