A Symphony of Echoes

Yashima reviewed A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #2)

Review of 'A Symphony of Echoes' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

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.

jayvall reviewed A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #2)

Review of 'A Symphony of Echoes' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

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.)

Angrboda reviewed A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #2)

Review of 'A Symphony of Echoes' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

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.