Review – Just One Damned Thing After Another

From Goodreads: "History is just one damned thing after another."

Behind the seemingly innocuous façade of St Mary’s, a different kind of historical research is taking place. They don’t do ‘time-travel’ – they ‘investigate major historical events in contemporary time’. Maintaining the appearance of harmless eccentrics is not always within their power – especially given their propensity for causing loud explosions when things get too quiet.

Meet the disaster-magnets of St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research as they ricochet around History. Their aim is to observe and document – to try and find the answers to many of History’s unanswered questions…and not to die in the process. But one wrong move and History will fight back – to the death. And, as they soon discover – it’s not just History they’re fighting.

Follow the catastrophe curve from 11th-century London to World War I, and from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria. For wherever Historians go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake….

CONTENT WARNING This book contains scenes of indecent exposure, attempted rape and discussion of the loss of a child. If you are not comfortable reading about these aspects this may not be the book for you.

The word romp was invented for this book as that is exactly what it is. I adore the concept of this series and this was a great intro into the world. Time travel can be such a tricky concept but it really works here.

We follow the POV of Maxwell, a rather scatter brained Historian who after feeling lost most of her life joins the ranks of St Mary’s Institute for historical research, which studies historical events in contemporary time – they don’t like the words Time Travel. The title describes it perfectly as it is one mini adventure after another. Just as you are recovering form one incident you are thrown headlong into the next and the pace doesn’t really let up. We get everything from Maxwell’s training, forming friendships, loosing friendships, various missions, successes and failures. I can see why this can make this quiet a decisive book. One complaint of mine is we never seem to spend very much time in each historical event that Maxwell visits. The furious pace also made getting to know characters a little difficult but I found these aspects easy to overlook as I was swept along with what was happening.

I was just fully engrossed in the story. It was a lot of fun, filled with sarky humour which I am always drawn to. It was just so easy to read, the use of language was excellent. It was truly like binge watching an awesome yet little bit cheese sci-fi TV show. Think Dr Who and The Librarians mixed into one, with a bit of a darker side. I enjoy those TV shows and enjoyed this book just as much. I dived straight into the second in the series.