2015 Book #98 – The Mirror by John A. Heldt

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: The Mirror
Author: John A. Heldt
Date finished: 9/14/15
Genre: Fiction, Time travel
Publisher: John A. Heldt (Self-published)
Publication Date: March 1, 2014
Pages in book: 387
Stand alone or series: #5 in the Northwest Passage series
Where I got the book from: Author/publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

On September 11, 2020, Ginny and Katie Smith celebrate their nineteenth birthday at a country fair near Seattle. Ignoring the warnings of a fortune-teller, they enter a house of mirrors and exit in May 1964. Armed with the knowledge they need to return to their time, they try to make the most of what they believe will be a four-month vacation. But their sixties adventure becomes complicated when they meet a revered great-grandmother and fall in love with local boys. In THE MIRROR, the sequel to THE MINE and THE SHOW, the sisters find happiness and heartbreak as they confront unexpected challenges and gut-wrenching choices in the age of civil rights, the Beatles, and Vietnam.

My rating: 3.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Ginny and Katie Smith, twin daughters of Joel and Grace Smith. Joel was the main character in the first book in this series, The Mine, and Grace was the main character of the third book in the series and The Mine’s sequel The Show. Katie and Ginny Smith have just turned 19 and they are celebrating their birthday at a local fair. They are looking forward to starting college within the next couple weeks and are excited about the upcoming changes in their lives. Unfortunately, fate has other ideas in store for the two pretty twin sisters and after looking at a Mirror exhibit at the fair they somehow end up in the year 1964.
They realize that their best bet of returning home to their family is to go the same Mirror exhibit at the fair in this new year they’ve been deposited into. Since the fair doesn’t open for a few months though, Ginny and Katie have to figure out what to do with themselves in the meantime. They obtain jobs and make friends and somehow meet up with ancestral family. And as much as they don’t want to interfere with the time stream, neither of them can seem to help falling in love.
Overall I liked this book a lot more than The Show but just a tiny bit less than The Mine. I just felt like there wasn’t as much wrap up with the story as there was with The Mine. I really enjoyed the plot line of this book though, especially Ginny and Katie’s characters, they were a hoot.

The bottom line: I enjoyed this book a lot, almost as much as I enjoyed the first book, The Mirror. The plot line was interesting and I liked hearing more about the characters from first two books. Good series overall I think!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

15Sep2015

2015 Book #97 – The Show by John A. Heldt

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: The Show
Author: John A. Heldt
Date finished: 9/13/15
Genre: Fiction, Time travel
Publisher: John A. Heldt (Self-published)
Publication Date: February 17, 2013
Pages in book: 293
Stand alone or series: #3 in the Northwest Passage series
Where I got the book from: Author/publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Seattle, 1941. Grace Vandenberg, 21, is having a bad day. Minutes after Pearl Harbor is attacked, she learns that her boyfriend is a time traveler from 2000 who has abandoned her for a future he insists they cannot share. Determined to save their love, she follows him into the new century. But just when happiness is within her grasp, she accidentally enters a second time portal and exits in 1918. Distraught and heartbroken, Grace starts a new life in the age of Woodrow Wilson, silent movies, and the Spanish flu. She meets her parents as young, single adults and befriends a handsome, wounded Army captain just back from the war. In THE SHOW, the sequel to THE MINE, Grace finds love and friendship in the ashes of tragedy as she endures the trial of her life.

My rating: 2.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Grace Vandenberg. This book picks up a little before where The Mine left off since we here about Grace’s decision to travel to the year 2000 to be with Joel. After that everything goes smoothly for awhile, Grace and Joel marry and start a family. Unfortunately on their second wedding anniversary Grace is somehow transported from the year 2002 to 1918. Luckily she’s still in Seattle so she looks up her Uncle Alistair Green who takes her in but still Grace is lost in another time with no idea how to get back to her two young children and her husband.
Grace’s uncle takes her home to live with her and try to help her start over in this new world. Along the way Grace meets the Green’s neighbor John Walker, an injured war veteran who also has the look of loss about him. Grace finds herself drawn to John as she mourns the loss of her husband and her two daughters. And then when Grace’s mother Lucy comes to America as an 18-year old girl to begin her college education, Grace is presented with an opportunity that she never even thought to hope for.
**SPOILER ALERT** There were a few issues that I had with this book. Grace ends up bringing her mother and father back to the future with her at the end so that they don’t end up dying in 1939, but she brings them to the future before they’re ever married. So how does she even still exist? At the end of this book her parents never actually had her so how is it possible that she exists?! I mean I know there are some complications involved in time travel and its consequences but its just too confusing. And honestly my big issue with this book was Grace. I understand that at some point she would have to stop mourning the loss of her husband and move on but after 4 months she’s already engaged to someone else? That seems just a little too quick for me. I mean I understand that continuing to hope that she would make it back to her own time would probably make her miserable and being miserable is no way to live but I can’t imagine giving up that easily over seeing my daughters again. For those reasons I just had a lot of trouble connecting to the story and I could not enjoy the plot line much at all. The story was interesting as was the first book but I enjoyed the first book a lot more than I enjoyed this one.

