A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor
Review by Cyndi J. (cyndij)
A SECOND CHANCE is third in the Chronicles of St Mary’s, all about time-traveling historians. You should start at the beginning – read my previous reviews of JUST ONE DAMNED THING AFTER ANOTHER and A SYMPHONY OF ECHOES. The tone is shifting away from amusement; there’s more than one dark episode here although we still have some funny scenes as well as nice snarky dialogue.
As in the last book, the story proper begins with a trip into the past that’s supposed to be an easy in-and-out, but turns into a hair-raising life or death experience, but this is just an appetizer.
It’s off to Troy, the bit of history that Max has long dreamed of watching. We know we’re going there thanks to the unnecessary prologue Taylor inserted (I don’t like them- others will disagree I’m sure). Troy will take up the better part of this story, what with the intial reconnoiter and then the team spending quite a while observing daily life. The pacing is a little slower than I’ve seen in the other two books; Taylor spends a while settling the team into Troy and describing the setting. That’s fine, it gives us a chance to catch our breath and anticipate the chaos we know is coming. I quite liked the explanation of the Trojan Horse and how it was that Troy became so vulnerable.
However, now we come to a couple really big surprising events. As a reader, I know there are many books left in the series, and with a good chunk of this book left to go, I had theories on where Taylor would go with it/them. I wasn’t right this time
After Troy it’s off to Agincourt. I remembered it from Henry V’s speech in Shakespeare’s play, but that’s all, and was curious enough to look up the real story. Just as in Troy, it’s got some grim scenes in it and ends in a startling way. I really was not expecting that either.
In the first book we’re shown that History will not tolerate changes. If you do something to alter the past, History (and if you’ve read the previous books, you know who that is) will drop a rock on you or something equivalent in order to keep the timeline pure. But that turned out to have some wiggle room, and now Taylor rips off the cover and throws it away. We are firmly into alternate timelines and anything can happen. I am still on the fence about the two Muses, though, they are a bit too much deus ex machina for my liking.
As I mentioned, this book has less amusement factor than the first couple, but wow she really threw in some twists. I’m definitely intrigued to see what happens next. Taylor hasn’t really succeeded in getting me emotionally attached to the characters, even the main ones, but no matter, I’d still like to know how (or if) she’s going to resolve Max’s current problem. I hate spoiling plots for myself, so I won’t look ahead. Number 4, A TRAIL THROUGH TIME, is now on my reading list.
