Tempest
Julie Cross
Release date: January 17th, 2012
by St. Martin's Press
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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.
*A copy was provided by St. Martin's Press for review purposes*
Time travel is a very tricky subject to get into. (Look at the epic failure of Lost
for example). There is the usual paradox of, if we go back in time then
what happens must already have happened to make us go back. As well as
the endless time loop theories. Tempest battles this with separate
timelines. So now my questions are: if we change timeline, then what
happens to our self in the original timeline? Does a fake us keep living
there? If not, is it as if we never existed there, or do people think
we've just disappeared? And what happens to our other self that existed
before we got to the new timeline?… Yes, my brain hurts too! These were
the sort of questions running through my mind while reading Tempest. You
have to spend time pondering what's happening, over keeping track of
all the back and forth time traveling. For this reason, I can see why
this is not a book that everyone would take to. It would be easy to get
overwhelmed by the maze-like story, but due to my constant analyzations
and fascination with time travel, I was easily engrossed in this novel.
Even though there are some lose ends to my questionings, I was overall
impressed by Julie Cross's time travel concepts.
We've got Jackson as our male protagonist. He's a wonderful
character that is incredibly easy to like and care for. He's just
learning how to work his ability when he gets stuck 2 years in the past,
leaving his girlfriend, Holly, in a grave situation. Failing to get
back, he tries to recreate his relationship with Holly's younger self.
It's definitely an interesting romance set in an peculiar situation.
We've got the usual fun and pleasant moments, but also some with a more
significant message tied to them. The secondary characters aren't
extremely developed, but enough to enjoy their presence. Adam and his
theories, Holly and her quirks, even Jackson's father; they are an
eclectic mix of entertaining personalities.
Because of the quick time jumps that happen quite often, the book is
fast paced from the beginning. It can be easy to get disoriented, but
it can be equally easy to get captivated by the commotion. It's not
until almost the very end that we get a glimpse of the bigger picture -
an unsettling (and mind-boggling) glimpse - which has the potential to
make it a much more epic trilogy than I had first envisioned.
Constant action, heartfelt romance, and fascinating plot twists all
add up to a promising start of what could end up being a fantastic
series. Time travel is never an easy feat, but if you think your brain
cells can handle it, you should absolutely give Tempest a try!
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