A Trail Through Time: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book Four (original 2013; edition 2016)

by Jodi Taylor (Author)

Series: The Chronicles of St Mary's (4), The Chronicles of St Mary's {Chronological Order} (4)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
599	30	39,362	(4.17)	107
Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. Historical Fiction. St Mary's is back and is facing a battle to survive in this, the fourth instalment of the Chronicles. Max and Leon are re-united and looking forward to a peaceful lifetime together. But, sadly, they don't even make it to lunchtime. The action races from 17th century London to Ancient Egypt and from Pompeii to 14th century Southwark as they're pursued up and down the timeline, playing a perilous game of hide and seek until they're finally forced to take refuge at St Mary's �?? where new dangers await them. As usual, there are plenty of moments of humour, but the final, desperate, Battle of St Mary's is in grim earnest. Overwhelmed and outnumbered and with the building crashing down around them, how can St Mary's possibly survive? So, make sure the tea's good and strong… (more)

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Member:	davidabrams
Title:	A Trail Through Time: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book Four
Authors:	Jodi Taylor (Author)
Info:	Night Shade Books (2016), 348 pages
Collections:	Your library
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A Trail Through Time by Jodi Taylor (2013)

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Showing 1-5 of 29 (next | show all)

The fourth volume of The Chronicles of St. Mary's is rather dark. Like the previous books, the characters travel to various time periods and historical events. These jaunts are still narrated with a liberal dose of humor and snark. Ms. Taylor does her usual good job of spinning the tale. But this time, Max is not leading teams of historians to research the past. Instead she's on the run from the bad guys, which makes for a lot more pain and bloodshed. Philosophically, I can appreciate the reframing of a typical St. Mary's novel. But, alas, it wasn't as fun to read.
--J. (

)

Hamburgerclan | Feb 5, 2024 |

Book 4 of the Chronicles of St Mary's in which our hero and heroine are reunited but plunged back into action before even getting breakfast. The Time Police are getting stroppy and it is St Mary's job to put everything to rights.
This was more fun than book 3 but less emotionally satisfying.

library book read 8/21/2023 (

)

catseyegreen | Aug 21, 2023 |

"'Getting things done at St. Mary's is a bit like elephants mating,' explained Peterson. A remark that cause some mystification.
'You know - there's frantic activity at high level. There's screaming and stamping. A lot of dust is raised. Nothing happens for two years and then you're crushed by the result.'"

I love these books. They are an adventure and they also make me remember how much I love history and they have me googling all kinds of obscure dates and factoids in the past. Brilliant. (

)

beentsy | Aug 12, 2023 |

Book 4 of the series, this may be the best yet. But when I started it I was so disappointed. Book 3 ended with what felt like a deus ex machina, and this book started with chases and emergency jumps through time to escape the mysterious Time Police. I hate car chases in movies—they bore me to no end. I was afraid this entire book was exactly that—a long car chase. But it turned out the author was far more clever than I gave her credit for by ending book 3 the way she did and how the events in that book mattered so much to this book. A smart move! As always, full of historical stories, action, adventure, near death and death, sci fi moments, and sexy moments, tears, and laughter, a little dystopia thrown in—this series has it all. Quite a fantastic book. Whatever you do, don’t read them out of order. (

)

KarenMonsen | May 23, 2023 |

Neutral: Totally not where I thought this series might be going.
Positive: Totally not where I thought this series might be going.
Positive?!: That. Trope.

There's a certain writer's cheat, a trope in time travel stories that shows up from time to time that I really hate, effectively structuring in a no-price/it-was-just-a-dream equivalent. This is the first time I've seen that trope properly subverted, and it was bloody well done.

So, 100 ticky boxes against, and this on novel with a ticky box for, "Damn, that was some fine structure and investment there."

In less cantankerous assessment, across this whole series I've been enjoying the means-and-methods subset of, "How do we do stuff without modern stuff?" This novel may just be my high point for, "That sideline was insane/excellent." (

)

wetdryvac | Mar 2, 2021 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Jodi Taylor	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Ramm, Zara	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Series

The Chronicles of St Mary's (4)

The Chronicles of St Mary's {Chronological Order} (4)

Is contained in

A Symphony of Echoes | A Trail Through Time | A Second Chance | What Could Possibly Go Wrong? by Jodi Taylor

The Chronicles of St Mary's, Books 1-6 by Jodi Taylor

Chronicles of St. Mary's Series Jodi Taylor Collection 7 Books Bundle (No Time Like the Past, Just One Damned Thing After Another, A Second Chance, A Trail Through Time, A Symphony of Echoes.. by Jodi Taylor

The Chronicles of St. Mary's Series 10 Books Collection Set by Jodi Taylor (Hope for the Best, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, Second Chance, Symphony of Echoes & MORE) by Jodi Taylor

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Canonical title

A Trail Through Time

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

2014-07-24

People/Characters

Madeleine Maxwell (Chief Operations Officer)

Leon Farrell (Chief Technical Officer)

Edward Bairstow (Director, St. Mary's Institute)

Important places

St. Mary's Institute, England, UK

Important events

Vesuvius eruption, 79-08-24 AD

Related movies

Epigraph

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all the staff -- past and present -- of North Yorkshire Library Service. Thank you for your patience and your friendship during all those long dark years of fear and toil.

First words

And once again, I was running.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Original language

English UK

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

▾References

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Wikipedia in English

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▾Book descriptions

Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. Historical Fiction. St Mary's is back and is facing a battle to survive in this, the fourth instalment of the Chronicles. Max and Leon are re-united and looking forward to a peaceful lifetime together. But, sadly, they don't even make it to lunchtime. The action races from 17th century London to Ancient Egypt and from Pompeii to 14th century Southwark as they're pursued up and down the timeline, playing a perilous game of hide and seek until they're finally forced to take refuge at St Mary's �?? where new dangers await them. As usual, there are plenty of moments of humour, but the final, desperate, Battle of St Mary's is in grim earnest. Overwhelmed and outnumbered and with the building crashing down around them, how can St Mary's possibly survive? So, make sure the tea's good and strong

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Haiku summary

Pursued by the Time
Police, Maxwell and Leon
bounce through history.
(passion4reading)