Book Review: Tempest (Tempest #1) by Julie Cross

Title: Tempest (Tempest #1)

Author: Julie Cross

Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books

Publishing Date: January 5^th 2012

Length: 432 pages

Genre: YA thriller, romance

Source: Netgalley

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.

Summary by Goodreads 

Jackson and Holly are one of my favourite YA couples of all time, because from the first page on they felt like close friends to me. It’s convenient that they are already a couple and lovely to see how good they know and how familiar they are with each other.

I’ve always been a fan of witnessing the first meetings, the chase and the start of epic relationships. And even though Holly and Jackson are already a couple, you still get the chance to see how their love developed in the first... and second place.

What’s special about Jackson is that he’s a time traveller. He is a confident, sweet and clever guy and I love that the story is told from his perspective. There should be more male narrators like Jackson!

It’s not only that TEMPEST is written in 1^st person point of view, but also that the action sets in almost immediately. I felt sucked in by TEMPEST, the characters, relationships, language and events- to summarize everything. And the action never slowed down so that I felt constantly engaged.

You can imagine it must be hard to keep your time travel ability hidden from public and even your family and girlfriend. Then from one second to the other everything changes when Holly is shot and Jackson stuck in the year 2007. He can’t get back to the present and has to meet his best friend Adam and his girlfriend Holly for the first time again. It’s a stunning and at the same time frightening fate that Jackson is confronted with.

The role of his family, father, mother and sister is really mysterious and I was more than eager to decipher their intentions and roles in the whole time travel system.

Jackson’s friend Adam covers the position every intelligent time travel mystery adventure needs. He is the brain. Adam supports Jackson with his knowledge and researches the whole process of time travelling with small experiments involving Jackson. Kind of diary entries support the scientific character of Jackson’s and Adam’s time travel experiment.

I sensed a greater conspiracy throughout the entire read and was surprised to see who and what powers are behind all that!

With Jackson jumping through time without having a fixed spot, the special events become even more important. Jackson visits places and persons of his past and things get more complicated with each jump. Julie Cross invented a lot of complex strings of time, action and thought. There’s a lot to explore in TEMPEST!

1) of the existence of perfect men

2) of a wonderful male narrator

3) of a new generation of time travellers

4) of a love that overcomes all time differences 

5) of sacrifices that define who we want to be

 

 

5/5 ***** TEMPEST- Don’t miss the newest novel about time travel written in perfect action movie blockbuster style with Jackson Meyer playing a fabulous role!

Time travel has always been a topic that fascinated me and I already read other books about it like THE TIME TRAVELLER’S WIFE and RUBY RED. TEMPEST could be named my recent favourite in YA time travel attempts!

* Don’t miss the prequel to TEMPEST, TOMORROW IS TODAY.

* Read an excerpt of TEMPEST here. 

* Click here to watch the book trailer. 

* For further information about Julie Cross and her books visit www.juliecross.blogspot.com

* Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Books for giving me access to the e-ARC of TEMPEST!