Just One Damned Thing After Another

Authors note "I made all this up. Historians and physicists - please do not spit on me in the street." - Jodi Taylor

"History is just one damned thing after another." - Arnold Toynbee

Just One Damned Thing After Another is the first novel in The Chronicles of St Mary's Series. It tells the story of Madeleine Maxwell as she is just starting out at St Mary's and introduces the main characters and central themes.

Spoiler Plot Summary for Just One Damned Thing After Another (JODTAA):
 * Max's training as a historian
 * First jump: unknown time and unknown location for two weeks
 * Jump to 1040, London, with Peterson to see Westminister Abbey being built. Max steps forward to see a mugging, and History almost kills her; Peterson pees on her
 * Jump with Kalinda and Sussman in a casualty clearing centre in an old French chateau, the Somme, 1917, WWI
 * Leon telling her he's from the future and lost two children. Soon after gives her a small model of the Trojan horse
 * Her jump with Sussman in the Cretaceous, who tried to murder her
 * Jump to an island in the Mediterranean about 5,000 years ago with Leon. We find out Clive Ronan's story.
 * Production of Cretaceous holo for Thirsk, wrecking Dr. Bairstow's car while being extremely distracted
 * Jump with Dieter to Cretaceous, discovering Clive Ronan's taking tourists there to kill dinosaurs. Used emergency extraction to the physical detriment of Dieter and the pod.
 * Everybody jumps to the Cretaceous to stop Ronan, Izzy Barclay's unlocks the dinosaur cages instead of locking them so it became a bloodbath, then connives to abandon four guys (Leon, Markham, Peterson, and Guthrie) and get the boss, Dr. Bairstow, injured so she could take over.
 * Max gets fired without due notice, and is not allowed to take any possessions; she goes to Rushford, getting sick and miscarrying; suicide intentions are hinted at
 * Mrs. DeWinter steps in, giving her the Trojan horse, which they discover has a secret compartment and a remote control for Leon's pod, and subsequent rescue of guys. Max notices wreckage of a pod in the Cretaceous.
 * Leon finds out about the miscarriage, says unspeakable things to her, and she's attacked by Weasel on top of it. She and Peterson quit.


 * Max makes up with Leon.
 * Max figures out that you can move items from the past, if those items were going to be destroyed
 * Plans and jumps to the Library of Alexandria for scroll rescue. They move to scrolls to another location to seal and to be found in the future where they direct Thirsk to look
 * Clive Ronan and Izzy Barclay attack, killing two St. Mary's people. Max, while unconscious, has visit from Mrs Partridge revealing that she's Clio the muse of history and that the anomaly is under the fourth step. The bad guys are kept from getting the scrolls, but escape on the big pod. However, Leon has rigged pod to be bomb, which causes the wreckage Max saw in the Cretaceous.


 * Home, and under the fourth step some sonnets and a play by Shakespeare is found - but it depicts a world wherein Mary, Queen of Scots, became Queen of England, and Elizabeth I was executed.

Here is a list of the main characters, in the order that they appear in the Dramatis Thingummy.
 * Edward Bairstow
 * Mrs Partridge
 * Madeleine Maxwell
 * Tim Peterson
 * Kalinda Black
 * Sussman
 * Grant
 * Rutherford
 * Stevens
 * Nagley
 * Jordan
 * Leon Farrell
 * Mr Dieter
 * Dr Helen Foster
 * Nurse Hunter
 * Major Ian Guthrie
 * Mr Markham
 * Mr Whissell
 * Dave Murdoch
 * Professor Rapson
 * Doctor Dowson
 * Isabella Barclay
 * Polly Perkins
 * Mrs Mack
 * Jenny Fields
 * Sibyl De Winter
 * Turk
 * Clive Ronan