21 exciting new YA book releases arriving in the summer of 2021
By Lacy Baugher
My Contrary Mary – Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows
In 2021, the trio who brought us the Lady Janies trilogy – My Lady Jane, My Plain Jane, and My Calamity Jane – will kick off a new series with My Contrary Mary.
Their first trilogy of novels aimed to retell the story of famous Janes from history in new, interesting, and often fantasy-fused ways. (These involved everything from shape-shifting curses to werewolves.) The “Janies” trilogy is both feminist and surprisingly entertaining, and it certainly sounds as though their upcoming series will follow a similar path.
My Contrary Mary will be the first installment in a new trilogy that will tell the stories of similarly influential Marys – Mary, Queen of Scots, Marie Curie, and Mary Mallon (better known in life as Typhoid Mary) – with a dash of the supernatural on top. This first book will reimagine Mary, Queen of Scots as a queen with a dark secret – that she herself is a shapeshifter in a court that considers such things a death sentence.
The official synopsis describes the story as follows.
"Mary is the queen of Scotland and the jewel of the French court. Except when she’s a mouse. Yes, reader, Mary is an Eðian (shapeshifter) in a kingdom where Verities rule. It’s a secret that could cost her a head—or a tail. Luckily, Mary has a confidant in her betrothed, Francis. But after the king meets a suspicious end, things at the gilded court take a treacherous turn. Thrust onto the throne, Mary and Francis are forced to navigate a viper’s nest of conspiracies, traps, and treason. And if Mary’s secret is revealed, heads are bound to roll."
My Contrary Mary is available on June 22.