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suvata's review against another edition
3.0
(The Chronicles of St Mary's, #2.0)
The Publisher Says: Book Two in the madcap time-travel series based at the St Mary's Institute of Historical Research that seems to be everyone's cup of tea.
In the second book in the Chronicles of St Mary's series, Max and the team visit Victorian London in search of Jack the Ripper, withess the murder of Archbishop Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, and discover that dodos make a grockling noise when eating cucumber sandwiches.
But they must also confront an enemy intent on destroying St Mary's - an enemy willing, if necessary, to destroy History itself to do it.
I Say: Another enjoyable read about the time-traveling historians. Jodi Taylor is really on to something here. Can't wait to read Book Three.
The Publisher Says: Book Two in the madcap time-travel series based at the St Mary's Institute of Historical Research that seems to be everyone's cup of tea.
In the second book in the Chronicles of St Mary's series, Max and the team visit Victorian London in search of Jack the Ripper, withess the murder of Archbishop Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, and discover that dodos make a grockling noise when eating cucumber sandwiches.
But they must also confront an enemy intent on destroying St Mary's - an enemy willing, if necessary, to destroy History itself to do it.
I Say: Another enjoyable read about the time-traveling historians. Jodi Taylor is really on to something here. Can't wait to read Book Three.
staceyjl's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.5
bunnyb11's review
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
mrs_bonaventure's review
3.0
Swallowed this in one gulp, pretty much. It's light and frothy and if I stop to think about some of the plot contradictions then it doesn't make sense (obviously) but it's funny, erudite and the narrator is hugely likeable. Perfect escapism.
kmilnic's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
being_b's review
3.0
Even faster-paced than the first one, if possible. The world-building is opening up all kinds of new possibilities, and Maxwell remains awesome (and scary).
kberry513's review against another edition
5.0
There will be oh-so-many spoilers in this review, mostly because I intend to include a summary.
I am truly loving this series. Max's narration is literally laugh out loud funny at times. I was reading it by the pool with a friend and she put her own book down to tell me she wants to borrow this one next.
I am still finding it slightly difficult to know exactly how much time has passed in Max's timeline; how long exactly has she been at St. Mary's since the start? It's possible I'm just missing it in my excitement, but she seems extremely senior relative to her age - although since almost all the Historians before her have been killed at this point, she is the most senior in spite of not being that old (I think - I picture her as about 30ish but maybe I'm off because it's possible she was older or younger when she started than I imagined).
That being said, it hasn't really dimmed my enjoyment any. I did like the Dramatis Personae list at the beginning of the book - it helped keep some of the characters straight. As with the previous volume, this one crammed about 5 books worth of events into a single story, but not in a bad way.
*MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW*
This one starts with Max and Kal going on Kal's last jump before retirement - to hopefully see Jack the Ripper. It reminded me of the Police-Officer-a-Week-Before-Retirement trope from movies - of course it's going to go terribly, horribly wrong. Kal, as the retiree, gets to choose when to go and had always wanted to see Jack the Ripper. Max and Kal get chased through the misty night and think they have outrun their pursuer, but it turns out to have been a trap - they were corralled back
into their pod. It isn't until they land in the present and see a fur muff move by itself that they realize they brought someone or something back with them - which should not be possible. It turns out to be a sort of monsterish man shaped thing. They lock down the pod, knowing that they will most likely die with it and it seriously injures both women. Max beheads it, but then sees it start oozing back together. She finds the pistol, intending a murder-suicide sort of situation where they will just bury the pod or send it back to the Cretaceous so that the monster is never released, but the techies show up, having watched the live feed of what is happening inside and they think it's dead. Max manages to warn Major Guthrie and he and Farrell burn its remains. While Max is recuperating, Farrell tells her he has something important to discuss when she is better.While recovering from life threatening injuries, both Max and Kal are having nightmares of the monster coming back, so they jail-break out of the hospital to check the pod. It turns out Dr. Foster had taken a sample just in case they had been exposed to some kind of weird illness, and it had started regenerating from that. After incinerating that as well, everything goes back to normal - except that Farrell never returned.
