Tag Archives: Time Box

Crown City (Time Box 5) by John A Heldt-a review

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Crown City (Time Box 5) by John A Heldt-a review

 

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date November 26, 2021.

From the author of the critically acclaimed Time Box series comes the dramatic conclusion of a story that spans a century.

Two years after stealing portable time machines, the Lanes, a family from the present day, stop running and start living. They settle in the seaside town of Coronado, California, in 1963.

For Jordan, Laura, and Jeremy, the oldest children, the respite is a chance to nurture relationships, start families, and explore the country. It is an opportunity to put down roots.

For Ashley, the youngest, it is a chance to thrive. Now fourteen, she is ready to start high school, make friends, and make up for lost time. She finds popularity and more after a classmate nominates her for freshman homecoming princess.

Robert Devereaux could not care less. The deranged billionaire wants his time machines back and is willing to do anything to get them. He sends a hit man to the past, setting into motion a final confrontation between a hunter and his prey.

In CROWN CITY, the suspenseful finale of the Time Box saga, a defiant family finds romance, friendship, and danger as it navigates the final months of the Kennedy presidency.

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REVIEW:CROWN CITY is the fifth and final instalment in John A Heldt’s adult TIME BOX time travel series focusing on the Lane family-Mark and Mary, and their children Jordan, Jeremy, Laura and Ashley. CROWN CITY should not be read as a stand alone-I recommend reading the series in order as their is an ongoing premise throughout.

SOME BACKGROUND: Having created two time machines in 2021 known as the Time Boxes, patriarch Mark Lane discovers that his business partner, billionaire Robert Devereaux, wants to use the Time Boxes for questionable purposes. Having prepared for weeks, Mark Lane and his family pull up roots, and send themselves, along with the Time Boxes, back in time. Robert Devereaux desperate to retrieve the time boxes, and punish his one-time partner, hires a modern day assassin who goes on a time travel hunt for Mark Lane and his family.

Told from several third person perspectives CROWN CITY finds the Lane family travelling to 1963 in the months prior to and after the assassination of John F Kennedy. 1963 beckoned Mark and Mary Lane and their growing family but the constant jumping through time was beginning to take its’ toll on the youngest child Ashley. As Ashley started high school for the very first time, the soon to be fifteen year old needed more freedom than the family would accord, and in this , Ashley was about to bring trouble to the Lane’s front door.

Meanwhile, Randy Taylor, Mark’s one-time mentee, had proclaimed his love for Mark’s daughter Laura, and in this, Randy will begin a deliberate take down of Robert Devereaux, by travelling to the future. Setting a plan into motion, Randy will ensure the safety of the family he has grown to love but trouble continues to follow in the form of a hired assassin who refuses to back down.

CROWN CITY follows the Lane children as they come into their own-falling in love, starting families, venturing further without their time-travelling parents. As one couple struggle to prevent the death of someone else, everyone must come to terms to a decision that will affect them all, going forward.

CROWN CITY is a story family and friendships, relationships and love: a story of betrayal and vengeance, acceptance and moving forward. John A Heldt pulls the reader into another multi-faceted story that tentatively looks at a factionalized account of historical events, events that our family must regrettably ignore. The premise is detailed and complex, engaging and captivating-a fantastic conclusion to a wonderful series.

Reading Order and Previous Reviews
The Lane Betrayal
The Fair
Sea Spray
The Refuge

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

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The Refuge (Time Box 4) by John A Heldt-a review

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The Refuge (Time Box 4) by John A Heldt-a review

 

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Don’t own a Kindle? Download the FREE Amazon Kindle App for your mobile device or pc

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date My 25, 2021.

Months after stealing two time machines, the Lanes, a modern family of seven, make a stand against the unhinged software mogul who wants them back. They travel to 1941 Oahu to eliminate the billionaire’s mercenary, an assassin who has chased them through time.

While son Jordan, a former intelligence officer, stalks his unknowing foe in the streets of Honolulu, his parents, younger siblings, and pregnant wife settle in the village of Laie, where love, friendship, and opportunity await. All seek refuge from the perils of time travel.

Hit man Silas Bain has his own agenda. He hopes to alter the events of December 7, 1941, and indirectly save a brilliant German physicist, his employer’s grandfather, from certain death. He has prepared for every contingency, except the charms of a beautiful heiress.

Filled with romance, suspense, and intrigue, THE REFUGE takes readers on a thrilling and memorable ride through the colorful, magical, and dangerous world of pre-Pearl Harbor Hawaii.

