Author: Johnny O’Brien

Publisher: Templar Publishing (1st August 2011)

Pages: 208

ISBN: 978-1848771031

From Amazon
Schoolboy time-traveller Jack Christie is thrown back to 1940s Nazi-occupied France. With the Battle of Britain and the German Vengeance programme underway, the Second World War is at a crucial point. Jack and his best friend Angus take a more senior role in VIGIL’s attempts to prevent intervention in history, attempting to stop the Revisionists from their highly volatile nuclear plan to stop the war. With spitfire dogfights, jeep races and thrilling chases, the boys have their most hair-raising adventure yet, including involvement in an assassination attempt on Hitler himself. Just as all seems lost, Jack’s father returns and a nuclear disaster is averted in the nick of time.

Review
First a quick alert – this is the third book in the Jack Christie Adventures series, any spoilers for the previous books are entirely unintentional!

The idea of this story stems back to one core idea – if you had the chance, the means and abilities would you go back and change the course of history by attempting to assassinate Hitler? It’s exactly what a group calling themselves the Revisionists plan to do but it’s something that a group called VIGIL are planning to stop. Day of Vengeance is the story of what unfolds.

I have to admit at the start it seems a little bit confusing – I wasn’t really sure who the main character was, at one point I was starting to question if this was even a YA book but thankfully things quickly cleared up and I was able to get into it.

It starts with a section which explains the story so far which was helpful for people like me who haven’t yet to read the earlier books and meant that I was able to pick up Day of Vengeance without getting too lost.

I loved how the story brought the past to life and effortlessly entwined the facts that we know about the start of the war in 1940 with a compelling and believable story. I wouldn’t be surprised if time travel to the past ever became possible (though I think Science has proved it isn’t?) some bright spark would have the same idea as the Revisionists. I mean to assassinate Hitler may have prevented the war but whose to say what would happen in his place – a worse person? a worse war? a drastically different world from the one we know now? To that end it’s only right that there’s a group there to stop them – a group called VIGIL.

A battle like this through time makes fascinating reading and means that unlike some time travel stories the story doesn’t end when some event in the past changes (or is prevented from changing).

Day of Vengeance comes to a really sweet ending which had me going “awwww”. I think there’s enough in there to keep boys (especially) and girls entertained with enough history content which could make you want to discover more about the time in which it is set.

Thanks to Templar Publishing for sending me a copy to review