Heather’s Bookshelf: Annie’s Apple
Author: John A. Heldt
Released: 04/01/23
Genre: Historical romance/time travel
“On this night, New York City did not belong to the people in the penthouses or the people in the street. It belonged to a starry-eyed dreamer from Portland, Oregon. Manhattan was her sandbox. Brooklyn was her tent. The Big Apple was Annie’s Apple. It was the last and final stop.”
“Annie’s Apple” is the sequel to “The Fountain”, the review for which can be found here. The story begins in 1911, six years after siblings Bill, Paul and Annie Carpenter find the fountain of youth and travel back in time.
The story finds Annie and Bill in New York. Bill’s married to Cassie and trying to start a family and new life as educators. Annie’s working as an investigative reporter, in too deep after volunteering for a soon-to-be deadly assignment. Paul is still in the Army, assigned to the Mexican-American border with his brother-in-law Andy, trying to secure the border.
The Carpenter’s are trying to move on with their new lives - finding purpose in their careers, family, and love interests. But the world seems to have other ideas as tragedy continues to follow them through time.
Trigger Warning: violence, death, fire-related death,
Overall, I really enjoyed this tale. This story starts with a bang. The depiction of the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is tragic, sad, and disturbing. The author makes you feel this event with his descriptions and one particularly brutal sound I couldn’t get out of my head. The author then flips between POVs of the Carpenters family members and a love interest, allowing for both background information (if you didn’t read the original book) and descriptions of the main characters. Cassie and Bill take a back seat to the title character and the other members of the Carpenter family. However, they still have a meaningful contribution with one particularly meaningful event and as the first was focused on Bill and Cassie, I liked the change in focus. I felt Andy to be exceptionally frustrating in his decision making, but also believe that was kind of the point. The middle portion of the book is much more evenly and slower paced with a focus on the characters, their emotions, relationships, and decision making. There’s some love, loss, and romance. It’s really strong character-driven prose. The last portion of the book revs up again on the pacing and centers around a very famous event in history (that I have also happened to include in my time travel novella). I won’t give anything away, but from the research I had to do for my book, the author clearly put a lot of research into this. The ending is fitting for the rest of the tale- a little sad, a bit romantic, and hauntingly hopeful. It set the tone for the next book in the series, which I am looking forward to.
I received a copy of this story in exchange of a fair and honest review.
OVERALL REVIEW:
A time travel novel that reads more like a historical romance with strong lead characters each with their own POV. Two famous tragedies bracket this character-driven tale.
Want to learn more about the author?
Check out my interview with John A. Heldt
Interested in checking out the book for yourself?
Find it for purchase here or Kindle Unlimited
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