It turns out, Farrell was taken by the villains into the Future (where Historians are *not* supposed to go) leaving behind their coordinates. They assumed Max would go half-cocked to save him, but instead she is followed surreptitiously by Guthrie and Peterson. She shows up first alone, finding Farrell in a coma being guarded by a single nurse (Katie Carr) and allows herself to be taken captive. Unsurprisingly, it is Ronan and company, along with Max's nemesis Isabella Barclay, who are behind it. They have taken control of the future version of St. Mary's and the Director is missing. Most of the historians are dead, and the Chief Technical Officer (Pinkie) has been holding up under torture as she had sent all the pods to an undisclosed location. Peterson and Guthrie rescue Max as intended and Max returns to keep Katie and Farrell safe - coming upon Barclay about to shoot them so Max shoots her in the back. She wasn't quite dead, so Max shoots her again then drops her body into the elevator.
When the smoke clears, a slightly different version of Mrs. Partridge (aka Muse of History) helps them to pick up the pieces. It is decided that they will stay to help this St. Mary's rebuild and train up the new historians - Max is named interim Director. Farrell is slowly recovering from the induced coma and Max is warned his memory will take some time and he will be a bit suggestible in the beginning. Max has their Director rebury the Shakespeare sonnets so they can earn some money to keep St. Mary's open during the rebuild. The trainees are taken to the 7 Ancient Wonders for practice, then they all head to save some dodos while Max and Mrs. P watch (and win the contest), before being taken to the assassination of Thomas Becket. Everything goes off without a hitch and they have a massive costume party to celebrate the last night before Max and co head back to their own St. Mary's. Farrell and Max reconnect and Farrell tells Max she needn't hide her new scars from him. She promises next time she won't. Before leaving, Max names Pinkie new director and Evan the head historian.
When they arrive home, her own Director Bairstow sends Max and Farrell to the Red Room for some R&R (normally for rich people recovering from various ailments - very expensive). The head doctor, Dr. Knox, starts out by questioning Farrell who admits to very vivid dreams (that turn out to be sort of prophetic), but Farrell falls asleep midthought. Dr. Knox moves on to Max, immediately rubbing her the wrong way, and implying Director Bairstow doesn't trust her. After saying "Does he know you're a murdering bitch" and then pretending she imagined it, Max takes the opportunity to take off when Farrell awakens. Later, she goes to seduce Farrell the way he had asked her to before and he rebuffs coldly. Breaking down, she steals his car, cuts her hair, then drives his car into the lake at St. Mary's. When Farrell returns, she tries to pay him for it and he keeps returning the money. He tries to apologize and explain, but she won't hear him out. Max's assistant David, a Historian who was paralyzed in an accident, tells her to make up with him before it's too late. Before she has a chance to do so, her staff figures out where History deviates from the Shakespeare play they found at the end of the last one (where Queen Elizabeth is put to death instead of Mary Queen of Scots). Max realizes the dreaming Farrell had done since his coma is bleed-through - they are all meant to go and stop something from going wrong in 16th century Scotland.
