Book Review: Indian Paintbrush (Carson Chronicles Book 3) by John A. Heldt

Wonderful historical details add to this time travel family drama/adventure.

Indian Paintbrush (Carson Chronicles Book 3)
by John A. Heldt

File Size: 645 KB
Print Length: 419 pages
Publication Date: November 26, 2018
Language: English
ASIN: B07KWHMRFW
Genre: Time Travel Romance
My Rating: 4.25 of 5.0

Arizona, December 1943. After surviving perilous six-month journeys to 1889 and 1918, the Carsons, five siblings from the present day, seek a respite in their home state. While Adam and Greg settle down with their Progressive Era brides, Natalie and Caitlin start romances with wartime aviators and Cody befriends a Japanese family in an internment camp. The time travelers regroup, bury some ghosts, and continue their search for their missing parents. Then old problems return, new ones emerge, and a peaceful hiatus becomes a race for survival. In INDIAN PAINTBRUSH, the sequel to RIVER RISING and THE MEMORY TREE, several young adults find love and adventure as they navigate the home front during the height of World War II.

Review:
This continues to time travel adventures of the Carson family. The Carson siblings, Adam and his pregnant wife, Bridget, Greg and his new wife Patricia, Natalie, and the twins, Cody and Caitlin, travel from 1918 to arrive in Arizona in December 1943. They move to Phoenix where they acquire jobs and make friends. Natalie and Caitlin work as mechanics at the airfield and begin romances with a pilot instructor and a pilot trainee respectfully. Cody’s job brings him to a Japanese family in an internment camp. He makes friends with a young woman and seeks a way to help her family.

Despite getting jobs, there are those who challenge the Carson men for not enlisting. There are also rumors spread to the FBI that raise questions about a Carson fugitive from 1889. This makes matters tense for the sibling family.

Meanwhile parents, Tim and Caroline, have tried to meet the children in 1943 but they arrive too early, September in Pennsylvania instead of December in Arizona. They visit some of the same ‘friends’ of the young people but experience different circumstances as they are in a different time stream. Their search for the children brushes and slips by like ships barely passing in the dark.

I found the historical settings in 1943-44 intriguing, including the Japanese internment camp. It is quickly apparent that the young people are stepping into realms fraught with emotional turmoil and difficult decisions regarding their caring and sharing. I was shaking my head as I saw the troubles they were creating for themselves. It was interesting to see how author Heldt would treat each dilemma. As is the pattern from the prior books, the last chapters tense up with danger and an exciting race to the next time jump… where adventures will no doubt continue in the next book.

I enjoy how the story is told in chapters that feature views from the alternating characters. Mr. Heldt does a good job of blending ‘real-to-life’ situations (like new babies and new romance) with the challenges of time travel issues. I recommend this to readers who enjoy family fiction with time travel as a bonus.

Source: 12/18 Author review request. This qualifies for 2019TBR, 2019Alphabet and Author Review Goals.

Book Review: The Memory Tree by John A. Heldt

This is an engaging story with good historical detail.
The Memory Tree (Carson Chronicles Book 2)
by John A. Heldt

File Size: 694 KB
Print Length: 659 pages
Publication Date: April 30, 2018
ASIN: B07CSJ4TMV
Genre: Adventure, Historical Fiction, Time Travel
My Rating: 4.25 of 5.0

Days after barely escaping 1889 with their lives, the Carsons, siblings from the present day, resume their search for their missing parents in 1918. While Adam and his pregnant wife, Bridget, settle in Minnesota, unaware of a wildfire that will kill hundreds, Greg seeks clues in his great-grandparents' Mexico, where he finds love, danger, and enemies. At the same time, Natalie, the ambitious journalist, follows a trail to World War I France, and teen twins Cody and Caitlin rekindle a friendship with an old Pennsylvania friend haunted by her past. In THE MEMORY TREE, the sweeping sequel to RIVER RISING, several time travelers find answers and meaning as they continue the adventure of a lifetime in the age of doughboys, silent movies, and Model T's.

Review:
The five Carson siblings have now time traveled from 1889 (River Rising: The Carson Chronicles Book 1) to 1918. They are still trying to find their missing parents and they are using locations from their family history hoping that their parents may be there too.

Adam and Bridget settle in Minnesota awaiting the birth of their child. There they make friends with neighbors who are relatives in the Carson past.

Gregg goes to Mexico seeking to meet with their great-grandparents from that branch of the family. Unfortunately, he fails to figure out how he will legally cross the border without proper papers and with a criminal past, even if it is from twenty-nine years before. His behavior isn’t exactly honorable. First he makes friends with a pretty redhead librarian in El Paso. After he manages to sneak into Mexico he meets another strong, independent redhead who really captures his interest. His attempts to help her puts him in hot water with the law once again, making for a difficult exit strategy.

