Chronicles of St Mary's
12 primary works • 30 total works
Book 1
“History is just one damned thing after another” - Arnold Toynbee
A madcap new slant on history that seems to be everyone's cup of tea...
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 eleventh-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 ...
Book 1.5
Ever wondered how it all began?
It's two years since the final victory at the Battersea Barricades. The fighting might be finished, but for Dr Bairstow, just now setting up St Mary's, the struggle is only beginning.
How will he assemble his team? From where will his funding come? How can he overcome the massed ranks of the Society for the Protection of Historical Buildings?
How do stolen furniture, a practical demonstration at the Stirrup Charge at Waterloo, students' alcohol-ridden urine, a widowed urban guerrilla, a young man wearing exciting knitwear, and four naked security guards all combine to become the St Mary's of the future?
Book 2
Book Two in the madcap time-travel series based at the St Mary's Institute of Historical Research that seems to be everyone's cup of tea.
In the second book in the Chronicles of St Mary's series, Max and the team visit Victorian London in search of Jack the Ripper, withess the murder of Archbishop Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, and discover that dodos make a grockling noise when eating cucumber sandwiches.
But they must also confront an enemy intent on destroying St Mary's - an enemy willing, if necessary, to destroy History itself to do it.
Book 2.5
It's Christmas Day 1066 and a team from St Mary's is going to witness the coronation of William the Conqueror.
Or so they think.
However, History seems to have different plans for them and when Max finds herself delivering a child in a peasant's hut, she can't help wondering what History is up to.
Book 3
St Mary's is back and nothing is going right for Max. Once again, it's just one damned thing after another.
The action jumps from an encounter with a mirror-stealing Isaac Newton to the bloody battlefield at Agincourt. Discover how a simple fact-finding assignment to witness the ancient and murderous cheese- rolling ceremony in Gloucester can result in CBC - concussion by cheese. The long awaited jump to Bronze Age Troy ends in personal catastrophe for Max and just when it seems things couldn't get any worse - it's back to the Cretaceous Period again to confront an old enemy who has nothing to lose.
So, make the tea, grab the chocolate biscuits, settle back and discover exactly why the entire history department has painted itself blue ...
Book 3.5
Another rollicking short story from the Chronicles of St Mary’s.
Question: What sort of idiot installs his mistress in his wife’s house? Especially when that mistress is Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator, Queen of Egypt and the most notorious woman of her time?
Answer: Julius Caesar – poised to become King of Rome. Or as good as.
Question: At this potentially sensitive point in your political manoeuvrings, who are the last people you’d want crashing through the door, observing, recording, documenting …?
I think we all know the answer to that one.
Roman Holiday – an epic, stand alone tale set in Ancient Rome, 44 BC, featuring, in no particular order: an attempted murder, stampeding bullocks, Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, a bowl of poisonous snakes, a smallish riot, Julius Caesar, and Mr Markham’s wayward bosoms.
Book 4
Book 4.5
It's Christmas Eve at St Mary's,
And all through the house,
Nothing is stirring ...
Except for Max, Peterson, and Markham, sneaking out at midnight for an assignment that is very definitely off the books.
It's ten years ago tonight that Senior Historians Bashford and Grey went missing in twelfth-century Jerusalem. So how did they end up in AD60 Roman Colchester?
Max has a theory. Peterson has a plan. Markham has bacon sandwiches. Colchester has Boudicca and her bloodthirsty Iceni hordes.
And then there's the giant pig ... the enraged giant pig ...
Book 5
A Fete Worse Than Death
The St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research has finally recovered from its wounds and it’s business as usual for those rascals in the History Department.
From being trapped in the Great Fire of London to an unfortunately timed comfort break at Thermopylae, which leaves the fate of the western world hanging in the balance, Max must struggle to get History back on track.
But first, they must get through the St Mary’s Fete – which is sure to end badly for everyone.
Only one thing is certain, life at St Mary’s is never dull!
