Tempest

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.

REVIEW BY BETH at 12:30 AM
So yesterday I told you all about my reading experience with TEMPEST by Julie Cross. Basically: I literally couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time! I was truly, sincerely worried about the life of a main character, and the fate of the narrator. Which is actually one of my favorite things about TEMPEST:

Julie Cross made me believe that any character--including the narrator--might not make it out of the story whole.


This is a very hard thing to do as a writer. Basically, a reader goes into the book knowing that certain characters are safe. Of course the hero and heroine make it out of live! The standard reader goes into any novel believe this so fully that making the reader convinced that this might not actually be the case shows a very deft writing hand.

Of course, I didn't always love the characters. In fact, when I first met Jackson I would have been sort of okay if he bit the dust. He was honestly kind of a jerk--he's less than flattering (unfairly so, imo) to his girlfriend's roommate, and while his thoughts on sex and the things he notices is very believeable for a boy narrator, it didn't always endear him to me. Which is another thing I loved about the book:

The narrator, Jackson, truly changes from the first page to the last.


This is another thing that I really respect, author to author. Again, the typical reader expects certain things--such as the character staying basically the same. I mean, you expect the main character to change some, or that a bad guy has an epiphany, Scrooge-style, by the end, but Jackson has a very interesting, and realistic, growth. He doesn't change all at once, nor does he become an angel--but throughout the story, through the course of his experiences, he changes from a somewhat cocky jerk to a guy who's honestly trying to do the right thing, but not sure he can make it.

And have I mentioned he's a guy? Because that's another thing I liked:

This is one of the most believable books with a boy narrator that I've ever read.


I've had my eye out for boy narrator since before I wrote Elder's POV, and I have to said: Julie nailed it. Jackson is boy, through-and-through. I really can't explain it, but I will say that there was never a moment I doubted Jackson's voice. He sounded real.

This is me basically fangirling in TEMPEST's general direction. And you should too! If you've not yet, make sure to enter my contest for a SIGNED copy of TEMPEST in my previous post. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!