Max also realizes that Farrell's first words to her when he came out of the coma "Be careful the names are the same" has to do with Dr. Knox. She and Farrell travel back to the future where they discover that Knox is actually the future St. Mary's missing Director. He was in league with Ronan and when it looked like Future St. Mary's would win, he took off with one of the pods and reinvented himself in the past. He has been quietly attempting to weaken St. Mary's in Max's time and was likely behind Sussman's betrayal and Barclay's attempt to do away with most of the Historians in the previous book. Pinkie and her team go back and detain him on a day Max and Farrell will have alibis. While they are waiting for her to return, they realize why History went wrong in 16th century Scotland - that's when/where Annie will die. Ronan is trying to change history to save her. The second half of the Shakespeare play was forged and buried with the first half by Mrs. P in the 17th century to get them to look into it. History hasn't intervened because it will cause a paradox, as Annie's death is what caused Max's director to go back and found St. Mary's to begin with. Max calls history a Symphony of Echoes. Pinkie returns with Knox and they put him on trial. At first he remains silent, but then tries to pretend that he ran to try and lead Ronan's men off and keep them from learning the location of the remote site. That's when Mrs. Partrige pipes up letting them know he couldn't have given them that information, as she had removed it from his safe and replaced it with fake one - which he did divulge to Ronan and where several of his cohorts were lost...and that's when they discover that Evan, the kid Max made head Historian, was also in league with Knox, although Mrs. P easily takes him out. Pinkie wants to bring them to a remote time/place and abandon them to die...but Max points out that Ronan could technically save them and if they really want it to work, they will have to execute them.
Max and Farrell return to their own St. Mary's after witnessing said executions. They let their Director know what happened and what they plan to do in Scotland - head off Ronan. They can't kill him, because the Ronan in Scotland is younger than the one they've tangled with so far. Max goes back to her office, where her assistant David tries to get her to reconcile with Farrell again and she sends him to sick bay for his cough...she's called to his death bed shortly after. After he dies, she goes to Farrell who confesses the reason he acted the way he did is that Knox convinced him that a shock would help her and she remembers the doctor in the future telling her Farrell would be highly suggestible. She confesses to killing Barclay - which Farrell had already figured out. It turns into a massive fight because Farrell wants more from her and she can't give it and she realizes that Farrell is the one who left the book in the wardrobe when she was a child which set her on the path to St. Mary's. She was able to forgive Sussman and her abusive father because they didn't mean anything, but she had opened herself up to Farrell and he crushed her. He wants to try to make it right; she says she doesn't think they can, but they can start over.
She gets a new (very offputting) assistant and then she and Peterson take the Pathfinders on their first real trip - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon which are actually the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh. It goes well until one of the Pathfinders is stung by a scorpion, so she and Peterson tell them to take him back and return for them. They wander about the garden, but it isn't till they inadvertently witness the assassination of the king that they realize they had misjudged which year they were in and that, if rescuers came, they would be coming a year later. They manage to survive three days where they are being hunted, as they were seen witnessing the execution, before St. Mary's comes for them - for St. Mary's it was six weeks. While she's in sickbay, she and Farrell reconcile.
The Scotland expedition takes shape - they must get Mary to marry Bothwell, that is the lynchpin. They send a party ahead to rent a house and then the lot of them go as French merchants selling fabric from the East (which they went to buy from a contemporary eastern place). Instead of living out of pods as usual, they will have to live out of the house. They need to keep Ronan from interfering but not harm him. They only have a few short weeks in 16th century to get it done. It takes awhile before they are finally invited to court. Farrell (as his cover) flirts with the queen, hoping she will summon them again. It takes several days, but she finally does, but when they arrive, they see Ronan acting squirrely. Max sends Farrell and co off to detain him, and heads in to find the queen herself. After running into Bothwell (literally), who immediately starts to sexually assault her, Max convinces him to wait in a room while she procures wine. She almost immediately runs into the queen (history is on her side), and after convincing the queen Farrell is waiting for her, locks the queen in with Bothwell...and is sickened to be an accomplice to the sort of sexual assault she knows is happening, basically dooming Mary to die. On her way out, she and Farrell tangle a little with Ronan (who gets away) but manage to save Guthrie. Everyone makes it back more or less intact (except Markham has tapeworms, having drunk the local beer) and Farrell gets Max to agree to go on a date.
The book ends with Max getting her next assignment - the one she's always wanted - TROY.
I am truly loving this series. Max's narration is literally laugh out loud funny at times. I was reading it by the pool with a friend and she put her own book down to tell me she wants to borrow this one next.
