Review: Tempest by Julie Cross

Tempest

(Tempest # 1)

By: Julie Cross

Pub. Date: January 17, 2012

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Pages: 352

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.

I wanted to love this book so much. It sounds amazingly awesome. Time Travel and male POV! I'm sold. Unfortunately, I didn't like is as much as I wanted too. That isn't to say it is not a great book. I know others are falling in love with Tempest. It just wasn't my cup of tea, but I still would read the next book in the series.

Jackson Meyer is 19. He goes to college, volunteers at a camp and has a girlfriend. He is very much like other guys his age, except he can time travel. What made his time traveling unique was he can't change the future. What ever he does in the past changes nothing in the time space continuum. I thought this aspect was very interesting.

I really loved Jackson! He was so much fun and I loved reading his POV. When his girlfriend is shot in 2009, he gets scared and time travels back to 2007, and he can't go back home. He is able to time travel to other parts of his life, but he can't go back to 2009. Now he has to find out not only how to get home, but he has to stop the murder of his girlfriend as well.

We learn so many different things throughout the story. We learn who Jackson really is and we learn things about his family. Tempest had amazing buildup to this information, which I really enjoyed.

What I didn't like was the ending. It is one of those endings that you want to scream at the author and say "NOOOO, why??????" and then the author laughs and says "what, you don't like cliffhangers"! The book was also a little slow for me. I feel the first half just completely dragged on. The second half was much better!

Tempest reminded me a little of "The Butterfly Effect" movie because of the idea that you have to go to the beginning to change the future.

As I said, I think Tempest is still a great book and I am looking forward to the next book in the series. I even downloaded, Tomorrow is Today, a free prequel to Tempest that I am looking forward to reading!

This review was brought to you by Hallow Tours!

You can also listen to Tempest! You can get the audio book from Macmillan Audio. Listen to a sample here!