Game. Set. Match.

Game. Set. Match. (Outerbanks Tennis Academy #1)

by Jennifer Iacopelli

YA / New Adult - ebook

Published May 2013 by Coliloquy

Goodreads / Nook / Kindle

Nestled along the North Carolina coast, the Outer Banks Tennis Academy is the world's most elite training facility. In this pressure-cooker environment, futures are forged in blood and sweat, and dreams are shattered in an instant.

Penny Harrison, a rising female star, is determined to win the French Open and beat her archrival, Zina Lutrova. But when her coach imports British bad boy Alex Russell as her new training partner, will Penny be able to keep her laser-like focus?

Tennis is all Jasmine Randazzo has ever known. The daughter of two Grand Slam champions, she's hell-bent on extending her family’s legacy and writing her own happily-ever-after...until her chosen Prince Charming gives her the just-friends speech right before the biggest junior tournament of the year, the Outer Banks Classic.

With a powerful serve and killer forehand, newcomer Indiana Gaffney is turning heads. She’s thrilled by all of the attention, especially from Jack Harrison, Penny’s agent and hot older brother, except he keeps backing off every time things start heating up.

With so much at stake, dreams—and hearts—are bound to break. Welcome to OBX: Where LOVE is a four-letter word, on and off the court.

There is something about sports books, shows, and movies that reel me in. I don't pay all that much attention to real live sports, but put it in a story and I'm hooked. Game. Set. Match. takes place at  OBX. It's part boarding school, part training facility for young, elite tennis players. Indy's the new girl with serious skills, Penny's the reigning champion, and Jasmine is the famous players' daughter with tennis goals of her own. And there's an equally intriguing guy in the story for each of them.

Game. Set. Match. is a great summer read... three potential romances and tons of drama, all while you're hoping your favorite tennis player will win the match. The characters range in age from 17 to 20-something and are in a pretty grown up world of competitive sports, so the story feels more New Adult than YA. When you reach the end, you'll turn the page looking for more... both because you want to keep reading and because there is so much left open-ended (for the next book, I presume). There is plenty of story to entertain though... Big wins, stolen kisses, and drama, drama, drama.

* Thanks to Coliloquy for providing the book in exchange for an honest review. *

Giveaway! Two Books!

Thanks to TLA's April conference and HarperTeen, I have an ARC of You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle to giveaway. I'm pairing it with Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown, which came out last year. (Two Jennifers. Covers with large title text. A perfect match!)

So! Here's your chance to win two books...

The premise was simple: five kids living their real lives, with a new movie about them every five years.

But the six-year-olds who shared the same table in kindergarten have become teenagers who hardly know each other. And Justine, whose edgy sense of humor made her the surprise star of the first two films, now feels like a disappointment.

Still. They've all shared the painful details of their lives with countless viewers. They all know how it feels to have fans as well as friends. So when the latest movie gives them the chance to reunite, Justine and her costars are going to take it. Because sometimes, the only way to see yourself is through someone else's eyes.

Kendra has always felt overshadowed by her older brother, Grayson, whose OCD forces him to live a life of carefully coordinated routines. The only way Kendra can stand out next to Grayson is to be perfect, and she has perfection down to an art -- until a cheating scandal threatens her flawless reputation.

Behind the wheel of her car, with Grayson asleep beside her, Kendra decides to drive away from it all -- with enough distance, maybe she'll be able to figure everything out. But eventually, Kendra must stop running and come to terms with herself, her brother, and her past.

The Rules: One entry per person. Open until 10am CST on Monday, May 20, 2013. Winner will be contacted on May 20 and will have 24 hours to respond with a U.S. mailing address, or a new winner will be selected. 

Fill out the form below for a chance to win!

Ends Monday, May 20 at 10am CST.

Good luck! 

Book Haul: April/May 2013

Hi! I'm doing a book haul / Stacking the Shelves post, since I've had such a great book month! I attended TLA in Fort Worth a few weeks ago. I had a great time at the event and hanging out with my friends from back in Houston Lena, Jess, and Ginger, plus Magan who drove in from Austin. They're the best.

So! This post is to share the books I was lucky to receive at TLA and/or from publishers, plus any others I've borrowed or bought since then.

