Nikki

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Nikki is Currently Reading

Nikki is currently reading

The Reformatory

by Tananarive Due (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading, mystery-thriller

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Jun 23, 2026 11:25AM

Nikki is currently reading

A Symphony of Echoes (The Chronicles of St Mary's, #2)

by Jodi Taylor (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading, fantasy-sci-fi

Reading for the 2nd time

read in June 2019

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Nikki said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

" The second book in The Chronicles of St. Mary's, an organization dedicated to traveling back in time and observing history in the making.

Overall, I liked this book. It's been quite a bit since I read the first one and there were some carry-over plot The second book in The Chronicles of St. Mary's, an organization dedicated to traveling back in time and observing history in the making.

Overall, I liked this book. It's been quite a bit since I read the first one and there were some carry-over plot points I had forgotten about so I may go back and reread the first one so I can remember.

The plot is kind of choppy. I feel like there were so many elements shoved into this book. The Jack the Ripper subplot at the beginning I felt really didn't belong. There was the element of danger at the beginning as Max and Kal are stalked through a foggy London night by Jack, and the subsequent arrival back at St. Mary's only to discover that Jack was some sort of -- monster? Alien? Uber-human? -- that had managed to hide a bit of himself in the pod, despite all of the pod's protections against this. Max and Kal fight Monster Jack in the pod without the help of the rest of the security team because the pod has been contaminated but they prevail in the end. Not without injuries, but at least he's dead. And that's why Mary Kelly was Jack's last victim and then he suddenly disappeared...

I didn't really get why this was part of the story. Just another madcap adventure of the historians? I felt like this could have been stricken from the story and it wouldn't have made a difference. In fact, remove this and use the space for the two main plots: the attack on Future St. Mary's and the team's journey to 16th century Scotland to restore the timeline destroyed by the overarching villain, Clive Ronan.

Future St. Mary's has been attacked by Ronan and his cronies, looking for specific coordinates. Current St. Mary's learns of this and sends Max, Peterson, and company into the future to help them pick up the pieces and carry on. In the last book, in order to secure funding, they travel back and recover some lost Shakespeare sonnets (which are then buried under the front steps and "discovered" by the university that funds St. Mary's, in order for Future St. Mary's to get a share of the proceeds) and an unpublished play (which had been "discovered" the same way by Current St. Mary's). Research proceeds into finding more about this play.

After the events of Future St. Mary's, the Boss orders Max and Chief Farrell to a nearby "sanitarium" for much-needed R&R. Shit goes down between Max and Farrell, continuing their odd relationship - seriously, they need to work on their communication skills - and Max flees in anger, stealing Farrell's car, crashing it, and then driving it back to St. Mary's and driving it into the lake. Anger management, anyone?

During their stay they meet with Dr. Alexander Knox, the owner of The Red House. Max is immediately on her guard and doesn't trust Knox. It's later discovered that Knox is the missing director from Future St. Mary's, and in reality John Knox, leader of the Scottish Reformation in the 16th century. He was working with Ronan, and had met Ronan when he himself traveled back to 16th century Scotland, which ties into the next plot point.

It's discovered that this play has been altered, chronicling the death of Queen Elizabeth as a traitor and the reign of her sister Queen Mary in her place. The team realize the alteration and pinpoint where the timeline diverged: Mary did not marry the Earl of Bothwell, which in the correct timeline caused her downfall among her people and led to Elizabeth reigning as Queen instead. The team saddle up to travel to the 16th century to undo what Ronan has done. In their youth, the Boss - Bairstow - his love, Annie, and Ronan had traveled back in time. Annie got sick and ended up dying and there was a falling-out between Bairstow and Ronan. Bairstow traveled back to his present and founded St. Mary's. Ronan was trying to undo what happened to Annie, which, if he did, would completely undo the present as it was known and St. Mary's would cease to exist. In order to preserve the current timeline, what Ronan did in the past had to be corrected, but Ronan could not be harmed in any way as that, too, would undo current time. So the team has to directly intercede instead of merely observing.

There is a sense of danger in this: they have to directly influence events but if any of them make a mistake, that will change the future - their present. Of course, things go awry, but Max manages to coerce Mary into a bedroom where the Earl is present and history corrects itself. Guthrie is injured but they all make it back to the pods and back to St. Mary's in one piece. I liked this plot but I feel like it could have been fleshed out a bit more. Remove the Jack the Ripper subplot and add a bit more here. They're in 16th century Scotland - I would have loved a bit more description of the place, the town, the palace, the people. They're historians - their eyes should have been all over just taking it in. But it felt drab and uncolorful and uninspired.

I would give this book 2.75 stars: I liked the overall story but the plot felt clunky, and there really needed to be one more edit. There were so many instances of commas not being where they belonged, and the plot could have been tightened up a bit more. But since I can't do that here on Goodreads, 3 stars it is. This is definitely a light read, crazy, madcap, with little character development. But as long as you go into these books with that in mind, they're at least fun to read. ...more "

Jun 02, 2019 08:29AM · see review