Another time-travel romance. When researching papers from the 1920s for his dissertation, Cameron comes across a photograph of a beautiful woman who was murdered in 1925 and diary entries about time-travel. Immediately intrigued, he contacts relatives of the woman, only to discover that time travel is indeed possible. Cameron manages to persuade time-travel professor Geoffrey Bell to let him travel to the twenties in search of love and answers, and maybe to save a life.
This isn’t Heldt’s best work, in my opinion. The whole thing felt a bit forced. Maybe I’m just cynical, but I don’t see how anyone could fall in love with a photograph, especially when it’s of someone who died 90 years ago who, in theory, there is no chance of ever meeting. This story felt a lot like time-travel just for the sake of it, without a strong premise to base it on. This would have worked much better as just a romance story, no time-travel necessary.
However, once Cameron had travelled to the past, it did get better. The story has some exciting threads, including Cameron’s attempt to prevent Candice’s murder, and an accidental trip to the year 2041. The characters are nice, and easy to understand, while the villains are suitably nasty. Indiana Belle is, overall, not a bad book, but I would recommend reading some of Heldt’s other stories before this one.
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
The Story Collector 