Hey chickies we've got Jennifer Iacopelli joining us today to talk about our fascination with sporty heroes and heroines (and for yall doing our Sports Romance Reading Challenge-- this one counts!). Just love that the book is set in North Carolina where I live. How neat! So, check out her guest post and leave her some love. If you'd like to enter the giveaway go for it but feel free to comment even if you don't! ~Anna
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.
Elite (noun)The elite, those who distinguish themselves in their chosen field, whatever it may be, have always fascinated us as a society. . The same is true within the fictional realms. Whether it’s the morally elite Atticus Finch or the magically elite Harry Potter, audiences want to read about characters who are stronger, faster, smarter, happier, better in some way. They are who we aspire to be. They live in worlds we can never enter, but that’s the beauty of fiction. Stories can pull back the curtain for those of us who will never defeat a dark lord with magic (sadly, that’s all of us) or stand up in a courtroom against injustice (probably, most of us). With athletes, we see them every day, on television, on our computers, playing live right in front of us, but their world can be just as mysterious, if not more so than any fictional setting we can dream up, because it’s real, but we rarely get a glimpse inside.
1. the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.
2. persons of the highest class. source:dictionary.com
Professional athletes all have one thing in common. Astounding talent. Even the most marginal pro basketball player is a million times better than the weekend warrior who plays at his local park. Compounded with that talent however, is also hours upon hours of hard work. Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers claims it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to become a master of any skill.
That’s over a year of practice for 24 hours a day straight.
That’s A LOT of time.
So, astounding talent + 10,000 hours of practice = a master pro-athlete.
They carve their bodies into machines capable of things beyond the scope of normal human movement.
They’re as beautiful as Edward Cullen and can play baseball just as well as he can....
They transcend the sports they play. They inspire us to our own version of greatness.
And that’s why we love to read about them. ~Jennifer Iacopelli
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Jennifer Iacopelli was born in New York and has no plans to leave...ever. Growing up, she read everything she could get her hands on, but her favorite authors were Laura Ingalls Wilder, L.M. Montgomery and Frances Hodgson Burnett all of whom wrote about kick-ass girls before it was cool for girls to be kick-ass. She got a Bachelor's degree in Adolescence Education and English Literature quickly followed up by a Master's in Library Science, which lets her frolic all day with her books and computers, leaving plenty of time in the evenings to write and yell at the Yankees, Giants and her favorite tennis players through the TV.
Jennifer has an awesome giveaway going with the tour.
Check out her guest post and leave her some love!
No comments:
Post a Comment
I always enjoy hearing what YOU think so come on and leave a comment. Everyone's welcome :) And feel free to leave comments on old posts. I'll check in on you there too :)
Bloggers don't forget to leave your links!
~Anna