Welcome to St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research, where history is explored in a very real way. But don’t mention time travel, they don’t like that. Dr Maxwell is our guide to this eccentric world where she is put through her paces to become a qualified historian before being able to go on real ‘jumps’, travelling to different events in history to find out what really happened. Shrouded in mystery, the real activities of St. Mary’s are obscured, but everyone knows them for their constant mishaps while they experiment. The historians have a high attrition rate, and it becomes abundantly clear why from the very first mission the new cohort of historians go on. Even if they manage to survive, all jumps end with a trip to the sick bay. As numbers dwindle Max is forced to rely on her partner Sussman, an unpopular character with the rest of the crew. When they are sent on the biggest mission yet, three months in the Cretaceous period, she has to put her faith in him completely.
The staff at St. Mary’s are quirky and mostly friendly, always up for a challenge, and easily distracted. Living and working together, it’s only natural that romances emerge, making the loses all the harder to bear. Max and a colleague fall hard for each other, and when they finally let their feelings free it is explosive. All these feelings inevitably lead to jealousies and competition, and some certainly hold a grudge. It was slightly unexpected to find a romance you really get behind in this light-hearted historical fantasy, but Taylor pulls it off smoothly.
The time travel happens via pods which transport them back in time, always hoping they don’t land at the bottom of the ocean or in the middle of a mountain. They are incredibly careful not to leave any trace, any signs of modernity, or to bring back anything not from their own time. This means they spend a lot of time documenting what they find. The adventures keep coming as Max whizzes through the twentieth century, ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, and the Cretaceous period. As soon as one peril is survived we’re on to the next. They’re not all completely disparate events though, an overarching story emerges as we begin to understand the very real threat to St. Mary’s, and history as we know it. Each jump tells us a little more about the other characters, giving us clues as to who Max can trust and who she definitely shouldn’t.
This is a hugely fun read that I devoured quickly. Taylor manages to mix light hearted comedy and farcical situations with emotional depth, peril, and gender dynamics. It has a little bit for every taste. You might have questions about the time travel but we’re encouraged not to probe. History itself has agency and tries to prevent actions by the historians where they might interfere with the natural course of events, a fact that seems to be forgotten in some of the later activities. The final mission felt a little superfluous, the book could easily have ended a plot point earlier, but I imagine it went some way in setting up the following books in the series. Overall a great read with headstrong, likeable characters whose stories leave plenty open for more exploration in later books.
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