Just One Damned Thing After Another (Chronicles of St. Mary's Book 1)

Bought for $5 on 3/19/23 for Second Foundation meeting 4/23/23, to discuss with A Symphony of Echoes. 14 St. Mary’s novels and 4 Time Police, 2 Frogmorton, 3 Elizabeth Cage, all in 10 years!? Plus numerous short stories. I can’t find any mainstream reviews. Looking forward to comparing these to the Connie Willis time travel novels in Oxford, having read Blackout, and All Clear from 2010.How old is Jodi Taylor?Does she draw?Did she have a fraught and mysterious childhood, or is Max’s totally made up?Robert Laurence Binyon poem“an appealing cast of characters in this new series opener, most especially the intrepid Max. There is plenty of humor, lots of action, and even a touch of romance” ~ Library Journal on publication of the first American edition in June 2016.The idea that History itself fights violently to keep historians from messing around is very imaginative - and fascinating.Hope punk gets infiltrated with dystopian intrigue, including profit-seeking scoundrels. Pretty cool.Hilarious and goofy similes. E.g., he’d fallen for Kal like a sperm whale failing to clear the Grand Canyon on a bicycle.Lots of humor throughout.She likes to blame herself for all sort of things, but fortunately it doesn’t last - she doesn’t dwell in recrimination and guilt, and never indulged in resentment or blaming others.When she has a scary group to face, it’s “stuck my chin in the air” and faced them, 4 times.Another trope, sort of emblematic of most of the adventures: Everything went wrong. Right from the off, everything went wrong.Sex scene is weak - intrusive and unnecessary. Would be much better if alluded to at an appropriate moment as a well-deserved “climax” to the relationship building.For a who,e she had to live in a place with black mould, yet she got five years of wages - where are they? p. 169Is articulacy a word? Yes, but it’s new to me, pyroclastic too. “Yay!”Sophisticated training and teaching, like “Your primary survival strategy will always be running away.”Hawking: “It just seems strange that a hangar in an historical research centre is named after the famous physicist.’“Being a teacher she obviously did mind-reading as well.”electronic scratchpad fitted snugly inside a knee pocketFOD plod (foreign object drop) clean-up exercise.Britishisms (defined in notes in the the text):bunking offSod that for a game of soldiers.Shoot, Shag, or MarryshaggedMancunianpillockfootietodgersecondedP45sbanging on, bang on,‘Bugger offstuck in (6)sock bunsmarmbashing the bishopwinding upsarniebuttiesSod's LawarmariumHereward the WakeAdventures:Westminster abbey work, ch.4Peasant’s revolt, ch. 4The Somme, ch. 4 & 5Cretaceous Period, ch. 8 (Farrell’s story ch. 7); more and returnLibrary of Alexandria, ch. 17

(Chronicles of St Mary's, #1)Madeleine "Max" Maxwell, a promising postdoc historian in a somewhat-future Britain, is hired to work at St Mary's Abbey, which now houses a "unit" which performs contemporary historical research: meaning that they actually go to various historical episodes and witness and film (well, holo) them. This is very hush-hush, kept secret even from the University of Thirsk, to which they are nominally attached; all the University knows is that they ask for historical research to be done, and the unit provides results.This is very dangerous work. The average career of a historian at St Mary's is measured in months, and they don't retire; rather, their names go up on the Wall of Honor. You see, History _protects_ itself; it you are about to do something that would change History, well, things happen to you. Plus, there is at least one other organization with time travel pods, and they are not nice people.At St Mary's, Max finds friends, danger, a lover, betrayal, and much else, not necessarily in that or in any order.What the above description fails to mention is that this is, in places, a very funny book. It manages to keep that to _appropriate_ places; moments of danger, emotion, and so on may have bits of comic relief, but it never deflates the main point of the moment. In other words, Taylor does exactly what Monty Python fails to accomplish in their heavier sketches and films. Which is not to say that it's all in good taste: the book can get quite rude when the situation calls for rudeness.I will certainly continue with this series.

Timing is perfect!The humor sets this work apart from other terrific sci-fi/action/adventure stories. The main character is a delight and the supporting cast is entertaining.I very highly recommend this book.

Things in this book happen just one thing after another. Hard to put down. Would have given it five stars, but I thought the sex scene was unnecessarily explicit. That said, it was the only sex scene described.

One of the best books I’ve read in a long time the time travel storyline along with the likable characters make this book reading, pure pleasure.

Fun, action-adventure with a spunky heroine. A great read

A feisty heroine, sex and violence, mystery, and science. What's not to like? The start of a long series which will keep you entertained.

