/5
Background: Janie is a young teenage girl in 1952, who has to more from LA to London with her parents. While there, she meets the apothecary and his son Benjamin. The apothecary soon turns up missing and the children believe that he has been kidnapped. Their goal is to find and save him from the mysterious people that have taken him. Janie and Benjamin uncover secrets and Benjamin learns more and more about this father’s profession and the weird things behind it.
The Apothecary is written for young readers but the suspense and story line is so compelling I couldn't put it down. The story starts a little bit slow, Janie moves from Los Angeles to London with her mom and dad, she starts at a new school, and meets a boy named Benjamin. Benjamin wants to be a spy. While tagging along with Ben on his spying missions, Janie and Benjamin find that the Apothecary (Ben’s dad) is in trouble and has been kidnapped, progressing the story into a whorl of who-done-it and mysteries that surround the apothecary’s profession and his secrets…The story if full of suspense, secrets, danger, and more.
**ARC from Librarything, Publication date Oct 2011.**Tempest, By Julie Cross
/5Background: Jackson and his girlfriend Holly are in love, they are a normal couple. Jackson soon realizes that in actuality he is anything but normal, instead he can jump through time and various versions of his life. One second he is with Holly and friends, and the next there are people coming after him and she lies dying in his arms….then he jumps. Jackson cannot seem to find his way back to the proper time and place, nor does he know if Holly will still be alive once he finds it.
Review: The characters are difficult to get a full grasp on, since there is so much jumping around in time. Jackson is the main character, which is refreshing for a teen love story- male point of view- only he is a little obsessive about his girlfriend. He has the ability to time travel and the rest of the novel involves time jumping, while he is trying to get back to the right time, and learning little by little about his background. Since Jackson is jumping all over the place/time, he is a very frustrated protagonist who does not stop to think about his reactions too often. Except when stopping to dwell on where Holly is and if she is alive in real time. All of this while fitting in a love story lost me a little.
This is the first of a trilogy- maybe it will make more sense through the series.
This is the first of a trilogy- maybe it will make more sense through the series.
**ARC from Librarything, Publication date Jan. 2012**
Interesting to see a review on Tempest seeing as I'm reading it at the moment. I must say I do agree with you. It is difficult to get a handle on the characters - and Jackson isn't my favourite. I also hate that he keeps lying to Holly. That doesn't speak 'love' to me. That said, I'm intrigued enough to carry on to see how it all ends. And I do hope it isn't a trilogy. Time for some stand-alone YA books, I think. (A bit cheeky, that comment, coming as it does from a YA author writing a trilogy!)
ReplyDeleteGwynneth
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Thanks for the comment. I was a bit so-so on the read of Tempest, it seems like it would be a great concept and a male lead is so good--but yea, I was expecting a little more. I believe that this will be a trilogy, however none have titles yet, and I think there is a novella/prequel out already for it, I think that a stand-alone would have been a nice change for once, but I think the trilogy is better than expecting a trilogy and it being a saga or whatnot. -S
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