Happy Anniversary, Jane and Guildford!

The Janies are celebrating, because on this day in history (May 25, 1553) Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley were married!

In real life, Jane and Guildford's marriage was not so much of a love story as it was a flat-out tragedy. They were strangers when they married, didn't really like each other much at first, and then a bunch of unfortunate things happened to them in quick succession, which ended with--well, it, didn't end well for either of them.

But our Jane Grey story is different, (since we're revising the history here to include more magic and less beheadings) and in our opinion, the marriage of our Jane and Gifford (yep, we've even altered his name) is DEFINITELY a love story. So anyway, it's (kindof) our anniversary!  We love Jane and G!

Jodi and Brodi, who write Jane and G's POVs, gaze at each other adoringly

We're also pleased to inform you that we've just finished the latest round of revisions for MY LADY JANE. (The next step is copy edits.) And we've received a tentative release date for the book . . . which we can't tell you yet, but it's in early summer 2016. Things are coming along! Our book is almost done! Hooray hooray!

And now we say, To Jane and G, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, and may you live happily ever after!


*clinks glasses*

What's Up With The Janies, May Edition

We haven't checked in for a while, so here's the latest on what's been happening with the Lady Janies:

1. We went to England! For two whole weeks in April, the three of us explored the UK, singing our theme song: "We see London, we see France, we have no clean underpants!" (Okay, so the washer/dryer  in the flat we were renting was all mildew-gross and didn't so much dry as it mocked us.  But we survived with the help of some heated towel racks. Clean underpants were achieved, and all was right with the world. . .)

Jodi gazes in despair at the washing machine / dryer.

Still, in spite of a few minor bumps, we had a fantastic time. We met with some of our fans and ate our weight in chocolate and saw a lifetime's supply of castles. We took about a thousand photos and hours upon hours of video, which we promise we will show you later. (After one of us figures out how to use a movie editing software.) And best of all, we really felt our characters come alive as we walked in the footsteps of the people who really lived the story of Lady Jane Grey. It was a trip of a lifetime.

The Janies outside of the Tower of London

2. We finished Draft #2 of MY LADY JANE! This was the big-changes draft, so we may have, I don't know, completely rewritten the ending. (Trust us, it's better this way.)  Since we were together when we did most of these revisions (in England!) there was some bartering involved: "Okay, I'll make your training montage scene funny if you rewrite the Jane-gets-injured scene." "You throw in a piece of marshmallow fudge, you have a deal."

We loved our book before, but now we love it even more. And it's that much closer to being ready to print.

3. We're starting to get all the book-business work done. We wrote the bio that goes on the book jacket, selected our author photo, and got to see some of the work that our cover designer is doing on THE COVER. We can't show you what it's going to look like yet, but the concept is AWESOME. Our book is becoming a real book!

4. We miss each other already, so we're packing up to meet each other at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, which will be May 12-17 in Dallas, TX. Click here for details.

And that's all the news for now.  I'll leave you with one last England picture. :)

Hanging with Henry VIII. Yep, we're wearing costumes and crowns. We embraced our inner dorks.

We're Coming to England!

Hi! We've been spending the past few months with our noses to the grindstone, finishing MY LADY JANE. We are happy to report that we have a first draft, and as of about a week ago we have notes from our lovely editor at HarperTeen, and we are working on the first round of serious revisions. In that spirit, we are coming to England to research the locations from the novel, to talk to some really smart Englishmen/women about the Lady Jane Grey, to have all-the-fun seeing the sights, and to finish Draft #2.

We're also doing a meet-and-greet with our British readers and fans! So yes, if you live in England, we'd love to meet you!

Here's the information:

Sunday, April 12th, we will be hanging out at a cafe called Le Pain Quotidien, starting at 2:30 p.m. and going until whenever they run out of cookies . . . er, biscuits.

The address is
15 Winchester Walk
London
SE1 9AG

and we're told it is right next to the Borough Market.

We are unbelievably excited about the whole thing. We love English history (duh), and we love traveling together, and we love getting to meet our readers. Win win win!

And yes, if you bring copies of our books, we would LOVE to sign them. We'll even break out the special pens.

Hello!

Hi there! As you can see, we've made a website for MY LADY JANE!

Wait.

You look like you have questions.

Who is this mysterious "we," you say? What's "My Lady Jane"?

So glad you asked.

We are three young adult authors. (Jodi Meadows, Brodi Ashton, and Cynthia Hand, to be exact. We tried out names that smush us together like Codi Handowton, but our agents thought we should probably stay separate to avoid confusion. Ha. So we affectionately refer to ourselves as the Lady Janies.)

Last year we decided to write a book together.The conversation went something like this:

"Hey, do you want to go to Disneyland today?"

"Nah. Let's stay in and write a book."

And that's how MY LADY JANE came into being. Because writing is better than Disneyland.

True story.

Fast forward a few months, and we sold the novel to HarperTeen. We were thrilled. We're still thrilled. I mean, now we're getting paid to write a book with our besties, and we're going to go on tour together, and we can write off the jokes we come up with on our taxes. (Not so sure about that last bit, but it's worth a try, right?)

The book will hit shelves in Summer 2016.

That's a long time from now, we know. But in the meantime, as we write and wait and write and wait, we'll put some fun stuff up on this website. (Like our progress! Consult the gadget in the sidebar to see how far along we are in the process of writing this book!)

So check back soon, dear internet wanderers and possible readers.

xoxo

The Lady Janies