Sue MacLeod
Young Adult Fiction
Namesake
After a trip to the library to research her Grade Ten history project, Jane Grey finds an antique prayer book mixed in with her other books.
She reads a passage out loud and slips back in time to Tudor England, where she meets Lady Jane Grey, the 16-year-old girl who was Queen for Nine Days—and then beheaded for treason.
Jane starts visiting her namesake in the Tower of London when her own life is too much to handle—a best friend who’s ditching her, a humiliating crush, and a mother whose drinking is out of control.
As the story weaves back and forth between past and present, the two girls’ lives intertwine.
Can Jane find a way to change history and save her 16th-Century friend? And, as things at home get crazier, can she find a way to save herself?
In every way, this novel is a triumph. MacLeod deftly weaves the modern Jane’s contemporary story with the true-life tale of Lady Jane Grey. Both storylines are fully developed and vividly rendered, with the time-travel element simply and elegantly incorporated into the fabric of Jane’s present-day life.
Poetry