Natalie lands a dream job first in Chicago and then as a war correspondent. She travels to France to interview soldiers on the front lines where she makes coincidental friends with family related friends.

The 18-year-old twins, Cody and Caitlin, travel to Pennsylvania where Cody hopes to meet his 1889 crush, Emma, even though she is now married with grown children. He hopes that the visit will allow him to convince his heart to move on. They just have to figure out how to tell her that they are time travelers who haven’t aged at all over the past 29 years.

Again, Mr. Hedlt creates engaging, warm characters and interesting situations where he shares wonderful historical detail. There is excitement and danger in the Minnesota wildfire, complications below the border and war weary soldiers in France. I loved the concept of the Memory Tree in Pennsylvania.

This story is a bit longer than my usual reading, but it kept me engaged all the way through. As I neared the end I was a little disconcerted to realize that would be another crisis ending leaving the journey to continue in the next volume. I really wasn’t thrilled with this scenario, especially as it meant that obvious steps of connecting with their parents were missed or ignored by the children. (For example, once they realized that their parents had sent them a message, why didn’t they try to communicate in the same manner?) Still, the story moves at a good pace with entertaining action and history. I am curious to see what happens to the characters in their next time travel jump. I recommend this to readers who enjoy well developed characters, historical detail and time travel complications.

Source: Author.

Audible Book Review: River Rising, Carson Chronicles, Book 1, by John A. Heldt

I enjoyed this time travel adventure. Mr. Hedlt creates engaging characters and situations.

River Rising
Carson Chronicles, Book 1
By: John A. Heldt
Narrated by: Chaz Allen

Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
Unabridged
Release date: 01-05-18
Language: English
Publisher: John A. Heldt
Genre: Adventure, Time Travel
My Rating: Story 4.0 of 5.0
Audio: 4.0 of 5.0

Publisher's Summary
Weeks after his parents disappear on a hike, engineer Adam Carson, 27, searches for answers. Then he discovers a secret website and learns his mom and dad are time travelers stuck in the past. Armed with the information he needs to find them, Adam convinces his younger siblings to join him on a rescue mission to the 1880s.
While Greg, the adventurous middle brother, follows leads in the Wild West, Adam, journalist Natalie, and high school seniors Cody and Caitlin do the same in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Like the residents of the bustling steel community, all are unaware of a flood that will destroy the city on May 31, 1889.
In River Rising, the first novel in the Carson Chronicles series, five young adults find love, danger, and adventure as they experience America in the age of bustle dresses, gunslingers, and robber barons.
©2017 John A. Heldt (P)2017 John A. Heldt

Review:
Adam Carson and his four siblings have lost their parents. Months after they are buried Adam gets a package from the family lawyer that reveals a remarkable secret. Their parents might not be dead because they have apparently traveled back in time. Adam presents the proposal to his brothers and sisters: stay without their parents or travel back in time to find them? The children agree to leave their world in 2017 to go to 1880 to find their parents.

The story follows the youths as they adjust to a past without cars, phones, computers or the many other modern conveniences they are accustomed to. Greg takes the train to the West, Arizona and California, running into a bit of frontier trouble. The rest of the family is in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a growing town where some find work, they all make friends and even a couple find romance. They become nicely involved in the community even as they watch the date for their return to 2017. However, they don’t realize they are in the path of a rising flood.

I thoroughly enjoyed the history as well as the story line. Heldt develops the characters of each of the siblings, who are good people, who have growing friendships. I enjoyed the gentle romances, the strength of Natalie’s character, and the excitement and danger that Greg faces. It was also fun to have Samuel Clemens as a brief character.

I have read early books that involved the parents’ time travels. Those explained the time mechanism where this book totally skimmed that which could be a hole for readers who weren’t familiar with the prior works. It was also unclear to me why the parents missed their timely return and the children arrived somewhere they didn’t expect to be. (Maybe it was there, and I missed it in the audio.)

I appreciate the warm characters and the imaginative and engaging story which are consistent with Mr. Heldt’s writings. I also liked how the story is told in different chapters from the view of the siblings. This story has an ending but it is not the end of the journey. I recommend the story to fans of time travel and also to those who like strong sibling adventure, historical details and clean romance.

Audio Notes: Chaz Allen takes a little bit of getting used to. He doesn’t really give a distinct voice to each character. However, his direct presentation with just a touch of a slow drawl, seems to fit the story, especially the historic settings. I was glad to listen to this in audio as it is a longer book than I normally pick up.

Source: From the author through AudioBook Boom for an honest review. This qualifies for my Audiobook and Alphabet Challenge, including 2018.