by Jodi Taylor
I have spent the last several months reading and listening to The Chronicles of St. Mary’s series. It was written by Jodi Taylor and has a wonderful origin story. Taylor originally self published the first book fo the series One Damned Thing After Another, but a literary agent loved it so much she signed Taylor and helped get the ongoing series published! Never knock a self-published author.
The series follows one Madeleine Maxwell, Max to anyone who doesn’t want to be shot, and her adventures with the crew at St. Mary’s Institute for Historical Research. Yes, they time travel. Oh, excuse me, they study historical events in contemporary time. The first book is about Max’s training and initiation into the world of academic time travel (sound familiar?), introduces the big baddy, initiates love interests, and sets you in the world full of danger and excitement. Taylor is really good as barely describing things that don’t exist, but you’ll read it and go “Oh yeah the pod need a FOD plod, totally.” Or “I totally know what a scratch pad is.”
Taylor’s characters are what make the series shine. Max, Petterson, Markham, all of them are wonderfully distinct characters. She gives them sayings (Shit, shit, shit) or actions (Petterson can never seem to land a pod gracefully) and makes you smile every time.
There are some downsides, other than the fact that the series is 13 books long and still going! Some of the plot lines get a little convoluted from time to time. But I have found this to be true of any long-running series without an overall plot. (X-File anyone?) The use of mythological characters can get a little off the regular story. She also sometimes repeats metaphors (Drink for every time she relates something to a Politician). Yet, I still adore these books since I have just listened to all of them twice. On that note, I highly recommend listening to the books. Zara Ramm does a wonderful job at distinguishing the characters and giving the emotion behind the words.