Hope for the Best (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #10)

Someone seriously got their painties in a twist because two Dodo birds (a breeding pair no less) were named Donald and Hillary!!! Yes one of the birds got killed but we didn’t know at the time if it was Donald or Hillary. Only later did we found out that Donald (or Hillary) had laid an egg. I can’t imagine that the author had any other intention than picking two funny names for a couple of Dodos. How appropriate are those names. :’)) Nor do I believe she meant anything political with having had “Donald the Dodo” come to a sad end. Come on…SOME people really need to get a grip on their sensitivities. I found the names funny but I was sad that a Dodo died.

All in all, the book is funny and the author makes fun of all kinds of nationalities and historical figures. Tell me, why should we in the US be exempt? 😉

These books are a crack up for me. You would think by book 10 with some many short stories in-between that Id start getting bored with them, but youd be wrong, wrong, wrong. Every time Im with the crew at St. Marys I have the best time. Ive grown to love all the characters and their quirks like they are family. Max is so much fun and even in a crisis she can see the bright side and get a laugh or two out of me.

With trips to the crustaceous period, the 16th Century, the land of Kush (Egypt adjacent), the future with the Time Police and a St. Marys of the future as well there is something to always be entertained by. I usually learn something about a historical time Im not familiar with in a very fun and interesting way. That is one great thing about these stories. But the other is just hanging out with Max and all the trouble she is bound to get into.

The other beautiful thing is Max and Leon together. I love that they are like a real couple and have some problems at times and a real kind of marriage with real difficulties. Like Leon was hurt extremely badly in a prior book and is having some trouble in the bedroom. I like how this has been handled in the series and that it never changed the love and devotion that the two characters feel towards each other.

***Theres a kind of literary tradition that after a prolonged absence, the hero and heroine fall romantically into each others arms and indulge in three pages of athletic sex gruelling for both reader and participants alike. You might want to brace yourself for disappointment. Firstly, because Leon hadnt been well for some time which meant . . . well, you know. And secondly because Markham jammed a gun in the back of my neck and tried to shoot me. Some days I dont know why I bother to get out of bed. ***

Roland is out in the word causing havoc and Matthew, Max and Leons son is living in the future with the time police for his protection at the moment. Max has a brilliant plan to finally get Roland out of their lives and of course it is dangerous and has a ton of moving parts and involves a really shady sex club owner, the time police and a trip to the Crustaceous period with dinosaurs so what could possibly go wrong. There are also Dodos as a cherry on top. How many books have you read with a sex club and Dodos?

*** You will want to be careful what you leave within beaking range. Hillary, they tell me, is particularly fond of hard-boiled eggs.
Isnt that like some form of cannibalism for them?
She nodded. Eating ones young.
Eating ones young is a hugely underestimated weapon in the parental arsenal. ***

The humor in this is fantastic as always and I devoured it in like a day. Max and her sense of humor is fantastic and I always love the dialogue in every story. Especially when she is talking to the bad guys.

***Let us all think carefully. Who here has the least value? Who has annoyed me the most? He turned to face me. Who is in need of a much-deserved lesson?
No idea, I said.
Oh, I think you do.
Well, yes, I do, but I thought it would be rude to point out its you. Not in front of your men. Although it would be good to stop you talking before everyone dies of boredom. ***

Time travel books usually dont work for me, but the rules of this world and how it is set up totally works and I really love the world we are in. The episodic nature of some of the trips within the book is usually fun and then there are the overlaying story arcs that carry from book to book that almost always win in my opinion.

Jodi Taylor has put out another fantastic look into the crazy lives of the Historians of St. Marys and I cant wait for the next adventure for Max and crew. Also I want to say how much I love the character summaries in the beginning of the book of all the characters that we are going to see in this book. It is a fantastic way to know what we should remember from the last books and they in themselves are witty, smart and usually pretty funny. I read them both before I started and after I finished and I bow down to Jodi Taylors writing in them. Well done again.

I enjoyed this new adventure in the St. Mary’s series. The disaster magnets are in fine form, and we get to poke lots of fun at the Time Police (how JT is going to win readers over with a TP series of their own I don’t know), Max gets to revisit the Cretaceous Period, always entertaining for readers if not for Max, and at least one dangling thread that has bothered readers gets resolved … but not until right up to the very end. Keep your hanky handy for that one. But not all St. Mary’s problems get a solution, and thus I think I see where JT might be going with the spin off series.

And fair warning to my fellow Americans … JT enjoys poking fun at us, so if you are especially sensitive, this is not the book for you. Personally, I get a nice giggle out of it.

I am in awe of Jodi Taylor’s talent.

This is a funny, action-packed, thrilling roller-coaster ride of a book. You’ll laugh, you’ll feel righteous indignation, you’ll fear for Max, you’ll come to respect Dr. Bairstow even more than you did before, you’ll–oh, just buy this book, already.

Seriously, I think this is one of the best things that Jodi Taylor has ever produced.

I eagerly await more of Max’s adventures–and some excellent fill-in-the-gaps short stories–that will hopefully be forthcoming.

And, of course, I am eagerly awaiting the new Time Police series, which I hope will soon be available for pre-order on Amazon US.

Buy this book. Read it. Cherish it. You won’t regret it.

I’m a super-duper St. Mary’s fan, and predicted this “write a Time Police story” several books ago. I don’t think this was a bad effort, and I read it through twice, but it made me realize how much I enjoyed the “observing History” aspects of the past stories, and that these more conventional story lines (time police enforcement, alternate timelines, speculations about the future) aren’t really as satisfying, at least to me. It’s certainly true that the plot here is the most elaborate and complex yet, and it’s good to see two old characters from the past return, but somehow I didn’t get caught up into things the way I normally do. If it’s hard to think of new Max stories, I might be time to focus on the younger characters (I’m thinking North and Sykes buddying up after some arduous story, perhaps). The Time Police idea, as a main plot vehicle, leaves me cold.

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