Monthly Mini Review

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor, narrated by Zara Ramm – B+ This is the first book in the time-travel series The Chronicles of St. Mary’s. They don’t call it time travel though. They investigate “major historical events in contemporary time”. (It’s totally time travel). Exactly how it all works is conveniently brushed away which I liked as no doubt I’d not understand it anyway (apart from that it’s fiction). The main character is Madeleine “Max” Maxwell and the stories are told from her first person perspective.

There is a romance thread running through it and it ends happily but the book is not romance per se. It’s firmly in the SFF camp. I had heard it was humorous and it is – but I hadn’t been expecting some of the serious topics covered and so CW for sexual violence, death and pregnancy loss. The romance is very gentle and a slow burn but I was quite satisfied by it.

I did struggle a little with the timeline – not because of the time travel but because I had not realised just how much time the book covers – Max is a trainee for years and not the weeks or months I thought it was. What was also unexpected was that the series uses historical events as backdrops for the stories the author wants to tell. The main players are the crew of St. Mary’s and the bad guys and the cause of most of the drama are not historical figures. It’s not like Quantum Leap (though it is quite episodic) or Outlander – I’m not sure what it is like but once I got my head around it (which wasn’t difficult) I like it very well.

The narration is smashing. Zara Ramm completely delivers on the humour and tone – Max is very irreverent. Ms. Ramm imbues Max with all of the subtext as well which is a boon for someone like me who can sometimes miss those things which aren’t explicitly stated. I had no trouble picking up the cues in the book at all. The director of St. Mary’s is Dr. Edward Bairstow and he is given a Scottish accent (which I loved) for the first two books. For reasons which aren’t clear to me that accent disappears by book three. Otherwise, I have no complaints about the narration. This is definitely a series to enjoy on audio. I’m up to book 6 at present and that doesn’t include the short stories!

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