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REVIEW:THE REFUGE is the fourth instalment in John A Heldt’s adult TIME BOX time travel series focusing on the Lane family-Mark and Mary, and their children Jordan, Jeremy, Laura and Ashley. THE REFUGE can be read as a stand alone but I recommend reading the series in order as their is an ongoing premise throughout.

SOME BACKGROUND: Having created two time machines in 2021 known as the Time Boxes, patriarch Mark Lane discovers that his business partner, billionaire Robert Devereaux, wants to use the Time Boxes for questionable purposes. Having prepared for weeks, Mark Lane and his family pull up roots, and send themselves, along with the Time Boxes, back in time. Robert Devereaux desperate to retrieve the time boxes, and punish his one-time partner, hires a modern day assassin who goes on a time travel hunt for Mark Lane and his family.

Told from several third person perspectives THE REFUGE takes the reader and the Lane family to 1941 Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As eldest son and former intelligence officer Jordan Lane hunts for the man who is hunting the Lane family, Jeremy falls for Sarah Gustafson, a young woman with ties to the family’s past but a young woman who is about to lose everything on that fateful date in December 1941. As assassin Silas Bain searches for the elusive Lane family, the assassin will, once again, leave a trail of bodies, in his struggle to take down his intended targets.

Meanwhile, Robert Devereaux has instructed his ‘assassin’ to save the life of Maximilian Roth, Robert’s late grandfather, and the man who invented the original Time Box but Max is a physicist in Germany, and the Nazi’s aren’t about to let one of their scientists walk away.

THE REFUGE follows in the weeks and months prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, an act that brought the USA into the Second World War when America declared war on the nation of Japan. Knowing they could not interfere meant the loss of people the Lane family would have liked to save but they have agreed not to upset the natural order or significance and outcomes of historical events.

John A Heldt pulls the reader into a detailed, multi-leveled and fascinating look into a fictionalized account of the bombing of Pearl Harbor; another historical glimpse into ‘the day that will live in infamy’, and the family who will witness history up close and personal.

Reading Order and Previous Reviews
The Lane Betrayal
The Fair
Sea Spray

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

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Sea Spray (Time Box 3) by John A Heldt-a review

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Sea Spray (Time Box 3) by John A Heldt-a review

 

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / Amazon.uk / Amazon.au /

Don’t own a Kindle? Download the FREE Amazon Kindle App for your mobile device or pc

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date December 20, 2020

Months after stealing two time machines from a madman who wants them back, the Lanes, a family of seven, seek peace and safety in 1927, the latest stop on a journey through time. For a while, each succeeds.

Parents Mark and Mary find housing in affluent East Hampton, New York, where a gracious elderly couple offers use of their mansion. Son Jordan and his new wife, Jessie, plan a family. Siblings Laura, Jeremy, and Ashley pursue fun and adventure. All form strong friendships with the Prices, a mysterious mirror-image family that lives next door.

Billionaire Robert Devereaux could not care less. Reeling from the theft of his million-dollar devices, he sends a hit man to the past to retrieve his property and rid the world of his former business partner and his troublesome clan.

Randy Taylor, who programs the machines, is determined to stop him. He tries to undermine his boss and save the Lanes, even as he tries to help his mother beat a deadly illness. He pines for the day he can join his fugitive friends and rekindle a promising relationship with Laura Lane.

Filled with romance, humor, and heartbreak, SEA SPRAY follows a modern family on the adventure of a lifetime as they navigate their way through the exciting and often dangerous world of Lindbergh, Gershwin, and Fitzgerald.

••••••••

REVIEW:SEA SPRAY is the third instalment in John A Heldt’s time travel series focusing on the Lane family. SEA SPRAY can be read as a stand alone but I recommend reading the series in order for back story and history as there is a common theme and continuing premise throughout.

SOME BACKGROUND: Having created two time machines in 2021 known as the Time Box, patriarch Mark Lane discovers that his business partner, billionaire Robert Devereaux, wants to use the Time Boxes for questionable purposes. Having prepared for weeks, Mark Lane and his family pull up roots, and send themselves, along with the Time Boxes, back in time. Robert Devereaux desperate to retrieve the time boxes, and punish his one-time partner, hires a modern day assassin who goes on a time travel hunt for Mark Lane and his family.