Book 6
What if the course of history was on your shoulders?
`To do what I do - go where I go - see what I see - it's a wonderful, unique, never-to-be-taken-for-granted privilege.'
With great privilege comes great responsibility, something Max knows only too well, and as newly appointed Chief Training Officer at the St Mary's Institute of Historical Research, it's up to her to drum this guiding principle into her five new recruits.
With a training programme that includes Joan of Arc, an illegal mammoth, a duplicitous Father of History, a bombed rat, Stone Age hunters and Dick the Turd, the question everyone is asking themselves is - what could possibly go wrong?
Book 6.5
It's Christmas again at St Mary's and time for Max's obligatory illegal jump. On this occasion, however, they're right up against it.
A loaded gun has been left behind in Ancient Egypt and it's up to St Mary's historians to retrieve it before someone accidentally blows their own head off, thus affecting the timeline for centuries to come.
And as if that's not enough, Max has inadvertently poisoned Mr Markham.
It's hot, they're running out of supplies, they can't find the gun, and it's all going horribly wrong. Again.
Book 7
Rules are meant to be broken, aren’t they?
`I’ve done some stupid things in my time. I’ve been reckless. I’ve broken a few rules. But never before have I ruined so many lives or left such a trail of destruction behind me.’
Max has never been one for rules. They tend to happen to other people.
But this time she’s gone too far. And everyone at St Mary’s is paying the price.
With the History Department disintegrating around her and grounded until the end of time, how can she ever put things right?
Book 7.5
Everyone deserves to get away for a bit. Even the miscreants at St Mary's.
Astonishingly, Dr Bairstow has declared a holiday. Even more astonishingly - he's paying for it.
Needless to say, there are strings attached. The trip is to record the 1601 performance of Hamlet, with Shakespeare himself in the role of the Ghost.
It doesn't go well, of course. With Dr Bairstow and Mrs Mack turning a simple visit to a street market into a public brawl, Professor Rapson inadvertently stowing away on a vessel bound for the New World, and Shakespeare himself going up in flames, it would seem that Max, of all people, is the only one actually completing the assignment.
Book 7.6
Like a smaller and much scruffier Greta Garbo - finally - Markham speaks!
It's Christmas and time for the first (and almost certainly last) St Mary's Annual Children's Christmas Party - attendance compulsory, by order of Dr Bairstow. Discovered practising his illegal reindeer dance and poo-dropping routine, our hero, along with fellow disaster-magnets Peterson and Maxwell, is despatched to Anglo-Saxon England to discover the truth about Alfred and the cakes.
In his own words, our hero reveals Major Guthrie's six-point guide to a successful assignment and the Security Section's true opinion of the History Department. And of historians in general. And of one historian in particular.
And, just to be clear, it is time travel, for God's sake. Forget all that pretentious `investigating major historical events in contemporary time' rubbish.
This is history without the capital `H'. Because this is the way the Security Section rolls!
Book 8
The eighth book in the bestselling Chronicles of St Mary's series which follows a group of tea-soaked disaster magnets as they hurtle their way around History. If you love Jasper Fforde or Ben Aaronovitch, you won't be able to resist Jodi Taylor.
Because, my dear Max, you dance on the edge of darkness ... and I don't think it would take very much for you to dance my way.
When an old enemy appears out of nowhere with an astonishing proposition for Max - a proposition that could change everything Max is tempted. Very tempted.
With an end to an old conflict finally in sight, it looks as if St Mary's problems are over with. Can they all now live happily ever after?
As everything hangs in the balance, Max and St Mary's find themselves engulfed in tragedies worse than they could ever imagine.
Is this the end?