FOR REVIEW:
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April G. Tucholke (Aug. 15)
Broken Illusions (Midnight Dragonfly #2) by Ellie James (May 8)
Elegy (Hereafter #3) by Tara Hudson (June 4)
Game. Set. Match. by Jennifer Iacopelli ***review will post on 5/15
Hereafter (Shadowlands #2) by Kate Brian (Oct. 1)
Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy (July 16)
Invisibility by Andrea Cremer & David Levithan (May 7)
Monsters (Ashes #3) by Ilsa J. Bick (Sept. 10)
Nantucket Blue by Leila Howland (May 7)
No Angel by Helen Keeble (Oct. 8)
Reboot by Amy Tintera (May 7) ***my review
Starry Nights by Daisy Whitney (Sept. 3)
The Uprising (The Forsaken #2) by Lisa M. Stasse (Aug. 6)
Towering by Alex Flinn (May 14)
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (Aug. 27)
Winger by Andrew Smith (May 14)
You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle (June 4)

I'll be making my way through these and posting reviews as I go. I've already got a review of Reboot up and a few others scheduled for books releasing later this year. Time to get cracking on the rest of the May books! Also, look out for a giveaway of a You Look Different in Real Life ARC this week. Somehow I ended up with two, so now I don't even have to wait until I read it to give it away.

BORROWED:
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake - Thanks.... Lena? (Can't remember!)
Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender (Oct. 1) - Thanks, Lena!
Reality Boy by A.S. King (Oct. 22) - Thanks, Lena!
Spoils by Tammar Stein (Dec. 10) - Thanks, Lena!
Golden by Jessi Kirby (May 14) - Thanks, Ginger! 

PURCHASED AT TLA:
Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick ***my review
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith
Stick by Andrew Smith

 

PURCHASED:
From Notting Hill with Love... Actually by Ali McNamara
Halfway There (Fool's Gold #10.5) by Susan Mallery
No Attachments by Tiffany King
Relatively Famous by Jessica Park
Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham
Suddenly Royal by Nichole Chase
Summer Rental by Mary Kay Andrews
The Upside of Letting Go by Nacole Stayton
This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith
Waiting on Forever by Ashley Wilcox
What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonia Sones

Phew! Even for a whole month, that's a lot of books! (And I never realize how many books I buy until they're all in a list like this... Yikes!)

My birthday is in July, so it's about the time when I stop buying so many books and start putting them on my wishlist so my family has something to buy me. Better go check other blogs for ideas!

{ Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Post your own & go link up! }

Interview: Authors of Georgetown Academy

Earlier this year, I posted a review of the first Georgetown Academy book. As a politics-junky, the series is just my thing. It's Gossip Girl meets The West Wing (if they'd followed Zoey to high school).

Today the authors, Jessica Koosed Etting & Alyssa Embree Schwartz, stopped by to answer a few questions I just had to ask:

Are you fans of D.C. politics? How did Georgetown Academy come about? 

Fan probably isn’t the right word since D.C. politics have been so polarizing lately, but we definitely have a huge interest in it and follow everything very closely. We’re especially invested in women’s roles in politics, which is something we tried to incorporate in the Georgetown Academy series. We love the idea that our younger female readers might be inspired to take an interest in that world, as well.

What initially sparked our idea for the series was hearing the stories of a few of our friends who went to prep schools in D.C. similar to Georgetown Academy where they were surrounded by children of high-ranking politicians (including the President and Vice President’s kids). Their high school stories were so unique and interesting (and entertaining!) and we realized it was an untapped setting and the perfect world for a YA series. The story we heard that really made the light bulb go off for both of us is how everyone at these schools throws parties at the homes of the students whose parents are foreign ambassadors and diplomats because their properties have diplomatic immunity (so the cops can’t legally break the party up). When the foreign heads of state signed that law into effect, they probably weren’t thinking a bunch of high schoolers would figure out a way to exploit it for partying purposes.

Your earlier work is in TV and film. Has writing books been a longtime goal or did it evolve from your script work? 