The bottom line: I did not end up liking this book as much as I liked The Mine. I am hoping that I like the third book (The Mirror) better but this book just was not one that I could get into.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

15Sep2015

2015 Book #96 – The Mine by John A. Heldt

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: The Mine
Author: John A. Heldt
Date finished: 9/9/15
Genre: Fiction, Time travel
Publisher: John A. Heldt (Self-published)
Publication Date: February 13, 2012
Pages in book: 291
Stand alone or series: #1 in the Northwest Passage series
Where I got the book from: Author/publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

In May 2000, Joel Smith is a cocky, adventurous young man who sees the world as his playground. But when the college senior, days from graduation, enters an abandoned Montana mine, he discovers the price of reckless curiosity. He emerges in May 1941 with a cell phone he can’t use, money he can’t spend, and little but his wits to guide his way. Stuck in the age of swing dancing and a peacetime draft, Joel begins a new life as the nation drifts toward war. With the help of his 21-year-old trailblazing grandmother and her friends, he finds his place in a world he knew only from movies and books. But when an opportunity comes to return to the present, Joel must decide whether to leave his new love in the past or choose a course that will alter their lives forever. THE MINE is a love story that follows a humbled man through a critical time in history as he adjusts to new surroundings and wrestles with the knowledge of things to come.

My rating: 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Joel Smith, a young man who is interested in geology and can’t pass up a chance to look at an abandoned mine. When he walks out of the mine though he finds himself not in the year 2000 as it was when he walked into the mine but instead it is suddenly the year 1941. And with no cash in his wallet and only credit cards that don’t work yet, he’s stranded in the year 1941 with no way to even buy food for himself. Joel decides to head back to Seattle as that is where he had been going to school in 2000. It is there that he begins to build a new life for himself. Six months later though he realizes that he has a chance to go back to his own time, and he has to make the agonizing decision to leave behind all the people he’s grown to care for in 1941.
Overall I really ended up liking this book. The plot line was just so interesting and I can’t remember reading anything like it before. I thought it was a little sad that Joel built this whole new life that he really enjoyed and then had to decide to leave it behind but I can understand he wanted to get back to his family. The dialogue between the characters was decent and the tension between Joel and Grace was basically palpable. It ended pretty much how I wanted it to, though I felt like there could’ve been a little more closure. There were a lot of questions I still had at the end of the book that I didn’t really think were addressed (How did Grace find Katie in 2000? Why didn’t she meet up with Joel in 2000 sooner?) but I know that Book #3 in the Northwest Passage series is about Grace’s story so I’m hoping that book will answer a few of my questions. I’m also hoping this next book (The Show) will tell us a little more about Grace once she gets to the future, does she assimilate ok? I hope they talk about that in the book. Also I can’t believe that Joel’s grandmother was able to keep this secret from everyone for all these years. I feel like she would’ve spilled the beans at some point during Joel’s first 17 years. Good book though, and I’m looking forward to reading the next one.

The bottom line: I ended up really liking this book a lot. The main character wasn’t an easy one to get tapped into but I loved the plot! Would recommend to those who like time travel books!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

13Jun2015

2015 Book #56 – Lightning by Dean Koontz

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Fiction, Reading Challenges, TBR Pile Reading Challenge (Roof Beam Reader), Thriller by rebeccabook17

Title: Lightning
Author: Dean Koontz
Date finished: 6/12/15
Genre: Fiction – Thriller
Publisher: G Putnam Sons
Publication Date: 1988
Pages in book: 355
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

In the midst of a raging blizzard, lightning struck on the night Laura Shane was born. And a mysterious blond-haired stranger showed up just in time to save her from dying.
Years later, in the wake of another storm, Laura will be saved again. For someone is watching over her. But just as lightning illuminates, darkness always follows close behind.

