This one was a little out of my reading comfort zone but I really enjoyed it. It was very different than what I thought it was going to be and I was pleasantly surprised by that. I highly recommend for a ya reader.

Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow?

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Audio for the arc of My Contrary Mary.

Mary, Queen of Scots, has lived in France with her to be husband for most of her life. She has also been hiding that she can change into an animal for most of her life as well. Mary is an E∂ian in a world of Verities. In this fourth installment of historical fantasy from Hand, Ashton, and Meadows the world is still largely under Verity control and our main characters usually have only tragedy awaiting them if you remember your history. However, tragedy can be rewritten.

I devoured My Lady Jane when it came out many years ago but was unaware of any subsequent stories in this series. When I stumbled upon My Contrary Mary I knew instantly that I would love this story and I did. It has the requisite love interest, danger, deception, and love overcoming evil in the end. I would recommend this to anyone who is both a lover of history and fantasy as these rewritten histories and how they deal with characters coming back in these books is inspired.

When I read the description of this book I hit the request button so fast! I had just finished binging a popular series on netflix about Mary queen of scots and NEEDED more. I have not gotten my hands on any of the Jane series yet. But when I saw they started the Mary series and this was the first one I dove right into it the narrorators voice was a little off putting. But I loved it. I saw someone in another review was mad because Mary obviously is not a shape-shifting being. Well this books is the authors twist on it its not suppose to be all facts. I would buy this book! I need it to re read and display on my shelves. 10/10 enjoyed it came at just the right time for me.

This book was fun in the way I've come to expect with Hand, Ashton, and Meadows! There's just enough history to keep you enthralled, with a lot of creative freedom! I will say, I did get mildly annoyed with Mary and Francis just saying, "you know" over and over in relation to...consummating their vows. But overall, kinda fun!

This was my first venture into this trio's books. There was so much humor mixed in with history mixed in with fantasy. It was such a unique blend of genres and I was really entertained the whole time. The only downside to this was the synthetic narrator. I missed the emotion in the dialogue, but it didn't take too much away from the overall experience.
I liked having the different POV's of Mary, Francis and Ari (sp?). All the characters had a great backstory that added to the current story. Mary is the Queen of Scotts, Francis is the king of France and Ari is the resident potion maker and prophet.
We are thrown into the time when Mary and Francis get engaged up until what actually happened in history is changed, but I don't want to spoil anything! Mary and Francis have to stand up for what they want against people who think they have more power than them, they have to run, hide, find missing people, travel. It's really just an all around super fun plot. And a few of the characters may or may not be able to shapeshift into animals! As I said, the humor is fantastic, I think my favorite part was when Ari was making predictions for the future. Some of the things she comes up with just made me cackle. I really want to say what, but I absolutely will not spoil it for anyone.
I have owned My Lady Jane for a while now, and I'm even more excited to read it now!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced review copy of the ‘My Contrary Mary’ audiobook. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

So I have read the entire first series by this author trio starting with ‘My Lady Jane.’ The first book of that trilogy was my favorite so I was excited to return to that same world with the new Mary series.

I feel like if you’re a reader bothered by historical inaccuracies this series and the Jane series will drive you to distraction. But if you go in expecting a fun time you won’t be disappointed. Although I did find myself jumping on Wikipedia to look up some things because I admittedly don’t know much about Queen Mary. Still I felt like this book was a fun return visit to the world of ‘My Lady Jane’ and I especially enjoyed the cameos from characters from that book.

Regarding the audiobook, I found the accent helped with the automated voice while I was listening. I’m sure the narrators chosen for this book will have a lot of fun reading this story.

My favorite element of the story was a character who could see the future (Ari) but her visions were just plot points from random movies. I found this so funny and I laughed out loud several times.

I think this series will be as fun as the first. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and there is always adventures and romance and even more queer rep has been added from book to book. I’m looking forward to continuing on with this new series.