I am still finding it slightly difficult to know exactly how much time has passed in Max's timeline; how long exactly has she been at St. Mary's since the start? It's possible I'm just missing it in my excitement, but she seems extremely senior relative to her age - although since almost all the Historians before her have been killed at this point, she is the most senior in spite of not being that old (I think - I picture her as about 30ish but maybe I'm off because it's possible she was older or younger when she started than I imagined).
That being said, it hasn't really dimmed my enjoyment any. I did like the Dramatis Personae list at the beginning of the book - it helped keep some of the characters straight. As with the previous volume, this one crammed about 5 books worth of events into a single story, but not in a bad way.
*MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW*
This one starts with Max and Kal going on Kal's last jump before retirement - to hopefully see Jack the Ripper. It reminded me of the Police-Officer-a-Week-Before-Retirement trope from movies - of course it's going to go terribly, horribly wrong. Kal, as the retiree, gets to choose when to go and had always wanted to see Jack the Ripper. Max and Kal get chased through the misty night and think they have outrun their pursuer, but it turns out to have been a trap - they were corralled back
into their pod. It isn't until they land in the present and see a fur muff move by itself that they realize they brought someone or something back with them - which should not be possible. It turns out to be a sort of monsterish man shaped thing. They lock down the pod, knowing that they will most likely die with it and it seriously injures both women. Max beheads it, but then sees it start oozing back together. She finds the pistol, intending a murder-suicide sort of situation where they will just bury the pod or send it back to the Cretaceous so that the monster is never released, but the techies show up, having watched the live feed of what is happening inside and they think it's dead. Max manages to warn Major Guthrie and he and Farrell burn its remains. While Max is recuperating, Farrell tells her he has something important to discuss when she is better.While recovering from life threatening injuries, both Max and Kal are having nightmares of the monster coming back, so they jail-break out of the hospital to check the pod. It turns out Dr. Foster had taken a sample just in case they had been exposed to some kind of weird illness, and it had started regenerating from that. After incinerating that as well, everything goes back to normal - except that Farrell never returned.
It turns out, Farrell was taken by the villains into the Future (where Historians are *not* supposed to go) leaving behind their coordinates. They assumed Max would go half-cocked to save him, but instead she is followed surreptitiously by Guthrie and Peterson. She shows up first alone, finding Farrell in a coma being guarded by a single nurse (Katie Carr) and allows herself to be taken captive. Unsurprisingly, it is Ronan and company, along with Max's nemesis Isabella Barclay, who are behind it. They have taken control of the future version of St. Mary's and the Director is missing. Most of the historians are dead, and the Chief Technical Officer (Pinkie) has been holding up under torture as she had sent all the pods to an undisclosed location. Peterson and Guthrie rescue Max as intended and Max returns to keep Katie and Farrell safe - coming upon Barclay about to shoot them so Max shoots her in the back. She wasn't quite dead, so Max shoots her again then drops her body into the elevator.
When the smoke clears, a slightly different version of Mrs. Partridge (aka Muse of History) helps them to pick up the pieces. It is decided that they will stay to help this St. Mary's rebuild and train up the new historians - Max is named interim Director. Farrell is slowly recovering from the induced coma and Max is warned his memory will take some time and he will be a bit suggestible in the beginning. Max has their Director rebury the Shakespeare sonnets so they can earn some money to keep St. Mary's open during the rebuild. The trainees are taken to the 7 Ancient Wonders for practice, then they all head to save some dodos while Max and Mrs. P watch (and win the contest), before being taken to the assassination of Thomas Becket. Everything goes off without a hitch and they have a massive costume party to celebrate the last night before Max and co head back to their own St. Mary's. Farrell and Max reconnect and Farrell tells Max she needn't hide her new scars from him. She promises next time she won't. Before leaving, Max names Pinkie new director and Evan the head historian.