Told from several third person perspectives SEA SPRAY finds the family transported to 1927, the roaring twenties, at the height of Prohibition in East Hampton, New York where the family will summer in the mansion of an elderly couple. Meeting their neighbors, Tom and Madeline Price, as well as their children, who will befriend and fall in love, the Lane’s will quickly discover that they are unable to relax when a messenger from the twenty-first century warns that that Devereaux’s assassin survived his last encounter with the Lanes, and is continuing his search for the time-travelling family. From Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, to Charles Lindbergh, and black market alcohol, bootleggers, and speakeasies, the Lane family will witness and participate in their share of history, affecting the lives of the people they encountered along the way. Found once again, the Lanes are forced to travel to a time when the world was at war with itself, and in doing so, hope to prevent someone else from changing the outcome of the second world war.

Once again, back in 2022, the Lane’s accomplice Randy Taylor, devices a way to warn the family of an impending attack by Devereaux’s assassin but in doing so, comes to the hard realization, that the woman he loves, has fallen in love with someone else. Having lost both his mother and father in a short period of time, Randy makes a decision that does not go according to plan.

SEA SPRAY is a story of family and relationships, friendships and love; history, time travel, science fiction, secrets, power and control. The premise is intriguing and entertaining; the romances are subtle and sweet; the colorful characters are numerous and energetic. John A Heldt pulls the reader into a wonderful and historic glimpse at the fun, flirty and dangerous twenties.

Reading Order and Previous Reviews
The Lane Betrayal
The Fair

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

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The Lane Betrayal (Time Box #1) by John A Heldt-a review

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The Lane Betrayal (Time Box #1) by John A Heldt-a review

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / Amazon.uk / Amazon.au /

Don’t own a Kindle? Download the FREE Amazon Kindle App for your mobile device or pc

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date February 29, 2020

From the author of the critically acclaimed Northwest Passage, American Journey, and Carson Chronicles series comes the first book in the Time Box saga.

Virginia physicist Mark Lane has a problem. Weeks after privately creating two time machines, he learns his corporate partner wants to use the portable devices for nefarious purposes. Rather than give him the chance to do so, Mark takes the time boxes and escapes to the relative safety of 1865.

For Mark, wife Mary, and their children, the adventure is a chance to grow. Mary runs a business. Jeremy, 19, and Ashley, 12, befriend escaped slaves. Laura, 22, finds her place as a nurse. Jordan, 25, falls for a beautiful widow. All hope to find peace in the past.

Billionaire Robert Devereaux has other ideas. Shortly after Mark’s betrayal, he sends an assassin to 1865 to retrieve his property and set matters straight.

Filled with romance, suspense, and history, THE LANE BETRAYAL follows a modern American family as it tries to find security and contentment in the final weeks of the Civil War.

••••••••

REVIEW:THE LANE BETRAYAL by John A Heldt is the first instalment in the historical, time travel, TIME BOX series focusing on the Lane family.

Told from several third person perspectives THE LANE BETRAYAL follows in the wake of Virginia physicist Mark Lane’s attempts to stop a madman in the year 2021. Having created two time machines known as the Time Box, Mark Lane discovers that his business partner, billionaire Robert Devereaux, wants to use the Time Boxes for questionable purposes. Having prepared for weeks, Mark Lane and his family pull up roots, and send themselves, along with the Time Boxes, back in time to 1865, just weeks prior to the end of the Civil War, Lincoln’s re-election, and eventually the president’s assassination but travelling back to a time where history Is about to repeat itself, means the Lane family must struggle with the knowledge of what is going to happen and when. As the family settles into life in 1865, Robert Devereaux back in 2021, hires a hit man, that he will send back in time, to destroy the Lane family, and take back what he believes belongs to him.

There is a large ensemble cast of colorful secondary and supporting characters including many historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, John Hays, US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, as well as John Wilkes Booth. We are introduced to the Lane family: Mark and Mary Lane, their children Jordan, Laura, Jeremy and Ashley; Mark’s co-conspirator Randy Taylor; Mark’s business partner Robert Devereaux; assassin for hire Silas Bain; injured soldier Sergeant Thomas Nye; former slaves Jane and Lewis, and Jane’s employer Miss Julia Albright; and widow Rebecca Maine.

THE LANE BETRAYAL is a story of family, friendships, history and love. When eldest son Jordan falls in love, the family is caught unaware, as they find themselves on the verge of changing history, in an effort to outrun a modern day assassin in 1865 Washington DC. From vengeance and murder, imprisonment and heart break, the ugliness of war, and the abolishment of slavery, THE LANE BETRAYAL is an intriguing and imaginative story deeply rooted in historical fact and fiction.

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

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