I tried reading Antonia Fraser’s biography of Mary Queen of Scots back when the movie came out (naturally) but 50+ some pages in and 12,000 Mary’s later I DNF’ed it. Luckily this was a bit more streamlined and a lot less scholarly.
I mean she turns into a mouse in this one so no kidding right?
Anyway the group known as the Lady Janie’s are back with the start of a trilogy about famous Mary’s.
This time we follow Mary, Queen of Scots trying to survive in the French court and keep hidden from the world the fact that she is a mouse. This book is very, very much in the world of My Lady Jane and we even get some cameos.
She and Francis are a cute couple and I enjoyed her friendship with her ladies. Plus she does live up to the contrary Mary nickname without being too annoying although I admit there were moments in this book where I wanted to slap every character at least once.
But it was usually only once per character. So that’s good.
Though seriously there’s one part where Mary accepts an invitation for her and Francis to go to the exceedingly private country home of two people whom she knows by that point are dangerous and likely committed murder. Francis doesn’t even want to go and her reasoning doesn’t exactly make him feel better but she gets mad!
And then she immediately leaves him there! Francis is right Mary!
The other POV is a girl called Ari (short for Aristotle who is Nostradamus’ daughter) and while I appreciated that she was usually between a rock and a hard place I needed her to get her head out of her ass more than once. A fact in which the book never really calls her on because it’s so busy mooning over her relationship with Liv.
And stuffing 100 pages or so. Honestly they could have trimmed this book down a lot. Yet still I do think it captures the fun of My Lady Jane (which since I thought that series went downhill in the following books worries be a little- do not muck up Typhoid Mary ladies!)
Also they get the young and in-love bit down well I suppose but I think it was a little too much so for me. I mean I want a book about Queen Catherine trolling the King and his mistresses. Seriously there are enough Catherine’s to do up three books after the Mary’s and hell you could probably keep all three books in the court world in which they excel!
Recommend: Yes.
It’s a fun enough book despite the flaws (and hey we criticize because we care right?) but definitely for fans of My Lady Jane.