Readers love Jodi Taylor:
'Once in a while, I discover an author who changes everything... Jodi Taylor and her protagonista Madeleine "Max" Maxwell have seduced me'
'A great mix of British proper-ness and humour with a large dollop of historical fun'
'Addictive. I wish St Mary's was real and I was a part of it'
'Jodi Taylor has an imagination that gets me completely hooked'
'A tour de force'
Book 8.5
You don’t have to travel through time to experience catastrophe on an epic scale, as the disaster-magnets from St Mary’s are about to find out…
For Max, what starts off as a perfectly normal week is about to degenerate into a quagmire of egotistical film producers, monumental pub crawls, unsigned contracts, exploding rocks, Professor Rapson and his megaphone, the world’s biggest bacon butty – and Angus – the third component of the most notorious love triangle since Menelaus, Paris and Whatshername – the one with the face they launched ships off.
A Perfect Storm of calamity, devastation and misfortune only ever encountered at St Mary’s.
Book 9
They say you shouldn’t push your luck. Max gives her own luck a massive shove every day – and it’s only a matter of time until luck pushes back…
January 1536 – the day of Henry VIII’s infamous jousting accident. Historians from St Mary’s are there in force, recording and documenting. And, arguing -obviously.
A chance meeting between Max and the Time Police leads to a plan of action. And, it’s one that will have very serious consequences – especially for Max. Her private life is already more than a little rocky. But with Leon recovering and Matthew safe in the future there will never be a better opportunity to bring down Clive Ronan, once and for all.
From Tudor England to the burning city of Persepolis - and from a medieval siege to a very nasty case of 19th century incarceration - Max is determined that this time, he will not escape.
Book 9.6
Here's a question for you. What's the most exciting thing ever found in a fire bucket? And don't say 'fire' because you'll be wrong.
Suppose - just suppose - it was the technology to take a pod to Mars? Yeah, now we're talking!
Every Christmas, for reasons which seem good at the time - especially after an eggnog or two - Max and the others leap into the nearest pod and indulge in their illegal Christmas jump. It's a tradition. This year, however, just to be different, they find themselves part of someone else's illegal Christmas jump. It's time to don a spacesuit and bring your own urine!
Book 9.6
A St Mary's Chronicles Short Story
Not one to let being banged up in Sick Bay stop her, Max has had a brilliant idea. But she needs Markham to execute it on her behalf. The subject of this cunning plan is Peterson, struggling with another bereavement and not doing very well. What’s needed to get him through it is sympathy, sensitivity, tact and understanding.
Step forward Mr Markham, for whom sympathy, sensitivity, etc., are things that happen to other people.
Combine a fanatic from R&D, a head of Security with his own problems, a steam-pump, two historians who can’t even be in the same room as each other, some fractious Protestants and a large body of very dirty water.
Told in Markham’s own words, this is the story of an intervention – St Mary’s style.
Book 10
The tenth book in the bestselling Chronicles of St Mary's series which follows a group of tea-soaked disaster magnets as they hurtle their way around History. If you love Jasper Fforde, Ben Aaronovitch or Doctor Who, you won't be able to resist Jodi Taylor.
'Jodi Taylor does it again. A brilliant yomp through history' - Reader Review
You can't change History. History doesn't like it. There are always consequences.
Max is no stranger to taking matters into her own hands. Especially when she's had A Brilliant Idea. Yes, it will mean breaking a few rules, but - as Max always says - they're not her rules.
Seconded to the Time Police to join in the hunt for the renegade Clive Ronan, Max is a long way from St Mary's. But life in the future does have its plus points - although not for long.
A problem with the Time Map reveals chaos in the 16th century and the wrong Tudor queen on the throne. History has gone rogue, there's a St Mary's team right in the firing line and Max must step up.
You know what they say. Hope for the best. But plan for the worst.
Readers love Jodi Taylor:
'Once in a while, I discover an author who changes everything... Jodi Taylor and her protagonista Madeleine "Max" Maxwell have seduced me'
'A great mix of British proper-ness and humour with a large dollop of historical fun'
'Addictive. I wish St Mary's was real and I was a part of it'
'Jodi Taylor has an imagination that gets me completely hooked'
'A tour de force'