A friend recommended this series to me and boy, I am glad she did!St Mary's is bonkers, good bonkers. Long story short it follows our female protagonist Max as she joins the secretive St Mary's Institute of Historical Research. This is not a place where the Historians sit over dusty books and scrolls, no they live it.Yes they have freaking time machines!!This could go one of either ways - 1) it could make this book really naff (some time travel books can be a bit meh) or 2) it is done it such a fun, crazy way that you can't help but love it. Yes of course this book is option 2.Just One Damned Thing After Another or for the sake of my fingers JODTAA follows Max as she joins the ranks of the historians at St Mary's, taking her from training to becoming a fully fledged historian.As book one in the series JODTAA eases you in to this world, I'm not 100% sure of the time setting, maybe near future, anyway we meet Max and her colleagues and then we travel to points in time that need to be researched.But the path of St Mary's is never clear of problems, Max's journey brings her in contact with dinosaurs and legendary libraries, seeing history from a totally different POV whilst trying not to change anything and avoiding getting killed, maimed or worse running out of teabags.This is a cracking read, in fact at this point in time I have just finished book 3 in the series, I love it so much. It is a great mix of British proper-ness and humour with a large dollop of historical fun. Plus there is a cracking sex scene which I had to re-read several times due to the enthusiasm of it!! Also I don't think there was a single character who felt unnecessary.A must read and a great start to my 2017 reviews!

Once in a while, I discover an author who changes everything. First it was Terry Pratchett, whose death still hurts like hell. I loved his world, the Discworld. Jodi Taylor and her protagonista Madeleine Maxwell “Max” have seduced me, made me laugh so hard that I can’t breathe and chapter 10 of this book has made my marriage quite interesting. Jodi Taylor’s England, tea, half crownsMr Markham, No spoilers, but if you fall in love with St Mary’s and Leon too, then you are in for a ride. Not on that damn horse, Turk, but maybe in a small shed, that looks like a shack, not a blue 1950s police box. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.

The series has been around for a while now and have already read the book but did not write a review.Re-read the book and it's easy to say that this is my favourite series. Will be re,-reading the rest and this time remembering the reviews.In this first of the series we meet the characters of St. Mary's. Never has a band of characters been put together in one book. The main strength of this book and the series for me results from the wonderful interactions between them. You have no options but to live through their adventures with them. You will laugh, gasp in amazement and sometimes disbelief. You will also at times shed a tear.For anyone new to the series St. Mary's role is to travel in time to witness and chronical the events as they happen. Sounds simple but once you get to know the characters it's anything but simple.If you are a lover of history be prepared to doubt the existing history books as the author has a wonderful ability to give history a new slant. In fact I am more likely to believe the author rather than the stuffy historians who made passing my history exams so boring.If you are reading this please, please, please give the book a try. I think I can guarantee that having read book one the rest of the series will be a must.

The title of this book feels very apt as this really is a roller coaster of a ride – not only through history, but through a whole host of different plot twists and turns. Our heroine is Madeleine Maxwell (Max), who is saved from an unhappy childhood through encouragement to get out of her bad situation through education. When she is invited to an interview at St Mary’s she finds that it is a research institution like no other. Indeed, the historians at St Mary’s can return to any historical event and witness it. This is observation and documentation only – history will not permit anything, or anyone, to change events and will not hesitate to eliminate any historians who try to do so.The plot is very involved, but concerns Max being trained in time travel, with various different outcomes. There are madcap adventures in various times and locations, a love story, obviously some baddies and an awful lot of adventures and missions. Although this is obviously a flight of fantasy – time travel, non-stop excitement and danger – there is also enough realism to make you care about the characters. Max faces real issues, for example, with colleagues; including the kind of unpleasant sexist behaviour that makes you squirm as a reader. Still, in some ways, this is essential. Too much derring do and you might forget you are reading about characters who can get hurt, or killed, or wounded.I enjoyed this, but it was more than a little busy and I felt the author could have slowed the pace down and invested me more in the plot and characters. Still, the idea of historians careering around the past is an intriguing one and I may well read the next in the series; once I have calmed down a little after this non-stop thrill ride…

Wow. It's not often that I have the patience to read even a trilogy, so the fact that I went through all 7 existing books plus all the short stories in just over a week and was tempted to read it all over a 2nd time through should tell you how enamored I am with these books. My first thought when I started reading was that, yes, this was a rip-roaring fun yarn, pure escapism, but that it was inspired quite blatantly by other popular shows and stories, like Stargate SG-1 and Harry Potter. But as I read on, I really felt like I was getting to know the characters, and they started to feel like old friends. I enjoyed the imaginative retelling of historical events. The humour throughout works well and is even occasionally laugh out loud funny. Although I wouldn't call this high literature - it is mainly a fun escapist fantasy series - there are some interesting observations here and there about the nature of time and some poignant moments. As others have pointed out in their criticisms, there are a few things throughout that require the suspension of disbelief or which annoyingly seem to contradict themselves (e.g., at least one of the pods can be called with a remote control, yet a lot of the scrapes the characters find themselves in are due to being too far away from the pod to make a hasty escape - so....why can't they just call the pods to them with a remote control then like they do with the other pod....hmmm?). I think you have to forgive some of this as it is obviously necessary for the progression of the plot - if they could just easily escape it would be dead boring. Although this contains a lot of sci fi tropes and after a while you do start to see patterns to the way the author writes so that you know what's likely to happen next, I still remained enough on my toes and surprised enough to have my interest kept throughout. I just really loved loved loved this series and was really depressed when I finished the last short story. I cannot wait until the next book comes out and I will be waiting with bated breath for everything that comes out from the St Mary's Chronicles for the foreseeable future. I hope the author keeps it going for a very long time to come... she has a loyal reader in me, that's for sure!