Synopsis

From the author of THE FOUNTAIN and ANNIE’S APPLE comes a story that spans decades of conflict and change.

As World War I rages in Europe, the Carpenters and the Lees make a home in Southern California. Bill and Cassie add to their family. Andy and Annie start one of their own. Paul, a bachelor, enters the world of business. All find peace in a turbulent time. Then draft notices arrive, illness strikes a child, and life for two intertwined families takes a troubling turn.

Thirty years later, Emilie Perot, a beautiful resistance fighter, and Steve and Shannon Taylor, an American couple with ties to Paul Carpenter, conspire to escape Nazi occupation. Each seeks freedom and a new life in France’s Vosges Mountains, home of a legendary fountain of youth that can restore health and send visitors through time.

As events unfold in the different eras, the participants march on. All are unaware of the forces that seem determined to throw them together.

In DUTIES AND DREAMS, the epic conclusion of the Second Chance trilogy, several young adults find love, heartbreak, and redemption in a world of war, pandemics, and social unrest.

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Review

This is the final book in the Second Chances trilogy. John Heldt is a masterful storyteller, especially when it comes to time travel novels. I have enjoyed everything he has written, and this book wraps up this series nicely. The book focuses primarily on Paul, but it wouldn’t be the same without Bill, Annie, Cassie, and Andy. Each chapter is told by different characters to give us insight from all angles. There is also the addition of Emilie. She befriended Shannon, another time traveler from a previous book, and learned about the fountains and their capabilities. Unfortunately, there are people within the German government who also want that knowledge and will stop at nothing to obtain it.

I can only imagine what it was like to live in the early 1900s and know what we know about events around the world: the Spanish flu, WW I, and more. Advances in medicine and technology were in their infancy, and it was a struggle to know you could not do anything to save someone when it would have been easy to do today.

I enjoyed watching the characters continue to grow and evolve as their younger selves, finding love, having children, and doing what they can to enjoy their new lives. Some events don’t turn out quite well, but they aren’t unexpected, considering the time. Several characters face challenges that will test their faith and strength.

If you enjoy time travel and action novels with a hint of romance, you might want to check out this series. We give it 5 paws up.

About the Author

John A. Heldt is a reference librarian and the author of the critically acclaimed Northwest Passage time-travel series. The former award-winning sportswriter and newspaper editor has loved getting subjects and verbs to agree since writing book reports on baseball heroes in grade school. A graduate of the University of Oregon and the University of Iowa, he is an avid fisherman, sports fan, home brewer, 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 on his blog.

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