River Rising (Carson Chronicles#1)
Weeks after his parents disappear on a hike, Arizona engineer Adam Carson, 27, searches for answers. Then he discovers a secret web site and learns that his mother and father 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 five-book 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.
My Take:
Professors Tim and Caroline Carson mysteriously disappeared during an anniversary hike near Flagstaff Arizona. Their grieving five children search for answers until the family lawyer turns over a sealed envelope informing them their parents are time travelers stuck in the past. A secret website gives the oldest, Adam the information needed to rescue them from 1888. The five adult children go back to the gilded age to find them.
Greg, the middle brother, runs afoul of the law in the Wild West and ends up on the run with a bounty on his head, while Natalie settles into a journalist position at a local paper, where she interviews Mark Twain, writes a transformative column on the prognosticating Puxatawney groundhog on Groundhog Day, and falls for her handsome editor, Sam Prentiss. Twins Cody and Caitlin, high school seniors, try not to let the truth out that they are from another century while trying to fit in at school. And Adam tries to research and find his parents while falling for the beautiful hotel manager. The family adjusts to the slower pace of life there in Johnstown PA, all blissfully unaware of the catastrophe about to strike, when the dam will break and destroy the town.
Drug Content:
G - There is a little casual drinking in a few places.
Violence:
PG-13 - Some people are shot and killed. There is no graphic violence due to man, but the descriptions of the horrors of the flood and the corpses afterward earned this a PG-13
Language:
G - I think I may have found one mild expletive in the entire work.
Adult Content:
PG - There is romance and some kissing. A married couple have a mild scene with a bubble bath, with no on-screen action.
Christian content:
The people in the 1800s were quite religious and people are encouraged to go to church, find a church home, and pray. Faith plays a significant part in their lives, especially when tragedy strikes. There are multiple instances where characters sacrifice for one another.
Final analysis:
River Rising by John A Heldt is the first in a five-book time travel series. The pace is quick, the plot gripping, the stakes high. The author obviously did a lot of research into the life and times of the day, the character and life of Mark Twain, as well as significant details about the tragic flood. The characters were well-fleshed out, from coping with differences in the times to dealing with tragedy and loss.
About the Author:
John A. Heldt is the author of more than twenty bestselling time travel novels. The former reference librarian and award-winning sportswriter has loved getting subjects and verbs to agree since writing book reports in grade school. A graduate of the University of Oregon and the University of Iowa, Heldt is an avid fisherman, sports fan, coin collector, and reader of thrillers and historical fiction. When not sending contemporary characters to the not-so-distant past, he weighs in on literature and life at johnheldt.blogspot.com.
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