Time travel. We have all heard of it, we've all at some point desired it, and we all think we know everything there is to know about it. The concept of time-travel in Julie Cross' Tempest is a completely different affair. In almost every time-travel movie on Earth there was the simple law that if you were to go back in time and do something, it would have an effect on your present. This doesn't happen in this story. If I were to describe exactly how time-travel works in this book, it would take up the entire review space. This book is almost 100% science fiction, although, it is very much a romance novel - at least for the first half of the story. It quickly moves from teenage-romance to confusing science fiction to cutthroat thriller. Let's go into the details. (Before I do start, just to warn you, there are a few light spoilers in this review.)

The book is described entirely in first person and chronological order. It is written from the point of view of Jackson Meyer the time-travelling 19-year-old protagonist. There are no issues specifically that Cross brings up, apart from a short feminism paragraph in the very early chapters of the book. When Jackson arrives at his girlfriend Holly's dorm, Holly's roomate Lydia answers the door. Lydia is a feminist, and simply won't let Jackson inside the dorm. A review I read of this book, written by an older reader, states that the 'Lydia the feminist' part is offensive to actual real-world feminists and portrays them in the wrong way. Being a 12-year-old reader, I am in no position to say anything about the matter, so I will just leave it at that.

The characters are effectively a pic-and-mix of various cliche characters. You have the cool time-travelling teen, his beautiful girlfriend, secretive undercover CIA dad and the protagonist's computer-geek sidekick. We have all seen these before, but Cross' narration of the story goes beyond these characters and brings them to life. A very clever idea is to have the protagonist as an average guy but with one distinguishing feature. So this way, the reader can relate to the character as well as find out more about his distinguishing feature. If there was too much of either one it would be out of balance. Character development does occur, with Jackson deciding what is more important. Himself and Holly being in love and spending their time together with the possible danger of Holly's death, or Jackson literally cutting himself out of Holly's life to keep Holly out of harm's way.

The story is enticing. To be completely honest, I didn't even realise it when it had ended. I genuinely turned the last page and expected there to be a shiny new chapter title waiting for me. The time-travelling parts were a thrill to read, especially for a sci-fi fan like me.

Even though saying this will make me seem like a complete game-addict I will say it anyway: This book really reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. If you haven't played this game, the story consists of a young boy travelling through time to save the world and the princess. I could not help but recall the game after reading how Jackson's story is almost the exact same. It just reminded me even more because of the resemblance between the game title and the main antagonist group in the story, the 'Enemies of Time'.

I have rated Tempest by Julie Cross five stars simply because it has earned a place at least fifth or higher on my top ten. The story is superb, the characters literally come to life and the ending is among the best endings I have ever read.