When they arrive home, her own Director Bairstow sends Max and Farrell to the Red Room for some R&R (normally for rich people recovering from various ailments - very expensive). The head doctor, Dr. Knox, starts out by questioning Farrell who admits to very vivid dreams (that turn out to be sort of prophetic), but Farrell falls asleep midthought. Dr. Knox moves on to Max, immediately rubbing her the wrong way, and implying Director Bairstow doesn't trust her. After saying "Does he know you're a murdering bitch" and then pretending she imagined it, Max takes the opportunity to take off when Farrell awakens. Later, she goes to seduce Farrell the way he had asked her to before and he rebuffs coldly. Breaking down, she steals his car, cuts her hair, then drives his car into the lake at St. Mary's. When Farrell returns, she tries to pay him for it and he keeps returning the money. He tries to apologize and explain, but she won't hear him out. Max's assistant David, a Historian who was paralyzed in an accident, tells her to make up with him before it's too late. Before she has a chance to do so, her staff figures out where History deviates from the Shakespeare play they found at the end of the last one (where Queen Elizabeth is put to death instead of Mary Queen of Scots). Max realizes the dreaming Farrell had done since his coma is bleed-through - they are all meant to go and stop something from going wrong in 16th century Scotland.
Max also realizes that Farrell's first words to her when he came out of the coma "Be careful the names are the same" has to do with Dr. Knox. She and Farrell travel back to the future where they discover that Knox is actually the future St. Mary's missing Director. He was in league with Ronan and when it looked like Future St. Mary's would win, he took off with one of the pods and reinvented himself in the past. He has been quietly attempting to weaken St. Mary's in Max's time and was likely behind Sussman's betrayal and Barclay's attempt to do away with most of the Historians in the previous book. Pinkie and her team go back and detain him on a day Max and Farrell will have alibis. While they are waiting for her to return, they realize why History went wrong in 16th century Scotland - that's when/where Annie will die. Ronan is trying to change history to save her. The second half of the Shakespeare play was forged and buried with the first half by Mrs. P in the 17th century to get them to look into it. History hasn't intervened because it will cause a paradox, as Annie's death is what caused Max's director to go back and found St. Mary's to begin with. Max calls history a Symphony of Echoes. Pinkie returns with Knox and they put him on trial. At first he remains silent, but then tries to pretend that he ran to try and lead Ronan's men off and keep them from learning the location of the remote site. That's when Mrs. Partrige pipes up letting them know he couldn't have given them that information, as she had removed it from his safe and replaced it with fake one - which he did divulge to Ronan and where several of his cohorts were lost...and that's when they discover that Evan, the kid Max made head Historian, was also in league with Knox, although Mrs. P easily takes him out. Pinkie wants to bring them to a remote time/place and abandon them to die...but Max points out that Ronan could technically save them and if they really want it to work, they will have to execute them.
Max and Farrell return to their own St. Mary's after witnessing said executions. They let their Director know what happened and what they plan to do in Scotland - head off Ronan. They can't kill him, because the Ronan in Scotland is younger than the one they've tangled with so far. Max goes back to her office, where her assistant David tries to get her to reconcile with Farrell again and she sends him to sick bay for his cough...she's called to his death bed shortly after. After he dies, she goes to Farrell who confesses the reason he acted the way he did is that Knox convinced him that a shock would help her and she remembers the doctor in the future telling her Farrell would be highly suggestible. She confesses to killing Barclay - which Farrell had already figured out. It turns into a massive fight because Farrell wants more from her and she can't give it and she realizes that Farrell is the one who left the book in the wardrobe when she was a child which set her on the path to St. Mary's. She was able to forgive Sussman and her abusive father because they didn't mean anything, but she had opened herself up to Farrell and he crushed her. He wants to try to make it right; she says she doesn't think they can, but they can start over.
