Booklog 73/2021: Jodi Taylor: The Toast of Time – Chronicles of St Mary's #12.5

[jacey]

Jodi Taylor's Christmas day short story. This is set during the events of 'Another Time Another Place' when St Mary's is under Treadwell's new (unfriendly) management. It's Christmas, and rather than being with their respective families Max and Markham are away from St Mary's, enjoying the hospitality of Lady Amelia Smallhope and her bodyguard/butler/thug, Pennyroyal, currently employed as bounty hunters, or, rather, recovery agents. There's a Flying Auction announced. Someone is auctioning off plundered historical artefacts at a specific place and time… and that place happens to be a near-derelict St Mary's in 1921. Markham manages to appropriate some of the aforementioned items (don't ask what he's got down his trousers) so they have to hide them, and return to St Mary's in their own time to retrieve them. Expect tea, toast and eggs, Parish Councillors, naked gardening and a very happy Christmas.