Review: Good Story
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 1, 2013
John Heldt's The Mine is a story you'd expect if Nicholas Sparks dipped his mainstream quill into the time travel inkwell. Filled with universal themes of family and friends, love and loss, past and present, the novel shines in the contrast of two distinct times: the present and pre-Pearl Harbor Americana.Joel Smith, a young geologist with an insatiable thirst for adventure, sets out on a road trip with his best friend, Adam. During a rare planetary occurrence, the two men stumble upon an abandoned gold mine in rural Montana. Adam chooses not to enter, but Joel cannot resist the opportunity to explore anything rock-related. Inside the mine, Joel stumbles upon glowing rocks, a wicked crossbeam to the head and a seemingly irreversible passage back in time to 1941.Joel's pre-World War II story is the real gold within a present-day story that can sometimes be as murky as the mine itself. The opening sequence, filled with slippery motivations, campy dialogue and incongruous actions on the part of the main character, does no justice to the wholly-engaging, beautiful love story set against the backdrop of one of the most significant events in American History. Readers will forgive the novel's lukewarm beginning because the author sets up a compelling, immersive dynamic of inner and relational conflict that steam-powers the narrative to the final page.In Mr. Heldt's capable historical brushstrokes, readers will want to stay in the bittersweet 1941 almost as much as Joel.[...]