Tempest

Julie Cross

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Tentative Publish Date: January 17, 2012

Version: Advanced Readers’ Edition from Librarything FirstReads

Series: Tempest

This story starts out with Jackson Meyer writing entries in his journal.  He is doing this because his friend, Adam Silverman, has told him that she should record his experiences.  One thing about Jackson is he can time travel.  It is the year 2009 when he first starts experimenting with Adam and time traveling.  Adam is the only person that Jackson has told about his abilities.  

He is dating Holly Flynn and works at a day camp.  Holly suspects that there is something Jackson is hiding.  Due to Jackson’s and Adam’s time traveling experiments, Jackson is late for a date with Holly on October 29^th.  This creates tension between them and Jackson goes over to Holly’s dorm to smooth things over.  They are awoken on October 30^th by the sounds of someone knocking on the door.  Jackson soon realizes, that the people who are at the door want to do he and Holly harm.  He tries to get them to leave, but in the chaos, Holly ends up getting shot.

Jackson “jumps” or time travels to get out of that situation.  At first, he cannot believe he left Holly there to die.  As he goes back over what happens, he wonders if they knew that he was able to jump.  He jumped to 2007.  He cannot figure out what is happening and tries to get back to 2009.  While trying, he jumps to 2003, 2004 and 2007.   While he is stuck in the past, he gets to spend time with his twin sister Courtney, who has previously died.  He also learns more about his dad and the people that were after him.  His main thought at first is to weave himself into Holly’s earlier life and prevent the event on October 30^th, 2009 from happening.  Through Holly, he meets Adam again and he helps Jackson make sense of things and the new people who show up in Jackson’s life.  There are many things about time travel and his history that Jackson doesn’t know about.  The questions are, is he willing to pay the price to find out and how far will he go to protect Adam and Holly?

When I first received this book in the mail from Librarything’s First Reads, I was ecstatic!  This was a book that I was anticipating reading for a while and it didn’t disappoint.  There have been a few books recently which deal in time travel.  The thing I like about this is that it is always different.  You can basically have a book about the same thing (time travel) and have a different experience each time because the opportunities are so vast.  What makes Tempest so great is that the learning experience that Jackson embarks on while he is trying to get back to 2009.

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.

 

▪Jackson Meyer.  In the beginning of the book, he is more self-centered and thinks more of himself than other people.  When he gets toward the end of the book, he is more appreciative of Adam, Holly and his Father and what they’ve been through. Jackson learns more about himself and who he is during his stint in the past.  In the end of the book, he has tough decisions to make that don’t just affect him. 

▪Holly Flynn.  Even when things get weird around Jackson, she sticks with him. 

▪Adam Silverman.   Adam is described as a “science nerd.”  When Jackson jumps back to 2007 and “meets” Adam for the first time, it doesn’t seem to faze him that much when Jackson tells him about his time travel capabilities.  Adam is a smart person who is always thinking ahead.

▪Courtney Meyer.  Jackson’s twin sister who died of cancer.  When Jackson jumps back to when he can actually interact with Courtney, she trusts him when he tells her that he is from the future.

▪Emily.  I don’t know much about her character as it is not discussed a lot until the last part of the book, but what I do know, I like.  She is the young girl that Jackson keeps seeing that reminds him of Courtney.  You might be asking how can you like a character that you know very little about?  To find that answer, you'll have to read the book and then you'll understand more.

▪Kevin Meyer.  I wasn’t sure which side I was going to put him on.  He is Jackson’s and Courtney’s father.  The reason for my hesitance is that there is a lot of information that he kept from Jackson and whenever he shows up, trouble seems to follow him.  I believe that his intentions are good.

▪Dr. Melvin.  This is a doctor that has taken care of Jackson and Courtney all of their lives.  He seems to want what is best for Jackson.  This is another one who was hard to determine if I liked him or not because there are things brought up near the end of the book that make me not like him.

 

▪The EOT or enemies of time.  The way that they are pictured in the majority of this book puts them in bad light.  I will have to read the subsequent books before making a final judgment on that.  They want to capture Jackson and are who Kevin Meyer and his team fight against.

▪Chief Marshall.  He is the one who is in charge and isn’t afraid to let everyone know it.  He doesn’t seem to have a compassionate bone in his body.

 

On this cover, you are shown clouds and a thunderstorm.  In the front are a boy (Jackson) and a girl (Holly) trying to reach each other.  This fits the story well, because that is basically what the book is about.  Jackson trying to get back to Holly.  I really like the colors in this cover.  That is what drew me to the book primarily.

This is what it said about this book on Julie's website:

Here's the 411 on this title you may have seen around online.

WHAT IS IT? This is basically like a prequel and it's about 10,000 words which might not mean much to the non-writers. I think it was around 50 pages double spaced in a word document.

DO YOU HAVE TO READ THE BOOK FIRST? Nope. But I would highly recommend reading the free excerpt first which is the first four chapters. You get a sense of how time travel works in TEMPEST from the opening and I don't rehash those rules in the bonus story. If you have read the book from one of the "early review" opportunities or because you're related to me, and you liked the characters, specifically Jackson, Adam, and Holly, then you will most likely enjoy TOMORROW IS TODAY.

WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT? Expect a lighter tone and a lot of fun because this story is before everything went bad for Jackson. When time-travel was just fun and games. It's even before Jackson got the girl. You'll get a little more insight into both Holly and Adam's characters.

WHEN CAN I GET IT? It's available for e-readers on December 6, 2011. You can pre-order now and have it automatically download on December 6th.


HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? It's FREE! totally and completely 100% free.




Order it here
Read the first four chapters of Tempest here

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