Author John A. Heldt provided an e-copy of Sea Spray the third installment of the Time Box series. It is also the eighteenth book Mr. Heldt has offered. I have read them all and continue to thoroughly enjoy them. It has been great fun watching his talent grow and develop along the way. I don't mean to intimate that his earlier works are somehow inferior to his more recent offerings. Make no mistake, his storytelling ability is, and always has been, very impressive. What I mean by growth and development is his continued expanding and reimagining his time travel stories. Mr. Heldt does not fall into the trap of resting on a formula, but pushes himself to bring new and exciting situations to his work. I can (but won't) name best selling authors who don't challenge themselves this way.
Sea Spray demonstrates this growth splendidly. The third installment of the adventures of the Lane family takes a decidedly more serious and somber tack (you'll get that joke after you read the book). After all, someone is trying to kill the whole family. We still get Heldt's masterful interweaving of history, life and death drama, bittersweet romance, humor, coming of age angst and an unshakable zest for life.
The people who are out to kill the Lanes are well developed also. They are not one-dimensional evil guys. The Lanes themselves are not pacifist pushovers. They take a much more proactive stance against their antagonists. I enjoy spending time in John Heldt's literary worlds. So much so that I read more slowly, to spend as much time with them as I can. Some of the action sequences however made that impossible; the shoot-out at Block Island is nothing short of riveting. In fact, the last 20% of the book just wouldn't let me go. I stayed up much later than usual because I just couldn't put it down and at the same time being sad because I knew I was going to be leaving them again.
Mr. Heldt does not (thankfully) rely on the dreaded and in my case despised cliffhanger, yet he does entice us with a hint at what's coming. He tells us where the next installment is set to begin. Wow! The only drawback to a good series is the wait between books. With John Heldt's work, these interludes are becoming more and more difficult.
If you haven't yet guessed, I give Sea Spray highest praise. It's a great continuation of the Lane's saga. I strongly encourage readers to check this one out. Enjoy!
Mike
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