Review – And the Rest is History

From Goodreads: No one knows quite how, but Max and her baby are safe at last.

No one knows quite how, but Peterson has persuaded Dr Foster to marry him.

No one knows quite how, but Markham’s marital status remains unknown.

Certainly no one knows quite how a twelve-foot-high teapot could mysteriously materialise on the South Lawn, but it does.

But they do know that Clive Ronan is back.

They do know that he hates them and that this time he has good cause. And they do know that he will bring death and destruction in his wake.

Follow the disaster magnets of St Mary’s from the Egyptian desert to the Battle of Stamford Bridge, from Hastings to the Sack of Constantinople, and from tragedy to triumph and back again, in this, the eighth book in The Chronicles of St Mary’s.

This one broke me, in the best possible way. It was completely brutal from the start pulling the lives of the characters apart from the get go. If you haven’t read the Chronicles of St Mary’s I will say the books are definitely not standalone and you will need to read the series to understand what is going on, the events of the short stories also play there parts too. If you are caught up I will say book 8 is a lot less episodic in feel than previous books. We are a lot more intently focused on Max and her home life that her jaunts through history. While the adventures through history still occur they are not the main focus of the action like in other books. As it is so focused on the emotion of Max and her colleagues it makes the events of this book so much more impactful. It had me gasping in surprise, crying in grief and clutching the book intensely not able to look away until I knew everything would be ok.

The change from the more episodic feel also seemed to slow the place from breakneck to a brisk canter and I do think that was really welcome in the events of this book as I found it really held me on the knife edge between accepting and carrying on and hope it will be ok. The whole book just highlights grief in all its many fashions and how different people deal with it in all their many ways. I did miss the jaunts through history. We only focus on two (yes only two) time periods in the book and while again they are fully flashed out with all the relevant history I did miss the hurtling about and the disasters they all manage to get them selves into just a bit. One exciting thing is the more futuristic elements and the start of explaining the world the contemporary St Mary’s is housed in has started to trickle into the main story and I am really interested in seeing how all that came together and learning more about the contemporary world of St Mary’s. Also the Time police are becoming more of a feature so I can start diving into the spin off series soon too!

Overall this was just a fantastic book, probably one of the best in this series and I can’t wait to read more (hopefully a bit more happier).