MY CONTRARY MARY by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows
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Mary, Queen of Scots, is as powerful as she is deviant. After all, it’s not every queen who dresses in a man’s clothes to sneak out for a night of revelry. But no one knows about her most secretive deviance–that she is one of the shape-shifters who can change into animals at will (in her case, a mouse) that are at the center of a political power struggle. Her fiancé, the french prince Francis, doesn’t even know. Of course he has problems of his own, now that his father has announced that he and Mary will be getting married within the week and even if he was sure that Mary loved him as much as he loved her (which he’s not), the wedding night is going to be incredibly awkward because his father plans to watch. Ew. Further complicating matters a Nostradamus (specifically the daughter of the Nostradamus) has been tasked with spying on the young queen and is about to discover her secret. And in case that isn’t enough going on, the king is about to die, and when that happens, everything is going to get very interesting…
This book is extremely weird (in a good way), guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. Narrators address the reader directly with a tongue-in-cheek, informal style as the utterly bizarre events unfold and the dialogue moves with perfect comedic timing. Pick up this one if you’re in the mood for a YA farcical twist on history!
Susan the Librarian 