paperback, 336 pages
English language
Published Aug. 20, 2015 by Accent Press Ltd, imusti.
The second book in the bestselling Chronicles of St Mary's series which follows a group of tea-soaked disaster magnets as they hurtle their way around History. If you love Jasper Fforde or Ben Aaronovitch, you won't be able to resist Jodi Taylor.
Wherever the historians go, chaos is sure to follow...
Dispatched to Victorian London to seek out Jack the Ripper, things go badly wrong when he finds the St Mary's historians first. Stalked through the fog-shrouded streets of Whitechapel, Max is soon running for her life. Again.
And that's just the start. Max finds herself in a race against time when an old enemy is intent on destroying St Mary's. An enemy willing, if necessary, to destroy History itself.
From the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh to the murder of Thomas a Becket, via an unscheduled dodo rescue mission, join the historians of St Mary's as they hurtle around History …
The second book in the bestselling Chronicles of St Mary's series which follows a group of tea-soaked disaster magnets as they hurtle their way around History. If you love Jasper Fforde or Ben Aaronovitch, you won't be able to resist Jodi Taylor.
Wherever the historians go, chaos is sure to follow...
Dispatched to Victorian London to seek out Jack the Ripper, things go badly wrong when he finds the St Mary's historians first. Stalked through the fog-shrouded streets of Whitechapel, Max is soon running for her life. Again.
And that's just the start. Max finds herself in a race against time when an old enemy is intent on destroying St Mary's. An enemy willing, if necessary, to destroy History itself.
From the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh to the murder of Thomas a Becket, via an unscheduled dodo rescue mission, join the historians of St Mary's as they hurtle around History on more hilarious, hair-raising escapades
After enjoying the first part of the series, I also liked the second one. Again some part (the romantic ones) were not my cup of tea, while there were also original ideas.
In the Middle Ages, the Church was the most powerful institution in the western world. In England, the struggle between church and kings would take centuries to resolve. Interestingly, in the end, neither institution came out on top. Today, each is as powerless as the other. As people power emerged, we invented politicians. We’re not bright.
St Mary's does a classic Jack the Ripper episode, which British time traveling series hasn't? ... and the plot soup thickens. I didn't care much for the first monstrous part but as it leads to the really beautiful setup for the finale in which Max has to do something she'd really rather not to save history... Max has to ruin Mary, Queen of Scots, whom she came to respect, and deliver her unto the rapist #MeToo That twist makes the book current and lifts it from mediocre to interesting.
I read this right after I finished [b:Just One Damned Thing After Another|29661618|Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary's, #1)|Jodi Taylor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1459230212s/29661618.jpg|25626746] so that the events of the last book would be fresh in my mind. That was maybe good and bad, because while I remembered fine what had happened, I also remembered all the things that annoyed me. Like the fact that the author often does not spell out what the fuck is happening in the story and I just have to guess from context clues. Sometimes I think she does it to prolong the plot, and sometimes I think it's just her writing style; either way I think it's bad writing.
They don't catch Ronan in this book either, which I'm sure I already knew, given that there's 8 books so far in this series, but if I have to read about them failing to …
I read this right after I finished [b:Just One Damned Thing After Another|29661618|Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary's, #1)|Jodi Taylor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1459230212s/29661618.jpg|25626746] so that the events of the last book would be fresh in my mind. That was maybe good and bad, because while I remembered fine what had happened, I also remembered all the things that annoyed me. Like the fact that the author often does not spell out what the fuck is happening in the story and I just have to guess from context clues. Sometimes I think she does it to prolong the plot, and sometimes I think it's just her writing style; either way I think it's bad writing.
They don't catch Ronan in this book either, which I'm sure I already knew, given that there's 8 books so far in this series, but if I have to read about them failing to catch him for another 8 books I'm going to be pissed. I don't even 100% understand why Ronan is a bad guy, but of course as he slipped through their fingers at the last moment, Max pretty much just goes "oh, well, we'll get him next time."
I finished reading this last night and I can't remember how it ended. I do remember nothing was resolved. I'm also starting to wonder if Accent Press is a vanity publisher because there were more typos in this book than there were in the last one, and the last one had a handful. (I just looked it up. It's not, which is almost worst.)
This one was even better than the first one. Although I loved it, I noticed a bunch of people who didn't mentioned that it seemed more like a disjointed series of events, rather than one story. In this book, Taylor has avoided this, and each of the events is clearly connected to previous ones. It makes me wonder if the first one was mostly meant to be a set-up, have Max join St Mary's and show the readers what sort of stuff they do and get to know (and love) the characters, and then this one was the actual real beginning of the series. I looked around about and apparently the first book in the series was self publish, so possibly sort of testing the waters?
Anyway, this second book was more sort of streamlined, following a specific thread through the whole book, even gave me an AHA! experience or …
This one was even better than the first one. Although I loved it, I noticed a bunch of people who didn't mentioned that it seemed more like a disjointed series of events, rather than one story. In this book, Taylor has avoided this, and each of the events is clearly connected to previous ones. It makes me wonder if the first one was mostly meant to be a set-up, have Max join St Mary's and show the readers what sort of stuff they do and get to know (and love) the characters, and then this one was the actual real beginning of the series. I looked around about and apparently the first book in the series was self publish, so possibly sort of testing the waters?
Anyway, this second book was more sort of streamlined, following a specific thread through the whole book, even gave me an AHA! experience or two on the way when things came together. Also, Max' assistant. Looking forward to learning more about Max' assistant. I see potential in that one.
Fun!
