Review: Best Self-Published Novel I Have Read
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 29, 2013
Last Monday night, I stayed up until three o'clock in the morning. Was I nursing a crying baby, vainly smothering my ears in my pillow to drown out a loud neighbor, or suffering from an early spring cold? No. I was simply unable to stop reading The Mine by John Heldt. The Mine is the best self-published novel I have ever read.The Mine follows Joel Smith, an adventurous college senior whose unbridled curiosity leads him into an abandoned mine in Montana. Upon immerging from the mysterious mine, he discovers that he has traveled sixty years into the past. Thanks to his charisma and good looks, unwillingness to dwell on his hopeless situation, academic interest in 1940s American history, and detailed memory of sports statistics, he creates a new life as a successful furniture salesman and steals a beautiful co-ed from a Pearl Harbor-bound naval officer. But Joel also faces moral dilemmas: Should he warn those around him of the impending war, especially those whose fates are known to him? If given the chance to return to the twenty-first century, should he? And should he go alone?The most impressive aspects of The Mine were the outstanding writing and editing abilities of John Heldt. There were no grammatical mistakes to distract me, misused words to annoy me, or huge plot holes to make my eyes roll. The major characters were multi-dimensional and even secondary characters did not resort to 1940s or 2000s caricatures. Heldt gave me no excuse to stray from the intriguing story he crafted nor even question the ludicrous idea of time travel. Rarely am I able to entirely devote myself to the intricacies of a novel without once delving into my alternate Language Arts teacher persona. I recommend The Mine to anyone who enjoys a good story.