Title: Tempest
Author: Julie Cross
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: January 17, 2012
Pages: 352
Edition: Hardcopy
Source: Copy provided by author through a book tour hosted by Dianne
Summary (taken from Goodreads):
The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.
That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.
Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.
But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.
Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.
Review:
When I was first invited to review Tempest as part of a blog tour, I was a bit hesitant because I hardly ever read sci-fi novels. The only other time travel book I have ever read was The Time Traveler’s Wife. I ended up really loving that book though and so I decided to try out Tempest as well. While I didn’t end up loving it that much, I really liked reading it. Here’s why.
I thought the beginning of the book wasn’t particularly exciting. The first few pages were actually a bit dull and I began to be afraid that it was going to be dragging. However, I was pleasantly surprised when after the first few pages, a lot of action already started happening and it didn’t stop there. As it turns out, the whole book is action-packed, which I think will keep readers interested in reading more. Instead of being dragging, the sequence of events were actually very fast-paced because the protagonist, Jackson, kept jumping to the past. Honestly, though, because of the fast-paced nature, it can get a bit confusing for the reader because you have to keep track of when in the past Jackson is already at and which events happened in whatever time. However, I guess this works in such a way that the readers will get a sense of what Jackson feels every time he jumps, which is oftentimes confused and displaced.
To add to the excitement, there were a lot of twists in the story. Just when I thought I knew who the bad guys were, something happens to show that I thought wrong. Then it happens again. Until the story ends, it wasn’t really clear yet if the Enemies of Time (EOTs) were really the bad ones or not. Although some questions were answered in the end, it was this situation with the EOTs that was left hanging, which is one of the things that will make readers want to read the next book in the series.
Character-wise, most of them were stereotypical. Holly was the girl-next-door type, while Jackson’s friend Adam, was the typical science geek. At first, I had Jackson stereotyped as well. He seemed like your typical spoiled, rich guy, who doesn’t care about anything but himself. However, as the story progressed, a deeper character is revealed. I love all those times he visited his twin sister, Courtney, in the past. She’s actually already deceased in the present time. I also love the tender moments he had with Holly. There were actually parts about Jackson with Courtney and also with Holly that made me cry because I could relate to how he was feeling at that time.
I just don’t like the ending though. Aside from feeling that the book ended in a rush, Jackson was also forced to make a hard decision in the end with regard to Holly. It was an ending, which in my opinion, is heartbreaking. Then again, I’m a sucker for happy endings so maybe that’s why I didn’t like the ending in this book. Here’s hoping that the next book will have a better one.
Overall I think Tempest is a good read. I’d recommend it for anybody who likes sci-fi and romance novels. I am definitely looking forward to reading the sequel, Vortex.
Tempest is also available as an audio book. If you wish to hear a clip of the first chapter, click here. If you are also interest to read Tempest or Vortex, do email Dianne at [email protected] or tweet her @oopsireadagain.
