Oh my.
A jaunt into the past by the St. Mary’s crew; a really nice close encounter with a major historic figure; chaos and calamity with a happy ending – it must be Christmas! Well, it was when it was released, and it was in the story, at least.
By now, the crew of St. Mary’s are dear old friends, and it’s tremendous to get inside Markham’s head for this go-round. (If Ms. Taylor ever gets bored, she could start from the beginning of the story and flip POV’s – Just One Damned Thing After Another through Dr Bairstow’s eyes, for example… Oo. That would be fun.
As this is fun. More fun than should be lawful. Chaotic, hilarious, moving, exciting – my lord, I love these books.
I was a little sad going into this because it wasn’t narrated by Ms. Taylor’s usual St. Mary’s narrator, Zara Ramm – but she’s Max, so that would be silly, so they got Piers Wehner. And … Someone, please, I’m begging you, find him many, many more books to read to me. I was going to say “books like this”, but nobody does it like Jodi Taylor, and Jodi Taylor mostly uses Max’s point of view, so he won’t have much work there – but this man needs more books that let him be funny. More books, period. He’s terrific. He was thoroughly in character, giving a little laugh here and there, putting in exactly the right pauses and inflections. Whoever is doing the casting for Jodi Taylor’s audiobooks must absolutely love her, because every single book has been nearly perfect at worst. Although I’ve got every one of Jodi Taylor’s books, I’ve never read a word she’s written, just because of this. And I’ve loved every word.
Stewartry 