just one damned thing after another series in order

There’s quite a wonderful love story with some delightful chemistry, a great narrative voice, a ‘found family’ tale which hits all the right buttons for me, and a very British turn of phrase and pace that I really enjoy. What this book gives me is a fantastic ensemble cast, absolute chaos filled with some delightful banter. Plot-wise, the story is quite light, but that absolutely doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned. And by problem, it means any interfering historian. The line is strictly observation – no interaction, no interference – because if you change history, history will do its best to remove the problem. In fact, they run a line in time travel, heading back to specific incidents and observing how they really played out, reporting back on perceived inaccuracies, and allowing the University to take the credit. The story opens with Max, a doctor of history, being recruited by St Mary’s, a sub-campus of the fictional University of Thirsk, specialising in historical recreation and archaeology. It’s like someone trawled through my brain and then translated it into a book perfectly designed to tip my dopamine receptors. Pitched for fans of Jasper Fforde (yes) and Ben Aaronovitch (yes), these are science fantasy comedy books (yes) set in North Yorkshire (yes), about a team of eccentric academics who have found a place to make the most of their skills, but have somehow developed into a society that seems more than a little odd to the average outside (yes). Perhaps the most baffling thing to me is that I hadn’t heard of these books sooner. And she soon discovers it’s not just History she’s fighting… When Madeleine Maxwell is recruited by the St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research, she discovers the historians there don’t just study the past – they revisit it.īut one wrong move and History will fight back – to the death.

‘So tell me, Dr Maxwell, if the whole of History lay before you … where would you go? What would you like to witness?’

Just one damned thing after another series in order