Review: For fans of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, The Mine is a definite TBR.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 21, 2013
I received a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.Imagine if you woke without your mobile phone or your plastic, could you survive? In The Mine by John A. Heldt, Joel Smith gets tossed 59 years into the past when he’s exploring an abandoned mine outside of Helena, Montana. He enters the mine in May 2000 and exits into May 1941. Miles and years from home, Joel hops a train to Seattle sans ticket, riding hobo style, and penniless, since credit cards were non-existent in pre-war America.Before curiosity jettisoned him to 1941, Joel was set to graduate in geology from the University of Washington in Seattle, the city he had lived in for 21 years. In Seattle, Joel finds friends, his 21-year-old grandmother, and Grace Vanderberg.The romance between Joel and Grace evolves over months, not hours. Love in the 1940s requires courtship – hand-holding and long walks. Slowly, Joel and Grace bestow their pasts and their hearts to each other. The evolutionary romance is a welcome contrast to the lightning fast leap from first sight to orgasm played out in many romance novels.The story serves up a dose of sweet “aahhs” alongside a cupful of history. Heldt reveals a pre-war America split over going to war or staying neutral. The country’s limbo traps Joel’s friends, limiting their plan-making to days, not years. Bigger life goals – careers, marriage, family – standby as the draft snatches more friends and as the future offers only uncertainty. The perspective on being a draft-able age leading up to a war offers fresh insight into pre-war life that is rarely captured in WWII fictions.The story balances the heaviness of the war with Joel’s wallet-fattening sports trivia and witty banter between Tom, Joel, and the women of Klickitat Avenue, and of course, the romance. Yet, Joel’s fun and games diminish as the calendar nears December 7, 1941. The date presents a hard choice for Joel and a tragedy for the country. Should he stay in 1941 with the woman he loves or bolt back to the 2000s and avoid conscription?For fans of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, The Mine is a definite TBR. The romance, the comedy, and historically accurate details create a fun escape into an age of black and white films and FDR, while the Grandfather Paradox and the Ouroboros nature of time travel tickle the mind. The Mine is the first of four stories in the Northwest Passage series.~more reviews of debut novels at pagecravings.com