"Triggered by the unlikely encounter of a golden labrador, a Van der Graaf generator and an anti-gravity machine..."

I've been meaning to read the Linda Buckley-Archer books for some time now.

From the Guardian:

The books are inevitably packed full of historical detail, from Thomas Paine's reception in France to the arrival of kangaroos at the court of Queen Charlotte. But Buckley-Archer does not allow the research to swamp the narrative and they are also fast-paced reads, switching between multiple storylines, characters, and even whole centuries from chapter to chapter and each ending on a cliffhanger. With a description at the head of each chapter ("In which the Tar Man shows what he is made of and Kate and Mr Shock break the law in Middle Harpenden") it's a technique reminiscent of the serial writing of Dickens. It is born partly, says Buckley-Archer, of her background in screenwriting - "you go in late, you leave early and you end on some tension" - but also because as she wrote the manuscript she read it in stages to her family after Sunday dinner each week: "I always knew if I was being boring by the expression on my children's faces," she admits.

I really need to get on that. 

Looks like the series haven't picked up in the States yet -- they changed the title of the first book for the paperback release and gave it a totally new look, which has carried over to the sequel (also re-titled).  I prefer the new covers, actually.