Review: An excellent addition to the series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 4, 2013
There is something I find incredibly comforting about reading the latest installment of the Northwest Passage series. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I have enjoyed every single book of this series so far, and The Fire was no exception to that rule.I love how all the books in this series are connected to one another in a way. The Fire reintroduces us to Kevin Johnson, who we last saw as a child at the end of The Journey, the second book in the series. I liked Kevin right from the start of this book. He was an incredibly intelligent young man, and was just an all-round good guy. Whoever said `nice guys finish last' had obviously never come across this character, as he was simply brilliant. I liked how he had worked out how to time travel, and spent parts of the book constantly flitting between present day and 1910. It was a nice addition to the book to have a main character consciously go time-travelling, and it was quite fun as well.The characters from 1910 were amazing. Heldt has this wonderful knack of being able to create these fantastically authentic characters who I can't help but fall in love with. I adored Kevin's two love interests, Sarah and Sadie. Sadie's vulnerability mixed with her smarts just made her instantly likeable, and I desperately wanted her to have a happy ending, as she had been through so much and really deserved it. And Sarah was just so...lovely. I don't think there's a better way to describe her. Andy, the newspaper reporter who took Kevin under his wing and became a very good friend to him, was a really great guy, and I loved the humour that he brought to the book. He was definitely a reporter through and through, wanting to know the ins and outs of everybody.The end of The Fire had me so close to tears. I'm pretty sure I didn't breathe once when I was reading the climatic action scenes, especially when Kevin was finally able to reach the hospital. I felt so sorry for him, as he was such a lovely guy, and really didn't deserve that kind of sadness. I liked the ending to The Fire, everything was wrapped up neatly, but it was very believable thanks to the characters and their traits.This is a series with books that just keep getting better and better as they are released. I cannot wait to see what Heldt releases next, as I know for sure that it'll be nothing short of brilliant.