4/5 stars

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row. "

I listened to the synthetic audio book eARC available through NetGalley. I did recognize the cover as one being familiar to me in it's style so perhaps I wasn't very surprised to realize the authors also wrote My Lady Jane, My Plain Jane and My Calamity Jane. I have yet to read this series although I have wanted to since they were published. We do meet a Jane toward the end with Ari and Francis who's situation I imagine would've been familiar to those who had finished the series.

I have to say my biggest complaint comes from the synthetic voice saying "Harper Collins" randomly and often mid sentence or mid conversation between characters, about every chapter.

That's over forty times folks.

I loved the blooming romance between Ari, daughter of Nostradamus and Liv (Mary Livingston, one of Mary's four Ladies, the others are Mary "Flem"ing, Mary Seton and Mary "Bea"ton). The other romantic couple where the royals, Mary and Francis (who are two main narrators in the book).

I have to say I enjoyed Ari's visions of odd movies at often inconvenient times and her creative use of potions. The villains of Catherine de' Medici and John Knox and Mary's Uncles were entertainingly menacing.

Although unrelated to the book, I wanted to share a amusing medieval cautionary tale image involving the ancient Aristotle and Phyllis, a wife or mistress of Alexander the Great simply because of the likeness of who could be Mary and Knox.

I tried to give the way this is narrated a chance, and honestly I do think with other books I wouldn’t mind an A.I. narrator. But with this book it really didn’t work. As with the previous books in this series, the writing is fun and quirky and full of voice, all of which the A.I. reader failed to convey. It was really taking me out of the story and hindering my enjoyment, so I decided to stop. Otherwise, I think I’m really going to enjoy reading this book for myself, which is why I decided to just wait for my preorder to arrive. And I’m sure the official audiobook will match the tone of the story a lot more than this. It was a learning experience!

I absolutely LOVE these books and of course this one was just as good as all the others! I would give this book a 5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read and not to mention fun!

Got this book from NetGalley robotic-audio program.
DNF at 40%
I loved so much about this book. The premise was cool, I loved that the fortune tellers "saw" our pop culture (and movies) and couldn't understand it. The characters were pretty likeable.
What I didn't like about the book was that 40% in and I was still waiting for a real plot. There were hints of danger and conflict, but we hardly saw any of it. Who knows, maybe the crazy awesome conflict was going to happen after Mary gets married.
But I couldn't make it that far.

A big thank you to Netgalley, Harper Teen & Harper Audio, for providing me with an ARC copy of this on audio!

1) These covers have all been so beautiful! They are amazing.
2) Can we please make sure these 3 always continue to write stories like these? They are so much fun and definitely one of a kind.

I would never think of the concept's that they do and their writing together is so seamless. The mix or historical references, supernatural elements and current events just make you smile and laugh out loud. Grab this one when you can!

It seems that most of the time when I read a book set in another country (I live in America) or about people from other countries, I oftentimes don't know much about that country. Such is the case for this wonderful book about Mary Queen of Scots. I love historical fiction as it's one of my favorite genres. My only complaint is that I don't know when the history told is factual and when it's fictional. Cynthia Hand gave me some fantasy along with some history and I loved it. For example, I seriously doubt that Mary was really a shapeshifter. So some of what is in this book is obviously untrue.

There are quite a few allusions that might go over some people's heads if they haven't read closely at times. But I loved it and I'm sure that might've happened to me. I love when puns, allusions, and alliteration are used in books. And humor works well too. This was my second book by Cynthia Hand, and I know that I'll want to read more of her now.

I want to thank NetGalley and Harper for both the physical and audio of this book. I thoroughly enjoyed both. I have given my honest opinion of this book.

