Review: Tempest by Julie Cross

Jackson Meyer is hiding a secret. He can time-travel. But he doesn't know how he does it, how to control it or what it means. When Jackson, and his girlfriend Holly, find themselves in fatal danger, Jackson panics and catapults himself two years into his past, further than he's ever managed before, and this time he can't find a way back to the future. All the rules of time-travel he's experienced so far have been broken and Jackson has no choice but to pretend to be his younger self whilst he figures out a solution. 


Jackson is tearing himself apart with guilt and frustration, wondering if Holly survived. He's also become the target of an unknown enemy force and it seems even his dad is lying to him. Jackson is racing against time to save the girl he loves, but to do that he must first discover the truth about his family and himself.

And stay alive.

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I am having such a hard time rating this one because I loved the story, but there were so many flaws with this book to me that I simply can't overlook. The premise of the story is simple and very interesting, but it's executed in a way that is very hard to follow and after reading this book I still don't fully understand what was going on even through things were explained. There was so much going on and it just seemed really cluttered and hard to get.


While I was reading this book I found myself feeling pretty bored. I was gripped by the beginning but then it suddenly slows down after we see Jackson jump into the past and we get about 200 pages of Jackson trying to pull his girlfriend from the future that doesn't know him in the past, which seemed pointless and then all of a sudden these secrets are being revealed and Jackson transforms into some super-secret-agent-time-travel-CIA dude which I just didn't get. It was at that point that I just gave up...


I loved Jackson as a character and considering he was written by a woman author I'm shocked by how true his voice rang. All of the other characters didn't seem like people though, they felt more like devices used to push along the story so I couldn't relate to them, Holly especially.


The book suffered from tell and not show syndrome. The writing seemed very afctual and there was a lack of imagery and description used, so the book was pretty bland to read. 


I think that Tempest will be very popular just because it's something new in the market. Personally, not really my cup of tea though, i'm afraid. It wasn't a bad book at all, but it just didn't grip me, and didn't do all of the good things that i personally think that a good book should do and so I just could  not finish it.


Did Not Finish

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Book to be released through PanMacmillan on 5th January 2012