From an early age we were both voracious readers and harbored fantasies of writing novels. We grew up on different coasts, but we both wrote our own book series in elementary school, filling up several of those black and white notebooks (we still have them by the way and they’re hilarious). We love writing television shows and films, but when we came up with the concept for Georgetown Academy we both knew it was the perfect opportunity for our first YA series, something we had been toying with for years, but kept getting sidetracked from because of other jobs. Halfway into writing it, though, we realized it would make a great TV show, too! But we’re so glad we wrote it in this form first because it’s given us a chance to really get inside our characters’ heads to the point where we feel like we know them inside and out (and sort of want to be them!).

Do you have any tips for aspiring writers, whether in TV, film, or books? 

Our best creative tip is to keep a notebook handy for when ideas and inspiration come your way and always write them down immediately! We get our best ideas in the middle of the night and in the shower! We don’t just jot down big conceptual ideas in these notebooks, but character traits, interesting dialogue we’ve overheard from the table next to us at dinner and whatever’s making us laugh.

Our best business tip is to not be afraid to market yourself. When we were first starting out, we would send our material to anyone and everyone we thought could help us eventually get it across the desk of the right person, from assistants to family friends. It can be excruciating to put yourself out there like that, but you have to hold on to your belief in your work. In our case, our self-promotion led to us getting out first literary agent and selling our first television show.

Who's your favorite club member in The Baby-sitters Club? 

Amazing question!! We love them all, but if we had to pick we’d go with Stacey. First, her look was very trendy (though now we question why we ever thought a blonde perm sounded like the coolest hair-do ever). Second, she was from New York City, which made her super-glam, especially when she would digress into stories about the apartment she lived in there near Central Park. (Her NYC BF Laine both intrigued and intimidated us!) Sure, Stacey would get flaky sometimes, like when she’d go to Sea City with the Pike family and invariably leave Mary Anne with all the babysitting duties so she could go chase guys, but her dating tension with Kristy’s older brother Sam was a favorite story point for us, though it never really panned out for them. (By the way, Claudia is a close second. We definitely hid candy in our room so we could be like her and were annoyed with her older sister Janine on her behalf).

%&# 

Um, is anyone else obsessed with how detailed their answer to the BSC question is? LOVE. IT. I'd say that enthusiasm paired with Georgetown Academy's interesting take on D.C. politics is enough to give this series a try!

Reboot by Amy Tintera

"Want to dance? We have music this time. 
And I don't have to punch you when we finish."

Reboot (Reboot #1)

by Amy Tintera

YA - Hardcover, 352 pages

Published May 7, 2013 by HarperTeen

Goodreads / IndieBound / Book Depository / Amazon

Five years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

The perfect soldier is done taking orders.

One book in and I'm totally hooked on Amy Tintera! Reboot is the perfect match for my picky, sci-fi loving heart. Tintera manages to make Wren feel human and worth rooting for, even though she is essentially dead and meant to be a cold-hearted killing machine, thanks to the government. She was dead 178 minutes, which means she's one of the best (with the longest known reboot time) and the least human among the Reboots. Wren is badass and calculating, while also managing to feel like a teen girl (albeit one in a super weird situation) and show the kind of vulnerability and hope not expected from someone intended to be a heartless soldier.

Then there's Callum. Oh, Callum. He was only dead for 22 minutes, which makes him kind of a joke among the Reboots and a possibly hopeless case to those in charge. He's sweet and smiley and the perfect balance to Wren's closed off resignation. He never quite fits in, but doesn't seem to mind enough to wipe the smile off his face. Without him, the story would've been much darker and Wren's hopeful side would've likely stayed buried until she died for the second and final time.

Reboot is a great mix of action, weird, evil, science plot, and humor that keeps the reader hooked throughout. There is a second book in the works, so everything wasn't solved by the last page, but the conclusion of this book was enough of an ending to not leave you feeling confused or lost or irritated. It ends, but then there's a possibility for more… and you really want to know what's on the other side of that possibility.

Reboot is a good choice for fans of Divergent or Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. And it released yesterday, so snag a copy ASAP.

See what other bloggers are saying about the book:

Rather Be Reading

The Hiding Spot

Thanks to HarperTeen for providing an ARC at TXLA!