Book #84: My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

This. Book. Was. Hilarious. I loved it. First off, DEFINITELY was a great audiobook listen, because the reader, Katherine Kellgren, was AMAZING. Absolutely amazing. She had the most fantastic British accent, and did excellent voices for every single one of the characters. This was one book where having such a good narrator made me enjoy this book 900 times more than I might have just reading it. Although, the story was fantastic itself as well. This book is a re-telling of the story of Lady Jane Grey, the nine-days queen of England after Edward Tudor died and before she was dethroned and eventually decapitated by Bloody Mary. But that one-sentence summary, which is all you'll ever find about Jane Grey (as the authors say tongue-in-cheek in the book), is not the whole story. Instead, they change everything and make the story awesome and make it so that Jane does NOT die--and, actually, neither does Edward--and even add in a bit of magic into the world to spice things up. Instead of the Catholic vs. Protestant feud that Henry VIII started (look at my British history skills coming into play), this book claims it was Ethion magic vs. Verity non-magic that was the big dividing point. Ethions are able to transform into an animal form, and Verities believe they should be exterminated. This Ethion magic becomes a major point in the story as Jane's husband who she is married off to at the beginning of the book is an Ethion... and he is a horse. For half of the time. I loved how there were three different viewpoints that each chapter rotated between: Jane, Edward, and Guilford (Jane's horse husband), and how these three viewpoints all felt very different and had their own voices. Both of the different romances, between Jane and G, and Edward and Gracie, were very sweet and cute and funny as well.

The authors say that they are writing in the spirit of The Princess Bride and their hilarious, irreverent tone definitely follows in the same sphere. I loved how the narrators continued to "check in" with the reader and break the fourth wall of the story by telling us things behind the characters' backs and how they would give little asides like, "He looked like a regular Casanova--although the comparison didn't actually cross his mind, since the actual Casanova wouldn't be born for another two centuries." All in all, this was a really fun and excellent read.

Side note: I saw some people on Goodreads label it as YA but there's nothing YA about this, in my opinion.