She gets a new (very offputting) assistant and then she and Peterson take the Pathfinders on their first real trip - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon which are actually the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh. It goes well until one of the Pathfinders is stung by a scorpion, so she and Peterson tell them to take him back and return for them. They wander about the garden, but it isn't till they inadvertently witness the assassination of the king that they realize they had misjudged which year they were in and that, if rescuers came, they would be coming a year later. They manage to survive three days where they are being hunted, as they were seen witnessing the execution, before St. Mary's comes for them - for St. Mary's it was six weeks. While she's in sickbay, she and Farrell reconcile.
The Scotland expedition takes shape - they must get Mary to marry Bothwell, that is the lynchpin. They send a party ahead to rent a house and then the lot of them go as French merchants selling fabric from the East (which they went to buy from a contemporary eastern place). Instead of living out of pods as usual, they will have to live out of the house. They need to keep Ronan from interfering but not harm him. They only have a few short weeks in 16th century to get it done. It takes awhile before they are finally invited to court. Farrell (as his cover) flirts with the queen, hoping she will summon them again. It takes several days, but she finally does, but when they arrive, they see Ronan acting squirrely. Max sends Farrell and co off to detain him, and heads in to find the queen herself. After running into Bothwell (literally), who immediately starts to sexually assault her, Max convinces him to wait in a room while she procures wine. She almost immediately runs into the queen (history is on her side), and after convincing the queen Farrell is waiting for her, locks the queen in with Bothwell...and is sickened to be an accomplice to the sort of sexual assault she knows is happening, basically dooming Mary to die. On her way out, she and Farrell tangle a little with Ronan (who gets away) but manage to save Guthrie. Everyone makes it back more or less intact (except Markham has tapeworms, having drunk the local beer) and Farrell gets Max to agree to go on a date.
The book ends with Max getting her next assignment - the one she's always wanted - TROY.
joshhall13's review against another edition
4.0
The first 65% of the book can be condensed, and the good plot arc picks up very late in the book... The one with all the action is stuffed into the rear 40% of the book. The end approaches is like a marathon of details whizzing past.
I guess, to summarize my thoughts, this installment of Chronicles of St. Mary's series feel hurried. It seems like Mrs. Taylor, the author, had a tight writing deadline, so she couldn't fully conclude her exciting final plot arc.
It's evidenced by the marginalization of all historical time-travel to the to the very end of the book... and it's minimal at that... in a book about people time-traveling!
I love to explore books in the time-travel sub-genre, so generally read them for everything that comes with jumping through the eons with ease. Plus, Mrs. Taylor, created such a fun initial book 1, full of all the yummy gooey center that a time-travel book should have. Like all that crazy timey-wimey, fuck-paradoxes, history-buff-detail stuff. Loved book 1, clearly.
Book 2 in this series doesn't hold up as well as book 1... but that's the stereotype isn't it? The dreaded sophomoric effect. The awful Book #2 syndrome.
I'm certain i'll continue this series, though. Mrs. Taylor's gift for banter and likable characters transcends bad time travel.
I guess, to summarize my thoughts, this installment of Chronicles of St. Mary's series feel hurried. It seems like Mrs. Taylor, the author, had a tight writing deadline, so she couldn't fully conclude her exciting final plot arc.
It's evidenced by the marginalization of all historical time-travel to the to the very end of the book... and it's minimal at that... in a book about people time-traveling!
I love to explore books in the time-travel sub-genre, so generally read them for everything that comes with jumping through the eons with ease. Plus, Mrs. Taylor, created such a fun initial book 1, full of all the yummy gooey center that a time-travel book should have. Like all that crazy timey-wimey, fuck-paradoxes, history-buff-detail stuff. Loved book 1, clearly.
Book 2 in this series doesn't hold up as well as book 1... but that's the stereotype isn't it? The dreaded sophomoric effect. The awful Book #2 syndrome.
I'm certain i'll continue this series, though. Mrs. Taylor's gift for banter and likable characters transcends bad time travel.
jinnantonnix's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0