Sophie Reads YA: Lynn Rush & Kelly Anne Blount

2023 Beat the Backlist challenge

ARC Review: Project Personality (Twin River High #2) by Lynn Rush & Kelly Anne Blount

10:00

Project Personality
Series: Twin River High #2
Author: Kelly Anne Blount & Lynn Rush
Published May 17th 2021 by Entangled: Crush

Goodreads Synopsis
Hope Chambers has a major problem. She’s spent the entirety of her four years of high school focusing on being perfect—perfect grades, perfect extracurriculars, perfect essays—to the point that she forgot to get a life. And now she’s perfectly boring.

She’s got exactly two weeks before her admissions interview for MIT to spice up her life and get a personality, dammit. And she knows exactly who can help her: soccer star and Mr. Popularity himself, Landon Watkins. But how does a nerdy, socially awkward girl ask the most charismatic guy in school to help her become interesting?

Saving his life in the school cafeteria is a pretty good start.

No one is more surprised than Hope when Landon agrees to help her. But what he proposes they do takes her so far out of her shell, she's practically in a different ocean. And when she starts falling for the last guy she ever expected to, it has her second-guessing every decision she's ever made...
Goodreads

Review
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher. This in no way impacted on my view.

Hope Chambers is a perfect student, but being perfect on paper will only get you so far. To spice up her personality and application in the weeks leading up to her MIT interview, she enlists the help of soccer star Landon Watkins. Though Landon may be Mr Popular, following the death of his grandmother and his spiralling, his grandfather gives him an ultimatum, and helping Hope will work with that. Hope may only need help for a few weeks, but getting closer to Landon has opened her eyes to just what she's been missing.

When I read Gutter Girl, I knew that the series would be an enjoyable one. I liked both Hope and Landon, who felt like real teenagers, who weren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and made mistakes. Project Personality is full of laughs and teenage love, with a bit of angst thrown in too. A lovely teen romance.

Dates Read:
October 17-19, 2023

Rating
3 Stars

2021 New Release challenge

ARC Review: In the Penalty Box by Lynn Rush & Kelly Anne Blount

10:00

In the Penalty Box
Series: None
Author: Lynn Rush & Kelly Anne Blount
Published January 5th 2021 by Entangled: Teen

Goodreads Synopsis
The Cutting Edge meets Friday Night Lights in a sizzling new hockey romance from bestselling authors Kelly Anne Blount and Lynn Rush.

Willow
Figure skating was supposed to be my whole world. But one unlucky injury and now I’m down...but I’m definitely not out. I just need to rehab—a boatload of rehab—and who’d have thought I could do it on the boys’ hockey team?

Of course, the infuriatingly hot captain of the team seems to think I’m nothing but sequins and twirls. What’s a girl to do but put him in his place? Game on.

Brodie
Hockey is my whole world. I’ve worked my tail off getting my team in a position to win the championships—hopefully in front of major college scouts, too—so what’s a guy to do when a figure skater ends up as our new goalie?

Of course, the distractingly sexy skater thinks I’m nothing but a testosterone-laced competitive streak. And surely she’s only biding her time to heal, then she’s gone. Game over.
Goodreads

Review
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way impacted on my view.

In the Penalty Box sees injured figure skater, Willow, recuperate and train with her local hockey team. Back in Wisconsin, and at risk of losing her place on her Olympic squad, Willow knows she needs to train, and train hard, if she has any chance of coming back after her Achilles tear. Joining the local hockey team was a way for her to have more ice time, but being a girl on a boys’ team is not without its difficulties, and especially when her feelings for the team captain, and new friend, Brodie, start to complicate things. For Brodie, he’s known as Wind, the captain of the team, and on track to go to Boston College and play professionally, just like his dad, and grandad before him. However, his home life isn’t perfect. His mam was killed by a drunk driver a few years ago, his younger brother has asthma and is ill, and his dad is slowly becoming dependant on alcohol.

This was a book I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I enjoyed it. Willow is on track for the Olympics, until an injury caused her to tear her Achilles’ tendon, and her to be dropped from the team. She’s gutted, and needs to recover, and fast, if she has any hope of achieving her goals. Playing in goal for the hockey team was a lark at first, but soon became really important to her. Some of the team members, like Pax and Eric, were misogynistic and angry that she had taken the spot of one of their friends, but for the most part, people really respected and were glad she was playing for them. The only real issue was the no fraternisation rule, as Brodie and Willow are interested in being more than just friends. I really liked Brodie, too, and felt for him after what was happening at home, and the pressure he is under. Okay, some parts were really over the top, and I was rolling my eyes at times, but all in all, I enjoyed the book.

Dates Read:
February 1-4, 2021

Rating
3 Stars

2021 New Release challenge

ARC Review: Gutter Girl (Twin River High #1) by Lynn Rush & Kelly Anne Blount

10:00

Gutter Girl
Series: Twin River High #1
Author: Lynn Rush & Kelly Anne Blount
Published May 10th 2021 by Entangled Publishing LLC (Teen)

Goodreads Synopsis
Star football player Jace Rovers has a secret. And not just any secret—a shocking secret… He writes romance. The kind with swords. And dresses. And kissing.

Nobody knows. Not the other kids at Twin River High. Not his overbearing parents. And certainly not the millions of fans who’ve read his book on the writing platform Scribbles. And that’s the way he plans to keep it.

Except suddenly one of the other football players grabs his notebook in jest and starts reading a kissing scene out loud…and Jace knows he’s busted.

But then McKenna Storm, resident goth girl who avoids the spotlight like a virus, snatches up the notebook and tells everyone she's the author. And lucky for Jace, she later agrees to continue the ruse...for a price.

Heck, he'd give her anything not to reveal his secret. But when they start to fall for each other, he knows he'll have to keep the biggest secret of all—his darkest character is based on her…
Goodreads

Review
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher. This in no way impacted on my view.

McKenna Storm wants to avoid the attention and spotlight more than anything, and at Twin River High, she manages to do that - mostly - though she is known as the resident goth. But when she and star footballer Jace Rovers run into each other in the hall, and his notebook containing his hit fantasy romance is picked up by his fellow team mates, she takes the fall and now it's not just her classmates who want to know about her, but also the many thousands of fans of the book on Scribbles. Now Jace is desperate for her to pretend she is the author, at least a little while longer, and they need to spend time together in order to get their story straight. But, the crush McKenna had on Jace is coming back, and it seems as if he might be falling for her too.

Now I had no idea what this book would be like, going in, but I quite enjoyed Into the Penalty Box by these authors, and thought this would be a nice read. And it was. Both Jace and McKenna were extremely interesting characters, with well fleshed out back stories, and I was really invested in their romance. Yeah okay, it was a bit unbelievable at times, and the angsty moments were a little extreme, but all in all, I felt like this was an enjoyable contemporary read. I'm hoping that we see more of Jace and McKenna in the other books.

Dates Read:
May 9, 2021

Rating
4 Stars