Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Nightshade Books
Published: 2017
Reviewer Rating: 
Reviewer: SJ Higbee
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This is one of those outstanding series that I keep revisiting and yet trying to spin it out as I don’t want to the fun to stop.
St Mary’s has been rebuilt and it’s business as usual for the History department. But first, there’s the little matter of a seventeenth-century ghost that only Mr. Markham can see. Not to mention the minor inconvenience of being trapped in the Great Fire of London… and an unfortunately-timed comfort break at Thermopylae leaving the fate of the western world hanging in the balance.
Max is one the historians, often described as disaster-magnets as they are generally prone to all sorts of mishaps occurring, as well as the day job being the insanely dangerous task of traveling back in time. It doesn’t help that there are also a group of renegade historians also cris-crossing the time-line equipped with one of their traveling pods who have sworn to see Max and her companions dead.
These books are very episodic, as each one covers a number of major time-traveling projects interleaved with life at St Mary’s, which is rarely peaceful. There is also a fair amount of emotional turmoil in Max’s life as her past has left scars that creates problems when she wants a relationship.
Max’s hilarious first-person narrative often has me laughing aloud and nudging Himself in the ribs to read out a particular humorous gem, but what sets these books apart is that when highly dangerous, risky expeditions into the past are undertaken, often people don’t come back in one piece. Or at all.
Taylor isn’t afraid of killing off characters we have grown very fond of, to the extent that I don’t get through one of these books without also weeping–and I don’t do that very often these days. Consequently, this series is always a roller-coaster read with lots of humor and heartbreak in amongst the action.
Taylor’s writing is vivid and quirky and I love the fact that she always lulls me into a false sense of security by setting up a situation or scene, which suddenly changes into something quite different.
While I think you could quite easily pick up one of these books without having read any of the others and work out what is going on, it would be a real shame to do so with such an unusual and exciting series. I haven’t encountered anything quite like Taylor’s writing before, and I don’t expect to do so again. And if you, too, would like to experience the whirlwind that is St Mary’s and the madcap team of historians, then don’t track this one down, instead go looking for the first book, Just One Damned Thing After Another.
Highly recommended for fans of time-traveling adventures with a difference.
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