Please excuse the bad photo! The sun was causing a shadow every which way!

Synopsis (as taken from the Amazon Kindle Store) is as follows:

At St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research, the historians don’t just study the past, they revisit it. Behind the strait-laced facade of a conventional academic institution, the secret of time travel is being used for ground-breaking and daring historical research taking the historians on a rollercoaster ride through history: from the destruction of Pompeii to the Normandy trenches; from the Great Fire of London to Bronze Age Troy and even to the time of dinosaurs…Meanwhile, within St Mary’s itself, there are power struggles and intrigues worthy of a book in themselves. In Book One, we follow new recruit Max as she rides the catastrophe curve from eleventh-century London to the First World War, and from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria. For wherever Historians go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake.

Ability to read – This book was one of the rare times where, as chaotic and confusing as it was, I had no trouble understanding it or making sense of what happened. I got this book, I got the story and I happily struggled through all the confusion it caused me.

Characterisation – Max is explosive in her actions and lack of actions. She is determined, brave, idiotic, proud, ambitious, manic and amazing. I mean, I didn’t think it was possible for a single character to go through as much as she did within this one book. I was for the most part assuming that the plot of this book takes place between 1-2 years so was very confused when it was mentioned that Max had been at St Mary’s for five years. The plot moved so quickly and was so confusing that it was hard to make sense of everything. I focused as much as I could on character interaction and the scenes visited and that became the basis of my navigation of the plot. In a crazy way, everything made complete sense to me.

Visualisation – For the most part, I could visualise everything very clearly. I was reading at a slower pace so that I would not confuse myself, and so, was able to take in more detail about the scenes and overall setting of the book.

Enjoyment – I finished reading with a smile on my face and the giddy feeling that this book became my 100th read this year, and thus, was the book to take me to my goal of 100 books in a year. I really enjoyed this book and I almost feel like I shouldn’t have just because it was so confusing and constantly jumping from one place to the next. It kind of reminded me of my own attention span. However, the complete chaotic confusion 100% worked with this book and as I read I became more amused, more interested and more curious. There is certainly a number of ways for the characters and the institute to go and it will be an interesting journey to discovery. I am full of questions which better be answered in the series of books or I’ll be really mad!!!

Star Rating – ★★★★★