No Time Like The Past - Jodi Taylor

   2015; 376 pages.  Book 5 (out of 14) in the series “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s”.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Fantasy; Historical Fiction, Romance.  Overall Rating: 10*/10.

 

    The good news: The Institute of Historical Research Department at St. Mary’s Priory is alive and well.  That’s a miracle since in the previous book chronicled a vicious attack by the Time Police on St. Mary’s.

 

    The bad news: That attack was repulsed, but not without massive damage and several deaths.  Repairs and replacements cost a lot of money, and Thirsk University, St. Mary’s employers and purse-holders, rightfully expect a return on their investment.  The time-traveling historians at St. Mary’s desperately need to perform a spectacular, and financially lucrative, jaunt into the past.

 

    Madeleine “Max” Maxwell has come up with a promising plan.  Hop back a couple centuries, acquire some items that would/will make great “artifacts” after a couple hundred years, and bury them in a secure place.  Zip back to the present, show Thirsk University where to dig, and let them be showered in glory for finding a trove of valuable relics.

 

    What could go wrong?  Well, there’s a reason why this plucky team of chrono-hopping historians is called “the disaster-magnets of St. Mary’s”.

 

What’s To Like...

    No Time Like The Past is the fifth book in Jodi Taylor’s time-travel-with-historical-fiction-with-romance  "Chronicles of St. Mary’s" series.  I’ve been reading the books in order, and so far they’ve all been wonderful reads.  There are five time-jumps in this book, which is about average, and all to awesome time-space sites in the past.  The main one here is a visit to Thermopylae in 480 BCE to watch the 300 Spartans hold off the massive Persian army for several critical days.

 

     I was impressed by the attention to detail the author pays to each of the historical sites.  The descriptions of the settings really added to their “realness”, and I learned interesting history facts such as the name of the guy who betrayed Leonidas and the Spartans (Ephialtes of Trachis).  The details concerning another time-trip, this time to Florence in 1497 CE for an event called The Bonfire of the Vanities, were just as fascinating, and timely as well, since I just recently read Tom Wolfe’s novel by that name.

 

    In addition to all that chrono-hopping, there's a fair amount events going on at St. Mary’s here.  Max (Chief Operations Officer) and Tim Peterson (Chief Training Officer) swap jobs, meaning both have new duties to learn.  A “friendly” boat-building contest with Thirsk personnel is proposed, accepted, and taken very seriously by both entities.  And on the Romantic front, Leon and Max prepare to take the next step in their relationship.

 

    The book, and the series, are written in English, as opposed to American, which I always find to be a treat.  Besides the usual variances in spelling, I needed to look up the “translations” of the following phrases: pulling your plonker, jacket potatoes, pissed as a newt, toad in the hole, priest hole, and spotted dick.  Have fun researching these, and get your mind out of the gutter on those last two.

 

    There's lots of trivia sprinkled throughout the text.  I learned what the acronym “ASBO” stands for, the etymology of the word “bankrupt”, and the definition of “swive”.  A few puns are also woven into the tale, to which I can only say, “that’s offal”.

 

    The ending was not what I expected, which is always a plus.  But it’s both logical and a bit humorous.  The final chapter addresses the romance storyline, and closes with an amusing epilogue.  No Time Like The Past is told in the first person POV (Max’s), and is both a standalone book and part of a series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 7,326 ratings and 606 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.36*/5, based on 11,143 ratings and 662 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “For God’s sake, Max, look at this place.  “Look out there.”  I rolled over and looked at the screen.  “It’s total devastation.  We’re going to be paying for this lot for the rest of our lives.  I’m going to have to have at least forty kids to inherit the debt.”

    Fortunately, at that moment, Mr. Lindstrom’s voice came over the com.  “Max? Markham?  Can you hear me?”

    “Tell them I’m dead,” said Markham, making no move to get up off the floor.

    “I’m fine, but Markham says he’s dead.”  (pg. 150)

 

    “Hold on,” I said.  “Were you studying tactics and things at—what do they call it—officer school?”

    “Not for very long.”

    “You surely didn’t set fire to that as well?”

    “No, of course not,” he said, wounded to the core.  “Not the whole thing.  It’s a big place, you know.”

    “So just a small corner of it?”

    “Barely even that.  Just a few rooms.  Maybe a bit of corridor.  There was plenty of building left so I don’t know why they made such a fuss.”  (pg. 308)

 

“Just think about it—being killed by your own wedding present.  How bizarre would that be?”  (pg. 305)

    No Time Like The Past rates a rare 10-Star rating, so unsurprisingly, the quibbles are microscopic.  I counted ten instances of cussing in the first 20% of the book (75 pages) equally split between an excretory function and the Underworld.  Later, there’s a roll-in-the-hay, and a reference to boobs.  All of this was tastefully done.

 

    A couple of typos also showed up along the way: Pa Lace/Palace, top/stop, Lies’/Lies, hear/head, and ally/allay.  These were all in the paperback version, so they can’t be blamed on the printed-to-digital conversion.  They caused my editor’s mind to stumble a bit, but weren’t numerous enough to where it became a distraction.

 

    But I pick at nits.  I’m now 5/14 through this series, and the storyline in No Time Like The Past felt just as “fresh” as those for each of the earlier books.  I don’t know how Jodi Taylor selects the chrono-hopping destinations for the plucky historians at St. Mary’s, but they're always fascinating, and I’m eager to see where they get sent in the next book, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

 

    10 Stars.  One last helpful hint about the oft-pondered time-travel enigma of “can I go back in time and shoot myself?”  St. Mary’s has an ironclad rule that bans any of their historians from chrono-hopping back to place where there is a possibility of “meeting yourself”.  If such a situation should arise, one's fellow St. Mary’s operative has orders to shoot to kill the “modern you”.