No Time Like the Past

The Chronicles of St. Mary's, Book 5

By: Jodi Taylor

Narrated by: Zara Ramm

Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's Summary

Jodi Taylor’s best-selling series The Chronicles of St Mary is back with a bang….

St. Mary’s has been rebuilt ,and it’s business as usual for the history department. But first there’s the little matter of a 17th-century ghost that only Mr. Markham can see. Not to mention the minor inconvenience of being trapped in the Great Fire of London…and an unfortunately timed comfort break at Thermopylae, leaving the fate of the Western world hanging in the balance.

Rejoin Max’s madcap journey through time in Jodi Taylor’s fifth interdimensional instalment No Time Like the Past.

Jodi Taylor, International Woman of Mystery, spent some time working undercover for North Yorkshire County Library Service. Heavily disguised as the world's most incompetent facilities manager, she shifted dead dogs, fell out of mobile libraries, and spent far too much time in the gents' toilets.

The idea to rewrite history first came to her while studying history A level at an evening class. Just One Damned Thing After Another is her first novel and was originally self-published as an e-book; it was downloaded by more than 60,000 readers on Amazon.

©2015 Jodi Taykor (P)2015 Audible, Ltd

Ms. Taylor Does it Again!

If you could sum up No Time Like the Past in three words, what would they be?

funny,educational,entertaining

Who was your favorite character and why?

Max,of course. She is my hero!

What does Zara Ramm bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Zara Ramm is incredible! She is perfect! Her tone magnifies the funny bits,and brings the characters to life.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Nothing really extreme. Wait...do I smell asparagus? Could be a reaction from laughing so hard. You'll understand after you've read it..lol

Any additional comments?

I didn't know what to expect when I started this series. Now I know I'm going to be entertained with each installment. No Time Like the Past was as funny and educational as the others. Can't recommend this series highly enough.

Spell bounding series.

The narration is spot on!

The story is historically accurate and, with astonishment, wildly entertaining!

A highly suggested way to waste massive amounts of time!

This might be the best installment yet...

I came across this series by chance and I am so glad I did! The first book had me so glued to the story I listened to it in one session. Each sequel has had its share of excitement, twists and adventures, but this one had me from hello, all over again.

Zara Ramm's narration has once again brought the story to life perfectly. I was delighted to learn the short stories are now available in audio too.

Well done, Ms. Taylor, as a reader all I can say is... "An honour and a privilege" -- and I can hardly wait for the next one!

Max has finally come full circle...

There was so much in this installment, I had to listen twice to get it all!
I always learn something new about history...didn’t know where “the bonfire of the vanities” title came from. Such a shame that so much history was lost for no good reason!
Even though Leon wasn’t in this volume as much as Max, they came together nicely in the end. Ms. Taylor is a talented writer, managing to intertwine history and adventure smoothly, yet with the usual plot bumps. Another very satisfying installment, in which Max comes full circle. Downloading the next book now. Please write more, Ms. Taylor. I don’t want the adventures to end!!

Steady and fun

This series is a fun romp. The narrator is perfect and easy to hear, with a nice cadence and a great accent (for us in the USA). St. Mary's is a place I want to live in, I want to hang with this crew and in these books you get to live their adventures with them. It includes a lot of adventure, not too many plot twists, but a few. It easily kept me entertained and I always downloaded the next in the series when finished. The author keeps the reader's interest without the use of gratuitous foul language or harsh sexual situations. I don't think I'd say this is YA, but an eighteen yr old could probably read it without any lasting horrors, lol. If you are looking for a fun series that will keep you enthralled, this is it!!

Dum Dum Du-Dum.... !

Any additional comments?

In true Taylor fashion, this book moves past the time police / "other" world stuff (Thankfully!) and gets back to what we all fell in love with: The St. Mary's bunch and the trouble the get into. I enjoyed listening to this as an audiobook (Zara Ramm as the narrator is AMAZING at capturing the characters with only subtle voice changes), and had to keep from laughing out loud while at work many times. However, without a clear over-arching, novel-long antagonist and story line, it does seem like multiple "episodes" collected to be novel length. I reread the summary here on GR after finishing and completely forgot the fire at Alexandria was THIS book. It seems like so long ago!


Along with Alexandria, readers get glimpses of a young, smitten Dr. Bairstow, Marcum chasing a past ghost, the battle of Thermopylae (This is Sparta!), and more.


All in all, this series continues to delight and I look forward to diving into the next one.

Absolutely fabulous

I have loved this series from the first. It is adventurous, suspenseful and charming. Maxwell will make you shake your head and Malcolm and Peterson will make you hold your breath. If you like history with a lot of British humor than you would love this.

I love this series!

I have all the St Marys books on both Kindle and Audible. They are smart and funny, and Zara Ramm here does her usual outstanding job of embodying the spirit of the stories. I highly recommend them all.

So much fun!!

Fantastically written and narrated. Laugh out loud funny with a healthy side of historical education. Jodi Taylor is genius.

Exciting,, Hilarious and a touch of romance.

Exciting,, Hilarious and a touch of romance. Even though this a series the author never be labors what's gone on in the subsequent books. I hope the series never ends!

If the Joneses had a child ...

If Bridgette and Indiana had a child then Max would be the result!

Madcap adventures through time and deeply emotional this is a poignant, exciting and hilarious read. As a bonus I now also perform better in the history rounds at the local pub quiz.

Amongst my favourite authors I list Tolkien, Pratchett, Conan-Doyle, Christie, Asimov and Koontz...I have no problem adding Jodi Taylor to this list as an equally capable and entertaining author.

Another corker!

If you enjoy St Mary's other books you'll love this one ! Brilliantly read as usual. No more to say about it!

Great story telling, some poor sound engineering.

More great adventures with the crew from St Mary's, though spoiled occasionally by some poor audio, badly clipped, flat and distorted in places but fine in others. In contrast to the preceding 3 books which sounded rich and professional, parts of this one sounds like it was recorded on a mobile phone. Not the author's or narrator's fault but for me a bit of a distraction from the story.

Has done better

Not the best in the series. More a set of short stories rather than a novel.

Another brilliant story

Another great adventure with Max and St Mary's. All the usual suspects with twists and turns of history mixed in
Great

Another winner from Jodi Taylor

If you haven't started reading this series, you really should. It's funny, historical, modern , sad, romantic and just everything. A great adventure.

Would you believe it?

Max once again leads her team and St Mary's into all sorts of mayhem, disasters and a few ahhh moments. Definitely another fantastic read from Jodi Taylor and brilliantly narrated by Zara Ramm. I can pick a favourite part, the whole of the last chapter or failing that the whole book. Historians rock.

Another edge-of-the-seat story by Jodi Taylor!

If I thought I'd encountered Max's scariest adventures as an Historian, with St Mary's ... I was wrong! Seriously nail-biting adventures in this story, with the usual wonderful fast-paced and humorous interactions with the other equally interesting characters. I love these books!

Wonderful, despite the odd mispronunciation

Zara Ramm is a great narrator of the St Mary’s series. Dr Bairstow’s accent has changed from the first book, but I never liked his Irish accent anyway.

But this book, like the previous one, has several mispronunciations and they detract a little from Jodi Taylor’s world-building. Nineveh is not Nirvana. Pyroclastic is not “pro-ca-lastic”. Kalinda (Kal) is not Carl.

I wish it was possible to submit mistakes in the reading and have them somehow corrected.

5 stars for the story, 4 stars for the narration but only because of the mistakes.

Enjoyable fantasy distraction

What a fun, mildly historical romp. Likeable characters, well narrated story and a perilous series of adventures.