⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 – Ridiculous in the best way! I had a fantastic time with the audiobook!
I loved the My Lady Jane TV adaptation on Amazon Prime last year, and I was severely gutted when it got cancelled after a single season. It has felt like something actually fresh and fun, that didn’t take itself too seriously with a cast that was perfect and hilarious.
I really believe the low viewing figures given as the reason for cancelling were entirely because Prime did such a piss poor job of promoting it! I almost didn’t watch it because they made it look like a generic YA romance for a Bridgerton audience when it’s not that at all, it’s actually very silly, very funny and a weird historical fantasy with people turning into animals!
Anyway… I was sad about the TV show getting cancelled so I decided to try reading the audiobook when it popped up on Spotify, and I am so glad that I did!
As is often the case with TV adaptations they did change some stuff, but mostly that was adding in additional characters and expanded subplots for the side characters. I am amazed to find that my favourite from the TV show, Lord Seymour (Dominic Cooper stole all the scenes), is not in it!
The TV show did definitely captured the spirit of the book! The book is just as silly and tongue-in-cheek, but less raunchy since it’s for a YA audience. The audiobook narrator definitely enhanced my enjoyment of the book, Katherine Kellgren did an amazing job at capturing the tone! She does an incredible array of voices and accents in this (posh to an approximation of Scottish), and while they are all OTT and – as an American – she doesn’t get any of them quite right that totally works for the made up historical world of the book!
The chapters are all POV and mostly Jane, Gifford (or ‘G’ as he prefers to be known) and King Edward. They’re all three dimensional with strengths and weaknesses, and limited world views based on their upbringing. Nobody in this book is perfect and mistakes are frequently made!
If you haven’t seen the TV show I don’t want to spoil the plot… I’ll just say that all the horse stuff really did make me laugh a lot! I actually think the books highlight how ridiculous that all is more than the TV adaptation!
Honestly if you enjoyed the TV show I recommend checking out the audiobook, it was everything I could have wished for and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sometimes what you need is to get into a very silly book!
One thing I hadn’t realised is that “The Lady Janies” series isn’t a continuous story. Each book is a different Jane – the second being Jane Eyre and the third Calamity Jane, so My Lady Jane is a standalone novel and it’s all the better for it!
I might check out My Plain Jane since I have only just reread Jane Eyre… Or I may not bother because it has middling reviews, we’ll see!
REVIEW SUMMARY
I LIKED
- Very silly and tongue-in-cheek humour!
- It is YA with romance, but the romance element is earned through character growth and isn’t cringey.
- Katherine Kellgren is a fantastic audiobook narrator and nails the tone, over-the-top accents and all!
