Review: Amazing! Beautifully Written, Well Told!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 18, 2014
Addicting, Amazing, Won’t want to put it down, will be on the edge of your seat turning the pages so quickly they may blur because you are that anxious to see what will happen next.Put yourself into Joel Smith’s shoes, you are a cocky, All American man on the cusp of graduating from college, your life has been laid out before you and you are more than certain you know what you are doing – but then all of a sudden your life is thrown for a literal loop and then some – you are thrown back in time some 50+ years to a time when your Grandparents were teenagers.  How would you react? Would you be able to take this trip a la Marty McFly and Doc Brown and ride the journey out to see what happens all the while trying desperately not to alter history in any way shape or form?  Personally, it is not something I am sure I could handle as graciously as Joel did.  This somewhat arrogant young man finds himself not just out of his own time, but also penniless, without technology, and without any prospects of how to gain income, needless to say his situation causes him to re-think all of his priorities and think only of his basic needs versus those comfort zone wants he had living in present day America.I was requested to read this book by the author for a review and it fell deep into my to be read pile, and now I am wishing that I had picked it up much much sooner! I fell in love with the story, the characters and felt immersed in their world.  I could almost place myself into the girls’ house, could feel Grace’s uncertainty, I was left wishing I had a best friend like Katie whose unflappable commitment to Grace and Joel is enough to make anyone want to take her home with them, I could see the world around Joel with such distinction and almost place myself into the Seattle of 1941!  The author developed the characters and the world with such detail that we were not left wondering what the holes would be, instead we knew exactly what each character would do and how they would react to each and every situation they were put in.This is one I will recommend highly to anyone who loves Sci-Fi with a little romance, time travel romances, and everyone in between.  This is just the first of five in John Heldt’s Northwest Passage series, if you have the chance to read these wonderful books do so, but I warn you – reality may just pass you by while your reading – sort of like how our main characters, Joel in The Mine and Kevin in The Fire pass through the time period they visit – because these books bring you into these vivid worlds all the while separating the reader from reality.