Goodreads: River Rising

Author: John A. Heldt

Published: 20th September 2017

Source: Copy from Author

Rating: 2/3 (It was okay)

Official Summary: “Weeks after his parents disappear on a hike, engineer Adam Carson, 27, searches for answers. Then he discovers a secret web site and learns his mom and dad 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 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.” – Goodreads

(Disclaimer – I received a copy from the Author. This does not affect my review in anyway.)

Review: It was okay. The book sits at 661 pages which I just felt was way too much. Not going to lie I am amazed I finished it. At 49% I wanted to stop, I am just way too stubborn. Up to 40% of the book, half of it could have been cut out or removed. It didn’t really add any weight or excitement to the story. It just felt very repetitive. For a 661 page book, it has to suck people in else they just get bored and give up. 70% mark is where stuff got interesting, but advanced very slowly again.

It was pretty much 4 out of the 5 siblings going through the same romantic story line, just slightly different. I got bored. I don’t do romance, I clearly state this on my contact form. My fault too, but the blurb just sounded so good with the time travel twist. The difference between the years didn’t really come into play all that much. Would have been nice to see the difference the women face in a generation where women had very little power/voice. Or to at least see that everything isn’t all strawberries and cream, when they voiced their opinions.

I came across a lot of spacing issues in my mobi file. Just the standard double spacing issue with the formatting. 3017 – That’s very kind of you” (missing ” at the start)

The good stuff, apart from the formatting issue. There was only one mistake I came across, which is pretty amazing for a big book like this. The writing was on point, it flowed, the dialogue wasn’t thick or over the top. If I liked romance I would have most likely loved this book. But sadly that is not the case, which is why it got the lower rating it did. This is just my own opinion.

Would I recommend it? Yes, if you like romance.