Hard Time
Series: The Time Police, Book 2
By: Jodi Taylor / Narrated By: Zara Ramm
Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
Not as AWEsome as the first in the series, but am I getting the Next? You BETCHA!
This is where I have to admit something that I’m not particularly proud of:
I’ve only listened to the first in the St. Mary’s Chronicles, and have only dabbled in Jodi Taylor’s romances and lite chick-lit. I KNOW! That makes me a backward and baaaaad person. I mean, I HAVE listened to Just One Damned Thing After Another in our Homage to Fuzzy Accomplice Nika, and yes, I’d had it in m’ Library for quite some time. Why, I’ve even the next three in the St. Mary’s Chronicles cuz back in the day, they were, like, $1.99 and the pairing audiobooks were a whopping $3.99, so of COURSE I got those.
It’s just like this, see: There are a PLETHORA of those audiobooks, and that’s quiiiiiiiite the time investment, and that’s a LOT of credits!
But I’ve gotten in on the ground floor with The Time Police, and the second came up as a Limited Time Deal with Chirpbooks, sooooo…
Oh man, I’m soooo there with this series. Tho’ it does have me itching to get at the other St. Mary’s audiobooks I have cuz the characters are nicely drawn into the stories we have here with Team Weird of the Time Police. They’re ba-aaaaack!!!
Continuing with the tale, Team Weird continues to be quite the pariah trio of misfits. Luke remains arrogant, and now he’s kinda sorta all lost and bereft. At the end of the last book, he’d made his bold stand against his father, made his bid for independence, was all miffed and proud, but now? Oh my: He’s soooo stuck, and with the Time Police? Are they really where he wants to be? Not to mention, all three are coming up on the end of their rookie training, and they’re gonna have to say what departments they’d like to be part of. Oooooh, all are getting sucked in deeeeeeper…!
Jane is still a trifle timid and wishy-washy, but she has mighty rows between old Jane and the new who-I-wannabe Jane, each side taking over her thoughts as she measures each situation, each conversation, with waaaaay too much thought going on inside her plain head. Matthew is ever quiet, judging, assessing, thoughtful, a trifle reticent, and he can’t bear to be away from his favorite place in the world, but THAT department is out of his grasp cuz of a teeeeeny tiny incident whereby he totally mucked it all to hell and back.
Here in Hard Time, there’s a bit of fluff until we go on to discover that what Team Weird will be battling is time-tourism. The Time Police’s very best was sent on an undercover mission only to have them turn up dead in a river, a warning to the Police if ever there was one. Who to send next?
Welllllll, the next people sent will have to NOT look like undercover time police. Why maaaaybe? Could it be that the very oddness the police have been DESperately trying to bludgeon outta Team Weird could make them perfect as individuals who won’t stick out like sore thumbs? Like, a rich playboy outta circulation for a while (Luke) with his sobriety counselor (Jane), both back in society with Luke open to having some fun? Say, p’raps open to new and exciting and illegal adventures like jaunts through time to visit Egypt, or even further back in time?
This is where I have to admit that this book isn’t as fun as the first: There’s a LOT of text given over to Luke and Jane settling in (With a LOT about Jane getting all twitchy with just how rich Luke is), just hanging out, kinda sorta sending out feelers, but kinda sorta not as they don’t wanna be all obvious. Quaint in how Jane is taken aback by it all, but just a tad of a drag as the story progresses. Not to mention, I do soooo like Matthew, and as his character is kept back at HQ (After being winged by an assault on TPHQ he’s pretty much out of commission), I really didn’t get as much of him as I’d have liked, what with the “team” being a duo and a single.
But that’s pretty much my only tale of woe as this is a total thriller (Something I rather usually have problems with what with my low tolerance for Cortisol racing through my body), with jump after jump, fights with blows thrown, near misses like crazy, that violent assault on Headquarters I told you about. Not to mention a time-slip fix that goes awry, leading to heated exchanges between Teams and Jane ultimately working her Famous Knee to the Groin into a big ox of a grouchy man.
Zara Ramm! Zara Ramm! Oh how I do so love Zara Ramm. Yeh yeh yeh I jacked the listening speed up like crazy, but that’s cuz o’ my difficulties with delayed gratification rather than any sorta lack on Ramm’s part. And lemme tell you, when you’re whizzing along with narration going at breakneck speed (Okay, maybe not THAT fast, but still…), it woulda been so easy to lose track of who’s speaking to whom. But Ramm manages all characters with finesse, with suuuuch ease! I’ve not looked up to see if she’s been interviewed anywhere, to see whether she gets to know the text before narration or if she’s one of those narrators who likes to be surprised and excited as she reads for the first time. Because seriously, she’s spot on with who’s speaking at any given time, distinguishing characters quite nicely, PLUS sounding like she’s just as breathless and anxious as we listeners are, all in one steady stream of near-flawless narration.
Okay, so MAYBE gonna get back to St. Mary’s soon because I’m loving Ms. Taylor’s writing.
But DEFinitely? Oh good golly gosh—A new installment coming to us soon, like, in October of 2021. I have a feeling I’ll still be holed up, waiting for a Covid vaccine before peeking outta my abode. As such? I’ll be soooo primed for a new Team Weird!
Who cares?!?!!!!
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