My rating: 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Roof Beam Reader TBR Pile Reading Challenge, #3 on the list I set for myself at the beginning of this year. One of my friends (technically my best friend’s mom and my mom’s best friend) wanted me to read this book to try something new and to see if I would like something a little darker/scarier. She originally wanted me to read something by Stephen King (if I remember correctly) but gave me this book instead since it is one of her favorites and not quite as scary as Stephen King. Being delinquent in my duties as reviewer, I have had the book for probably close to a year and so earlier this year I thought it would be a good encouragement to put it on my TBR reading challenge listing.
So this story is about a lady named Laura and I’m going to spoil it for you, time travel. Laura has a “guardian” who pops in and out of her life at important moments, saving her from dying over and over again from the moment she’s born right up until the end of the book pretty much. Laura goes through life not knowing that she’s really living in an altered timeline since Stefan (the guardian) keeps jumping across the time stream to fix things for her. Living in ignorance, Laura grows up and forms relationships and sustains significant losses in her life, all the while surviving as best she can. Eventually though, she comes face to face with Stefan and he asks her to help him save the world.
Overall this was not my favorite book. The book itself was good enough but it is not my usual style/genre of book and I had some trouble getting into it. There was a lot of complicated discussion on time travel and I (like Laura) got a massive headache trying to keep track of the paradoxes of people traveling through time. Also the main character lived through such heavy losses through her life, it was depressing. And poor Chris going through this experience as an 8 year old. I don’t think I found it too scary necessarily, but it was darker than I usually like and I had trouble connecting with Laura. I would probably try another book by Koontz in the future to see if it was just this plot I wasn’t a huge fan of. I want to thank my friend Sandy for recommending this book to me. I am trying hard to expand my horizons and try books that are outside of my comfort zone and this book definitely fit the bill! Thanks Sandy!

The bottom line: I don’t think I would encourage or discourage readers to try this book. It was a good book just not my style.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

5Jan2015

2015 Book #1 – Undead and Unwary by MaryJanice Davidson

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Fiction, Paranormal comedy, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist, Reading Challenges, Undead series (Betsy Taylor) by rebeccabook17

Title: Undead and Unwary
Author: MaryJanice Davidson
Genre: Fiction – Paranormal comedy (with a very small amount of romance)
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group / Penguin Group
Publication Date: October 7, 2014
Pages in book: 303
Stand alone or series: Series – Undead/Betsy Taylor #13

Blurb from the cover: First: kill Satan. Second: reorganize Hell. Sounded simple enough back then, but for Betsy Taylor, managing “down below” isn’t as easy as she’d hoped – even if she is doing it with her sister, Laura, a bona-fide Antichrist. So yes, Betsy has been shirking her hellish responsibilities, but she’s been just so darn busy these days. And she’s not just yanking Laura’s chain. There’s a brand-new baby drama involving a pair of uncanny (okay, terrifying) toddler twins, an upcoming birthday party that has to be planned, and, are you ready for it? Betsy’s dad – once so very dead – has been spotted in downtown St. Paul.
It’s enough to send Betsy fleeing to Hell, if only for some quiet time with Laura. But while there, in addition to meeting old acquaintances, Betsy discovers that death can be just as complicated as life.
Now, despite all the chaos, Betsy’s friends rally around, helping her handle all this fire and brimstone jazz. As for Betsy’s sister and dad – they have their own surprises in store for the vampire queen. And jolt by jolt, Betsy will discover that there’s nothing as heartwarming as family. Yeah, like Hell.

My rating: 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist under the “book with nonhuman characters” check box. This book picks up a few weeks after where the last book in the series left off. I’ve been a fan of this series from the beginning, but to be honest this book was not my favorite in the series. There was just too much reviewing of previous books, and not just references but like in depth explanations of relevant things that had happened in previous books. There was even a whole chapter that was an excerpt from a previous book. And while this is probably ideal for people who are picking up this series for the first time with this book (though I don’t know why any sane person would start a series with the thirteenth book) it ends up being pretty dry and somewhat tedious for someone who has already read the whole series and knows all the background information. I also had an issue with Betsy’s big revelation concerning Laura at the end. It never really says how she figured it out, all of a sudden a light-bulb turns on and she realizes her sister sucks. I just feel like that isn’t very realistic. I went with it though. Other than those two things, I really did enjoy the book. Betsy finally takes responsibility for Hell in an interesting way, and there are a lot of interesting developments concerning Betsy’s asshat father, Jessica’s great but weird kids, and Betsy’s abilities as the vampire Queen.

The bottom line: I would still recommend the series overall (and obviously this book as a piece of the series) but I wouldn’t recommend this book as a standalone.

Author website: http://www.maryjanicedavidson.net/
Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Undead-Unwary-Queen-Betsy/dp/0425263444/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1420461969&sr=8-1
Memorable quotes from the book: