Tagged: time travel
The Fire by John Heldt
(Cover picture courtesy of John Heldt.)
When Kevin Johnson, 22, goes to Wallace, Idaho, days after his college graduation, he expects to find rest and relaxation as his family prepares his deceased grandfather’s house for sale. Then he discovers a hidden diary and a time portal that can take him to 1910, the year of Halley’s comet and the largest wildfire in U.S. history. Within hours, Kevin finds himself in the era of horse-drawn wagons, straw hats, and ankle-length dresses. Returning to the same time and place, he decides to travel again and again and make the portal his gateway to summer fun. The adventure takes a more serious turn, however, when the luckless-in-love science major falls for pretty English teacher Sarah Thompson and integrates himself in a community headed for tragedy. Filled with humor, romance, and heartbreak, THE FIRE, the sequel to THE JOURNEY, follows a conflicted soul through a life-changing journey as he makes his mark on a world he was never meant to see.
[Full disclosure: John Heldt gave me an ARC of his latest novel in exchange for an honest review.]
John Heldt is probably the only man that can make me consistently cry. And that’s a good thing!
Kevin Johnston is the son of Shelly Preston, our protagonist from The Journey. As you may recall, an older Michelle had time travelled back to see her younger self and her story did not end well. So you could say time travelling is in the family and that Kevin can’t get away from it, especially when you learn a certain character from The Mine is his university professor.
Once again I thought I had Kevin’s journey pretty well predicted. Yet he surprised me at every turn. He knew it was a bad idea to go back to 1910 and that it was a bad idea to get so involved in people’s lives in Wallace and yet I understand his motives for wanting to go back there. Yet whatever mysteriously causes time travel is not going to forgive Kevin for messing with history and the conclusion of the novel is absolutely heart-breaking and at the same time, joy-inducing. The Fire is such an emotional roller coaster that I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts down to write this review.
I was so connected to the characters, perhaps more so than I have been in John Heldt’s previous three novels. Kevin really did speak to me. He was a good person if a little flawed because of that chip on his shoulder when it came to women. Still, he got over that eventually and at the end of the novel you can really tell he’s a better person. His relationship with Sarah, his confused feelings for Sadie and his friendship with Andy all made him more realistic and much easier to sympathize with. Yet these characters weren’t put there for the sole purpose of providing opportunities to show what a nice guy Kevin is! No, they’re excellent, well-developed characters in their own right.
I liked how the pacing was generally consistent throughout The Fire and that although it definitely sped up at the end, it wasn’t as rushed as the ending of The Show. John Heldt definitely took more time to build up the historical town of Wallace in order to build up the tension for the coming fire that would level most of the town. His descriptions were much more vivid in this installment of the Northwest Passage series and I think The Fire was a better book for it.
John Heldt’s writing just keeps getting better and better with each book. Although the theme of time travel features in all four, he has created very different characters to tell the story of America and each achieves happiness in their own, unique way. Even if you haven’t read the first three books of the series, The Fire can certainly stand on its own, which is why I recommend you pick it up right this instant. Yes, it’s that good.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Spotlight: The Journey by John Heldt
Spotlight is my new regular Saturday feature in which I highlight a book I really enjoyed or am eagerly waiting for. This time, it’s The Journey by John Heldt, a book I got very emotional about.
Seattle, 2010. When her entrepreneur husband dies in an accident, Michelle Preston Richardson, 48, finds herself childless and directionless. She yearns for the simpler days of her youth, before she followed her high school sweetheart down a road that led to limitless riches but little fulfillment, and jumps at a chance to reconnect with her past at a class reunion. But when Michelle returns to Unionville, Oregon, and joins three classmates on a spur-of-the-moment tour of an abandoned mansion, she gets more than she asked for. She enters a mysterious room and is thrown back to 1979.
Distraught and destitute, Michelle finds a job as a secretary at Unionville High, where she guides her spirited younger self, Shelly Preston, and childhood friends through their tumultuous senior year. Along the way, she meets widowed teacher Robert Land and finds the love and happiness she had always sought. But that happiness is threatened when history intervenes and Michelle must act quickly to save those she loves from deadly fates. Filled with humor and heartbreak, THE JOURNEY gives new meaning to friendship, courage, and commitment as it follows an unfulfilled soul through her second shot at life.
I love the way John Heldt handled the whole time travel angle of his second book in the Northwest Passage trilogy. In his books, time travel isn’t the important thing and the characters themselves aren’t scientists, so it doesn’t take a prominent position. But, what does take its place is the characters and the incredible writing. John Heldt pays so much attention to all of his characters that they are three dimensional and interesting, even the secondary ones. You will love both Michelle and Shelly (Michelle’s younger self) and the ending will both tear you to pieces and give you some hope.
The Journey has the perfect amount of romance, suspense and heartbreak and I absolutely love how John Heldt solved the time travel paradox. You see, Michelle isn’t some passive time traveller who leaves things be. No, she wants to change her younger self and prevent her best friend’s tragic death. But what happens if Shelly actually changes? Does Michelle disappear into nothing? Does she herself change suddenly? I didn’t think he could pull it off, but John Heldt came up with a great way to solve the paradox. This is a man who can write himself into a tiny corner and get himself out again in fantastic style, so go on and get The Journey! You won’t regret it, I promise.
The Journey by John Heldt
(Cover picture courtesy of Literary Inklings.)
Seattle, 2010. When her entrepreneur husband dies in an accident, Michelle Preston Richardson, 48, finds herself childless and directionless. She yearns for the simpler days of her youth, before she followed her high school sweetheart down a road that led to limitless riches but little fulfillment, and jumps at a chance to reconnect with her past at a class reunion. But when Michelle returns to Unionville, Oregon, and joins three classmates on a spur-of-the-moment tour of an abandoned mansion, she gets more than she asked for. She enters a mysterious room and is thrown back to 1979.
Distraught and destitute, Michelle finds a job as a secretary at Unionville High, where she guides her spirited younger self, Shelly Preston, and childhood friends through their tumultuous senior year. Along the way, she meets widowed teacher Robert Land and finds the love and happiness she had always sought. But that happiness is threatened when history intervenes and Michelle must act quickly to save those she loves from deadly fates. Filled with humor and heartbreak, THE JOURNEY gives new meaning to friendship, courage, and commitment as it follows an unfulfilled soul through her second shot at life.
[Full disclosure: John Heldt sent me a free ebook of The Journey in return for an honest review.]
First, let me say how dare he! How dare John Heldt make me cry again!
Okay, that was a little bit melodramatic. Yes, The Journey made me cry just like the first book in his Northwest Passage trilogy, The Mine. I won’t tell you whether they were tears of happiness or sadness, but let me just say that it’s a very good sign when I’m so emotionally involved in a book that I show emotion reading it. The best part about The Journey? If you want to cry as well, you don’t have to read The Mine for it to make sense because the two stories are only connected by their time travel premises (so far).
In the beginning when Michelle travelled back in time to 1979 in the town where her younger self is a teenager, I kept thinking John Heldt had gotten himself into a mess. Would Michelle reach out to her younger self and try to change the past? What about the grandfather paradox? (If I kill grandpa before he has my father/mother, will I cease to exist? It’s the same principle with any manipulation of the past.) But the ending, oh the ending! John Heldt wrapped everything up brilliantly in a way that makes you both sad and hopeful.
Michelle as a character takes some warming up to, but you’ll absolutely love her by the end of the novel. As for Shelly Preston, Michelle’s younger self, you’ll love her immediately. The Journey is told from both of their points of view, which I absolutely love because you get to see the effect on has on the other and vice versa. I can’t tell you much about their relationship otherwise it would spoil things, but they make each other better people.
With a fast plot that made me hog the computer for nearly two hours, amazing characters and a tear-jerker ending, you can’t go wrong with The Journey. And at 99 cents at the Kindle Store, it’s a complete steal. It’s worth twenty times that, trust me.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Giveaway: Finding Time by Steve Poling
Like time travel? Science fiction with actual science in it? Great characters? Then have I ever got a book for you! Steve Poling graciously agreed to do a giveaway with me so we have two copies of Finding Time up for grabs in Kindle format only. For my fellow Luddites all that means is you will have to download and read it through Amazon on your computer.
RULES:
1. You must answer one or both of the questions provided.
2. Your answer can be as serious/funny as you like. There really is no wrong answer.
3. You may enter only once.
PRIZES:
1. Two Kindle versions of Finding Time.
One thing we’re doing differently this time is that Steve Poling will be picking his favourite answer, but we will also be using Random.org to randomly pick a winner. So even if your answer is not Steve’s favourite, you have a chance at being chosen randomly based on the order of your comment because I will be using the random number generator. Now here are the two questions:
1. If you had a time machine, what would you rescue?
2. If you could talk with just one historical figure (without all the nasty time travel related consequences) who would it be and why?
Today is November 20 and I will be closing the giveaway on November 27 November 30 (Update at 11:55am 21/11/12). I will be announcing winners at 12:01am on December 1. Make sure you have a valid email address attached to your account because I will be giving them to Steve Poling. If he does not receive a reply from the winner(s) within seven days, the prizes will be going to someone else.
Finding Time by Steve Poling
(Cover picture courtesy of The Independent Author Network Blog.)
Rescue the past to build the future. In 2280 EarthGov is desperate when aliens destroy their first colony. They’ll even comb through the wreckage of the aliens’ UFO that crashed in 1947—where one man claims he’s found a time machine. Now the race is on to scour history for the treasures and talents EarthGov needs.
Sid Feynman just wants a government grant. His hopes for a quiet academic life are dashed when EarthGov thrusts the beautiful historian Nell Playfair upon him and expects Sid to actually use the time machine.
Soon Sid and Nell are rocketing across light-years of interstellar space and millennia of history—seeking that which is lost and finding time.
[Full disclosure: Steve Poling gave me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]
Well, that certainly wasn’t what I expected.
That’s a compliment, by the way. Finding Time is a book with many different viewpoints, but Steve Poling handled each of them so well that it was never confusing. The first chapter seems completely unrelated to the rest of the book until later, but when the reason behind the event was revealed it made perfect sense. That’s what made Finding Time so interesting for me: the different narrative threads intertwining perfectly, especially toward the end. I live when things are tied together in a way that makes sense and that is especially important in a time travel story.
I won’t even begin to pretend I understand half of the science behind time travel in this book. Science was never my strong point, but hard science fiction fans will love this book for it. I would have liked the explanations to be “dumbed-down”, but I am not the audience Steve Poling was writing for. Each to their own, really. I’m sure most people will have a better appreciation for his attention to detail than I do.
However, I did appreciate the characters. Nell and Sid were the two main characters and they definitely stood out. Their bickering is priceless, but you can tell that they become good friends by the end. No, they don’t fall in love with each other. Gasp! A male and female lead that don’t fall in love! Call the press! As Steve Poling put it in his initial email to me: “there’s no cussin’, smokin’, or gettin’ nekkid.”
See? It is possible to write a good novel without any of those things! YA writers take note.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
*Only available through Amazon in Kindle format.