Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary's, #1)

by Jodi Taylor

Copyright © Jodi Taylor 2013

Bought for $5 on 3/19/23 for Second Foundation meeting 4/23/23, to discuss with A Symphony of Echoes. 14 St. Mary’s novels and 4 Time Police, 2 Frogmorton, 3 Elizabeth Cage, all in 10 years!? Plus numerous short stories. I can’t find any mainstream reviews. Looking forward to comparing these to the Connie Willis 2010 time travel novels, Blackout, and All Clear. How old is Jodi Taylor? Does she draw? Did she have a fraught and mysterious childhood, or is Max’s totally made up? Robert Laurence Binyon poem “an appealing cast of characters in this new series opener, most especially the intrepid Max. There is plenty of humor, lots of action, and even a touch of romance” ~ Library Journal on publication of the first American edition in June 2016. The idea that History itself fights violently to keep historians from messing around is very imaginative - and fascinating. Hope punk gets infiltrated with dystopian intrigue, including profit-seeking scoundrels. Pretty cool. Hilarious and goofy similes. E.g., he’d fallen for Kal like a sperm whale failing to clear the Grand Canyon on a bicycle. Lots of humor throughout. She likes to blame herself for all sort of things, but fortunately it doesn’t last - she doesn’t dwell in recrimination and guilt, and never indulged in resentment or blaming others. When she has a scary group to face, it’s “stuck my chin in the air” and faced them, 4 times. Another trope, sort of emblematic of most of the adventures: Everything went wrong. Right from the off, everything went wrong. Sex scene is weak - intrusive and unnecessary. Would be much better if alluded to at an appropriate moment as a well-deserved “climax” to the relationship building. For a who,e she had to live in a place with black mould, yet she got five years of wages - where are they? p. 169 Is articulacy a word? Yes, but it’s new to me, pyroclastic too. “Yay!” Sophisticated training and teaching, like “Your primary survival strategy will always be running away.” Hawking: “It just seems strange that a hangar in an historical research centre is named after the famous physicist.’ “Being a teacher she obviously did mind-reading as well.” electronic scratchpad fitted snugly inside a knee pocket FOD plod (foreign object drop) clean-up exercise. Britishisms (defined in notes in the the text): bunking off Sod that for a game of soldiers. Shoot, Shag, or Marry shagged Mancunian pillock footie todger seconded P45s banging on, bang on, ‘Bugger off stuck in (6) sock bun smarm bashing the bishop winding up sarnie butties Sod's Law armarium Hereward the Wake Adventures: Westminster abbey work, ch.4 Peasant’s revolt, ch. 4 The Somme, ch. 4 & 5 Cretaceous Period, ch. 8 (Farrell’s story ch. 7); more and return Library of Alexandria, ch.

Quoting Elbert Hubbard. Also, e.g., “Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.”

Madeleine Maxwell (Max)

Narrator

bumptious and egocentric,

a murky past and a precarious future.

Haha

harboured a passion for Doctor Foster p. 59

Leon Farrell

Dr Helen Foster

Medical doctor and with the people skills of Vlad the Impaler.

Haha

Murdoch.

Isabella Barclay

Turk

Mrs De Winter.

‘Madeleine,

you cannot let your home circumstances define your entire life.

No one had ever offered to help me before. Something flickered inside me, but distrust and suspicion die hard.

You must learn to assimilate, edit, and present information.

‘Is this a punishment?’ ‘No, Madeleine. This is an opportunity.’

Haha

ten years later.

University of Thirsk,

Thirsk is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England known for its racecourse, quirky yarnbomber displays, and depiction as local author James Herriot's fictional Darrowby. ~ Wikipedia

-the St Mary's Institute of Historical Research

Haha

the practical side of historical research.

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Haha

that invention of the devil – family life.

Mrs Enderby,

Haha

Professor Rapson,

Simile haha

I caught a tantalising glimpse of a buried desk, books everywhere and, further on, a laboratory-type setup.

Jamie!

Dr Dowson

Mrs Mack

I tried to think why an historical establishment would keep such hours but failed.

Haha

Haha

a small shop sold paperbacks, chocolate, toiletries, and other essential items.

the Library,

Haha

Leon Farrell.’

Dr Edward Bairstow.

Simile haha

elegant, dignified, and judgmental.

Mrs Partridge.

I don’t ever talk about my past so I replied with three short, impersonal sentences.

‘It just seems strange that a hangar in an historical research centre is named after the famous physicist.’

Haha

Haha

Thinking carefully is something that happens to other people.

Haha