Just One Damned Thing After Another: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book One

Best described as a mad-cap dash through history told with a generous dose British humor and a surety of things blowing up, Just One Damned Thing After Another is the first of the Chronicles of St. Mary’s Series. This delightful adventure by Jodi Taylor “explores historical events in contemporary time.” Madeleine “Max” Maxwell and her compatriots bang about in history, with history just as quick to bang them back, sometimes fatally. And they aren’t just fighting history this time, but others who would use time to their own advantage.

With events in history spanning from the Cretaceous period to WWI, this story of St. Mary’s should appeal to readers who like their time travel realistic and their narrative sarcastic. Max is a thoroughly hilarious and confident narrator and the sense of real danger, interspersed with copious amounts of tea, pervades the story. This is the kind of book that you walk away from believing in time travel. It sets up the rest of the series well, and should have most readers eager to see what the St. Mary’s crew will be on to destroy next.