Chronicles of St Mary's book 5- in which Max helps Markham solve the mystery of a ghost only he can see.

library book read 8/23/023 ( )

I find it amazing how picking up a Chronicles of St Mary's book is like revisiting some old friends, such is the connection I feel with the characters. In addition, Jodi Taylor has a real gift for making history come alive. In this fifth volume of the series, our intrepid historians visit London during the Great Fire, and I could have sworn that heat was coming off the pages. On another trip to Renaissance Florence, she describes three fictitious Botticelli paintings in such vivid detail that one would have thought she'd seen them for real. And she pulls out all the stops for the Battle of Thermopylae – I was on the edge of my seat.

It's not all entirely successful (I felt the great St Mary's summer fete fell a bit flat, despite the drama) but I adore this series and can't wait to start on the next one. ( )

This series always reminds me that I need more tea, which nearly as good a thing as the writing itself. ( )

Taylor, Jodi. No Time Like the Past. Chronicles of St. Mary’s No. 5. Accent Press, 2015.
After the war with the time police, St. Mary’s has been rebuilt. So some easy treks to the Great Fire of London and the battle of Thermopylae. Nothing dangerous. Way to screw up the timeline. Just kidding. I would not start the series here, but if you enjoyed some of the earlier stories in this series, you are likely to enjoy this one too. ( )

“No Time Like The Past” was something of a curate’s egg: good in parts.

Like its predecessors, it evokes the rambunctious spirit of St. Mary’s and contains some remarkable descriptions of time’s past, most notably, in this case, the battle of Thermopylae. The future of St Mary’s is under threat. There are fights and murders and even a wedding and yet I never really managed to make an emotional connection with “No Time Like The Past”.

This seemed to me to be a store-bought version of the St. Mary’s cake: it had the same shape and colour as the real thing but the intense flavour and sensation of freshness were missing.

It was a fun read, but, if it had been my first St. Mary’s book, I might not have made it to a second ( )