Just One Damned Thing After Another

The Chronicles of St Mary's, Book 1

By: Jodi Taylor

Narrated by: Zara Ramm

Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

The first book in the best-selling 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.

Time Travel meets History in this explosive bestselling adventure series.

'So tell me, Dr Maxwell, if the whole of History lay before you...where would you go? What would you like to witness?'

When Madeleine Maxwell is recruited by the St Mary's Institute of Historical Research, she discovers the historians there don't just study the past - they revisit it.

But one wrong move and History will fight back - to the death. And she soon discovers it's not just History she's fighting....

©2013 Jodi Taylor (P)2014 Audible Studios

The potential charm and wonder was wasted

What did you like best about Just One Damned Thing After Another? What did you like least?

Expectations raised in the earlier part of the book. The potential for the characters to experience the discovery of first hand observations of great historical events and locations. The book is severely depleted by the descriptions of armed conflict with marauders from the future.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The performance was okay.

An fantastically exciting read!

I began the Chronicles of St. Mary's with two free short story downloads and instantly - I was hooked. My earbuds have remained in my eras for two days as I simply cannot get enough.

The historical accuracy along with the well thought out explanations of history's greatest mysteries leave the reader quite satisfied. Jody Taylor has joined the ranks of top 5 favorite authors.

Give the Chronicles a shot - you will not be disappointed. Worth the credit abd then some.

What a Fun Story!

I don't even remember why I picked up this book - perhaps I saw it and bring a history fan thought it'd be fun? Whatever inspiration it was, I'm so glad I grabbed it! Finally began to listen to it a few days ago, and I am now obsessed with St Mary's! The story is fun, humorous, and interesting with just the right dose of action and romance. The narrator is perfect, providing just the right sarcasm to the protagonists voice. Highly recommend this book, and cannot wait to start listening to the second in the series!

A great series...

I have fallen for this series and cannot stop listening. It is just the right blend of sci-fi history and romance. Highly recommend if you want to get away into the past. The books are filled with actual events. I am on book 5 and am dreading the series ending.

Fun, thrilling and unpredictable

I enjoyed this book greatly. As a fan of history and time travel, this exceeded all my expectations. The characters are varied and not two dimensional. The time travel is fun and makes sense especially if you are familiar with Doctor Who. It kept me interested enough that if I was someplace where I could not listen, I switched to the Kindle and kept reading. The narrator was fantastic. She creates a Max that I would love as a friend. At points, it was laugh out loud fun. Planning to buy the next one.

Not as Good as I had Hoped.

I really wanted to like this book, but it never really pulled me into it. I did finish it, but I couldn't really recommend it.

Rousing, fast moving, time travel fun

Good selection for readers of history, science, sci-fi, and humor. Narrator Zara Ramm set the perfect tone of light-hearted self deprecation and danger. This book has a fast moving plot with large doses of professional jealousy, romance, history, & science. Main characters are multi dimensional. It's great fun & I listened at every opportunity.

Quirky fun in other time zones

Smashing good - a smart, sassy heroine with some British reserve; a pod and a pot of tea. I'm signing up for more St. Mary's.

Just One Damned Wonderful Novel After Another

What did you love best about Just One Damned Thing After Another?

In short: everything. It was in fact everything its title implies, one damned thing after another. (And everything the cover implies, being oh-so-very-British.) Lots of action, without being too fast paced to keep up with. A fun and funny heroine, who is part flawed character, part wonder woman. I seriously want to take Max down the pub for a drink. Make that several drinks. Throughout the book at various points you start to think, "this is it, this is the big central plot point, and the novel will end shortly thereafter", and each time, you would be wrong. There is so much going on between Max's recruitment to St. Mary's, training, making friends, and jumping around between WWI France, the Cretaceous Period,and the Library at Alexandria, that there always seems to be *more* to come. (Which is great for a reader like me who can go through 8 novels in a series and say, "What? You mean that's it? But I want MORE!") I am a bit of a history buff, and the historical detail that Ms. Taylor includes is fantastic, but would not be off putting to folks who are less enthusiastic on the subject. She never gets so bogged down in detail that she loses sight of the plot of the novel, but her world building is fantastically rich with all the little details of visiting the past.

Who was your favorite character and why?

There are too many fantastic characters, all of whom are so well drawn that you feel certain you've met them each before. (Much in the same way that you feel you've met a real life version of say Mr. Collins from Pride & Prejudice. But in no way like Austen either.) I liked Chief Farrell right away, and as mentioned above want to go out drinking with Max. Dr. Baristow, Major Guthrie, and Dr. Foster were each wonderful additions. And I adored the disagreeing Doctors in charge of the Archives and Research & Development.

What about Zara Ramm’s performance did you like?

Zara Ramm gave what can only be described as a phenomenal performance. I work from home, and listen to audio books all day while I work. In the last year I have gotten through a *lot* of books, and noticed that there is nothing worse than a great novel read by a terrible narrator. Ms. Ramm gives this already great novel life in a way that no one else could. She truly understands the main character of Max, and her voice for Max both speaking an narrating what is happening is wonderful, but she doesn't stop there. Each and every character is fleshed out individually. She never resorts to the "one voice for all male characters" or "one voice for all female charcters" that so many lackluster narrators do. Each character is a person in their own right, and you would be able to tell which character was speaking, even without the exposition within the text. I absolutely rate her as high as my two all time favorite narrators, Jim Dale for the Harry Potter series, and Lorelei King for the Mercy Thompson series.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Brace yourself.

Any additional comments?

I picked this book up when it was Audible's Daily Deal. They had been recommending it to me for a few weeks, and since it was on sale I picked it up. So very glad I did! I've since gotten through the first three novels, and the short stories A Child is Born & Roman Holiday (both for free from Audible). I'm about to start A Trail Through Time today and simply can't wait to dive back into the adventure.

What a rush

This was quite a wild ride. I loved the characters and the story, it was intense and interesting. World building can be cumbersome and boring but I think Taylor does a good job creating something fascinating and full of suspense. My only issue is that SO MUCH happens (the title is QUITE fitting). I feel like thing after thing after THING takes place and it almost gave me whiplash. It could use some slowing down but other than that I quite enjoyed it.