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My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton & Jodi Meadows

My Lady Jane

My Lady Jane! A better title would have been Teens Messing with Henry VIII’s Succession Plans. Lady Jane Grey is a rather tragic figure in English history: ruled England for only 9 days before she was beheaded by her cousin Mary Tudor in the Tower of London. (And then Mary was overthrown by her half-sister Queen Elizabeth.)

The authors decided to give this an alternative history spin, with magic and humor. This is how the succession feud should have gone on. The split between the Roman Catholic Church and Church of England became the split between Eðians (people with shapeshifter abilities) and the non-Eðians.

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Books Starred Recommendations

Princess Floralinda & the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir

Tamsyn Muir is better known for her Gideon the Ninth, winner of the 2020 Locus Award for Best First Novel. Princess Floralinda & the Forty-Flight Tower is a novella in a very different universe, and is just absolutely wonderful.

A witch has locked up Princess Floralinda on the 40th floor of a tower. Floralinda now just has to sit there patiently till a prince comes along to rescue her. Except to do that, he has to battle out a monster on each of the 39 intervening floors, starting with the diamond-scaled dragon on Flight One. Floralinda agrees to wait.

And waits. And waits …

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Art & Illustration Memes To Be Read Books

Top Ten Bookish Gifts from Santa

Gifts from Santa

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. And this week we pick our favorite bookish gifts from Santa!