Tag Archives: Night Shade Books

When the Echoes Symphonize

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a-symphony-of-echoesA Symphony of Echoes
Jodi Taylor
Night Shade Books
Hardcover $24.95
Trade Paper $12.99
Ebook $3.99

I’d like to thank Brianna Scharfenberg of Night Shade Books for not only providing me with the review copy but also introducing me to this series. It’s become one of my favorites.

A Symphony of Echoes takes up pretty soon after the ending of Just One Damned Thing After Another (reviewed here).

Things haven’t slowed down.  Early in the book, Madeline Maxwell and her associates end up going to the future to save St. Mary’s from an attack.  This is highly irregular, and by highly irregular, I mean Not Done At All.  You never go to the future.  Too many risks.

But these are unusual times, no pun intended.  Max ends up being the director for a while.  I’m not sure how far in the future they go.  It doesn’t seem to be too far, but none of the people there are members of Max’s version of St. Mary’s except Mrs. Partridge, the assistant to the director.  The implication is that they are all dead. Continue reading →

Just One Damned Thing After Another

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Just One Damned Thing After AnotherJust One Damned Thing After Another
Jodi Taylor
Night Shade Books
Trade Paperback $12.99
Ebook $3.99

I’d like to thank Brianna Scharfenberg at Night Shade Books for sending me the review copy of Just One Damned Thing After Another.  This is one of the most refreshing books I’ve read in a long time.  It’s a rare book that can make me laugh out loud (more than once) and a few chapters later nearly make me cry.

If you’re a fan of time travel, or if you’re a fan of madcap British comedies, or better yet if you’re a fan of both, then you’ll want to check out The Chronicles of St. Mary’s, of which Just One Damned Thing After Another is the first volume.  It goes on sale in the US today (June 7).  The title is from a quote by Arnold Toynbee. Continue reading →

Weighing Shadows Through Time

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Weighing ShadowsWeighing Shadows
Lisa Goldstein
Night Shade Books, 318 pgs.
Trade paper $15.99
ebook $15.99

One of my favorite subgenres of science fiction is time travel, so when Night Shade Books sent me a review copy of Weighing Shadows, I was looking forward to reading the book.  (Thank you, Brianna Scharfenberg, for sending the review copy.)  I wasn’t the target audience for the book, it turned out, but it’s still a well-written novel that will find an audience.

Ann Decker is working in a deadend job in a computer shop when a mysterious woman recruits her for a new job at a company called Transformations Incorporated.  At first Ann doesn’t know much about the job, but since she hates working in the computer shop, she takes it.

It turns out that Transformations Incorporated is based in the future and specializes in time travel.  They’re trying to improve things in their time period by manipulating events in the past.  It’s not long before Ann is approached a resistance group within Transformations Incorporated. The bulk of the novel concerns Ann’s struggles with deciding where her loyalties lie, although it’s not hard to see what her final conclusion will be.  The number of times a person can travel in time is limited, so the missions operatives are sent on are chosen carefully.  Ann’s first mission is to ancient Crete, her second to the Library of Alexandria, and the third to France in the Middle Ages. Continue reading →