Review: Long Story Short

Long Story Short by Jodi Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some, mainly the free snippets, are three stars. Others, like And Now For Something Completely Different, or When Did You Last See Your Father are solid four stars.

Christmas Past
Max takes Matthew back to early Victorian England to help the two little boys who were chimney sweeps alongside him.

Oh Jodi, you pulled on my heartstrings with this novella. I can't say more without spoiling the story, just let me say that it was a lovely story and reflected what we all hope Christmas will be like.

The Battersea Barricades
For those of us who wondered what happened at the Battersea Barricades, wonder no longer. A novella for St George's Day.

The Steam-Pump Jump
Peterson is a bit down in the dumps after yet another of his girlfriends has died, and the last one was hand-in-glove with his arch-enemy to boot. So Max dreams up a cunning plan to cheer him, but she needs Markham to execute it in his own inimitable fashion.

Cute, sweet and very funny.

And Now For Something Completely Different
Absolutely bonkers holiday trip to witness the first Mars landing in person involving our usual suspects and my favourite Time Police - also a convincing explanation for why the flag fluttered on the first Moon landing.

LOVED IT.

When Did You Last See Your Father?
Told from Leon's POV, we get a potted history of Leon's life before Max, when he met Dr Bairstow, and when he met Max for the first and second times.

Clive Ronan has been meddling again and told Max's wealthy, influential, abusive father that she is living at St Mary's and has a baby. When Max's father arrives unannounced to take Matthew away, claiming that Max is an unfit mother it is up to Leon to save the day. Max's father can't be allowed to see ten year old Matthew when he should only be a toddler, also the years of abuse he suffered in the nineteenth century as a chimneysweep can't be eradicated and would give Child Services cause to remove him from Max's care. Let's not even go with the fact that actually Max is not really his daughter!

Anyway, this short story shows how much everyone at St Mary's loves Max and Matthew as they conspire to ensure that her father no longer has any power to hurt her again.

Immensely satisfying.

Dessicated Water
Very short story, Professor Rapson manages to reduce water to a fine powder for easier transportation on trips ... Reader, he didn't think it through.

Markham And The Anal Probing
Very short (10 pages) story written more to shock Jodie's publishers than anything else. Markham gets lost and Max and Peterson speculate that he's been abducted by aliens.

Little Donkey
My recommendation is don't read this unless you have read The Nothing Girl. This is not an easy entrée into the world of The Nothing Girl free of charge, instead it is choc full of allusions that only make sense if you have read The Nothing Girl.

Given that warning, it is Christmas, the vicar wants Marilyn to be in the nativity play - does he know nothing?

All our favourite characters are here - a lovely Xmas story for existing fans.

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