4.5
A feminist, Laugh-Out-Loud, reimagining of Mary, Queen Of Scotts.
I think if you liked My Lady Jane, you will love this one! We are placed back in the world of Ethians and possibly even run into some familiar faces...
My Lady Jane was my favorite from the Jane series. And I think I love My Contrary Mary even more so. I think putting Mary in the Ethian world was brilliant and actually really added to her real story. It made sense.
The plot was a lot of fun and my attention was held through the majority of the book. I actually had to put it down half way through in favor of something else. And even with the time gap between starting and finishing, I still remembered everything that had happened. I think that says a lot about the plot and writing. However, it did start to lag a bit towards the middle and the end felt like it ended a little too abruptly. For a book this long, I would have liked too see a little more of an ending than that.
As far as characters go... Francis is the only one I had a problem with. He would get really unnecessarily whiny and it would irritate me. However, although Francis really got on my nerves sometimes, it wasn't enough to ruin the story or the characters for me. I actually loved all of the characters. Especially Mary. They were each very well fleshed out and very much had their own personalities and quirks.
My mind is always blown when I sit back and think about the fact than an author trio wrote these books together. They're always done so seamlessly and stays consistent in the writing style all the way through the books. This one is no exception. If I hadn't known better, I would have assumed it was all done by one author.
All that to say that I think this was very well thought out, put together and well done. The best in the series yet! (In my humble opinion)
Thank you so much to Harper Teen for the advanced audio copy of this book!

Back into the edian world of the First Lady Janie book, here is the story of Mary Queen of Scots! Everyone knows the story but you know these authors never stick to script. Plus, I bet you didn’t know queen Mary was hiding a mouse problem!

This book was so much fun. If was hilarious, so much like it’s sister books, and was everything I wanted! We got some Lady Jane cameos, fun historical (and some more modern) references, and some gay ladies! I cannot wait for everyone to read this and pick up my finished copy!

As expected, this comical blend of faux history and pop culture about Mary Queen of Scots was as delightful as the other stories in The Lady Janies trilogy. Fantasy, intrigue, and humor abound! I did not however, prefer the voice provided for this particular edition and felt that it very much took away from the experience.

If you are looking for accurate historical fiction, this is not the book for you. My Contrary Mary is just as silly, light hearted and frothy as The Lady Janies trilogy. This is meant to be a fun read that mixes pop culture with historical fantasy. (Light on the history and heavy on the fantasy.)
If I had read this before My Lady Jane, I probably would have been surprised and delighted by the quirky humour and crazy adventures of the royals. Since I had already experienced all of that with the Janies, I was gently amused but not surprised.
Those who are eager to revisit the world of My Lady Jane will be thrilled with this offering.
Thank you NetGalley and Harper Audio for letting me listen to this book in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn't listen to this. The robotic voice was terrible. I am very excited to listen to the actual, human narrated audiobook of this title when it is available,

This was may be my favorite in the series so far! It was easy to get into, and it has just the right amount of tie in from the other books.

Having read a previous book of these authors with their retelling of Jane Eyre, which I enjoyed quite a bit, I was excited to have a chance to read/listen to another book by them. This was their retelling about Mary Queen of Scots and I know some about her, but not a lot, but still liked their spin on the story.
This was intriguing, unique, and different with their adding in that Mary Queen of Scots was a shapeshifter and how her marriage was announced when it was discovered that someone was going to assassinate her. There was a great camaraderie between Mary and her friends that were her ladies-in-waiting that I loved hearing about and they drew a good picture of Queen Catherine being a villain along with her sneaky uncles who were trying to control her to obtain wealth, power, and fame.
I liked how Mary and Francis were adorable together with their relationship and friendship as it developed and they figured things out for themselves. It was great when they both realized they were in love with each other and their relationship was definitely swoon-worthy. There was a lot of the story that was well-written from a historical point of view from what I could tell. I did also really like the different spin where Francis didn't die and Mary got another chance to be with him longer and have children with him and have a happier life while being in love.
This did have some tongue-in-cheek humor like their other stories do, but this was not quite as funny as the others I've read, but I still was rather entertained by it and would recommend it.
Thanks so much to Harper Audio and NetGalley for letting me listen to and review this voice galley. All opinions are my own.

A new addition to Hand, Ashton and Meadows’ unfortunate women of history collection. First readers were invited to meet the Janies and reimagine their histories, and now readers can meet the Marys!

These books never fall short for me, always funny and touching, and providing a new outlet through which to explore the women of European history. My Contrary Mary invites readers into the world of Mary Queen of Scots, this book is full of magical plots twists and hilarious writing. Another winner!