My Imaginary Mary
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- 15,99 €
Publisher Description
It’s aliiiiiiiive! The New York Times bestselling authors of My Lady Jane present an electric, poetic, and (almost) historical tale of the one and only Mary Shelley—perfect for YA fantasy and romance readers.
Mary may have inherited the brilliant mind of her late mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, but she lives a drab life above her father’s bookstore, waiting for an extraordinary idea that’ll inspire a work worthy of her parentage—and impress her rakishly handsome (and super-secret) beau, Percy Shelley.
Ada Lovelace knows a thing or two about superstar parents, what with her dad being Lord Byron, the most famous poet on Earth. But her passions lie far beyond the arts—in mechanical engineering, to be exact. Alas, no matter how precise Ada’s calculations, there’s always a man willing to claim her ingenious ideas as his own.
Pan, a.k.a. Practical Automaton Number One, is Ada's greatest idea yet: a machine that will change the world, if only she can figure out how to make him truly autonomous . . . or how to make him work at all.
When fate connects our two masterminds, Mary and Ada learn that they are fae—magical people with the ability to make whatever they imagine become real. But when their dream team results in a living, breathing, thinking PAN, Mary and Ada find themselves hunted by a mad scientist who won't stop until he finds out how they made a real boy out of spare parts.
With comic genius and a truly electrifying sense of adventure, Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows continue their campaign to turn the classics on their head in this YA fantasy that’s ideal for fans of Frankenstein and The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When 17-year-olds Ada Lovelace and Mary Shelley née Godwin meet at a party, they become thick as thieves in Ashton, Hand, and Meadows's (My Contrary Mary)inventive historical fiction collaboration, set in London during the Industrial Revolution. Writer Mary lives a quiet life hopelessly pining after dashing poet Percy Shelley. Meanwhile, Ada spends her time desperately trying to get her robot Pan (aka Practical Automaton Number One) to work. When Mary's purportedly fae godmother, Miss Stamp, suddenly appears from a previously unknown door inside Mary's wardrobe, Miss Stamp informs her that she's been endowed with magical abilities that "can make what we imagine real." Science-minded Ada is skeptical, until Mary brings Pan to life. Chaos ensues when, following Pan's animation, mysterious villains come knocking on the girls' door. The teens' bitingly clever alternating perspectives, interspersed via an omniscient narrator, occasionally convey historical tidbits in direct asides to the reader—as when setting the time period: "the year 18—mumble mumble (sorry, the exact date is a bit smudged)"—handily rendering a riotous romp through two prominent figures' imagined—and winningly fantastical—lives. Ages 13–up.
