The Fountain by John A. Heldt

Portland, Oregon. In May 2022, the Carpenters are a sad lot. Bill, 81, has just buried his beloved wife. Paul, 75, has terminal lung cancer. Annie, 72, is a paraplegic with broken dreams. Childless and directionless, the siblings face an uncertain future in their childhood home. Then Bill, a retired folklore professor, learns from a dying man that the legendary Fountain of Youth, his obsession for decades, may be more than a myth. He races to Mexico to find the truth. Within weeks, the Carpenters, with nothing to lose, enter a mysterious cave and exit in July 1905 as healthy young adults. They begin new lives in Oakland, California, only vaguely aware of a devastating earthquake that will rock the San Francisco Bay Area on April 18, 1906. In THE FOUNTAIN, the first book in the Second Chance trilogy, three siblings find opportunity, romance, and heartbreak as they make the most of a new lease on life. Readers' Advisory: The Fountain is the first novel in a family saga that spans several years. While some storylines are resolved, others are not. They are addressed in subsequent books.