What's Fresh with Jennifer Echols's Such a Rush!

A sexy and poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.

When I was fourteen, I made a decision. If I was doomed to live in a trailer park next to an airport, I could complain about the smell of the jet fuel like my mom, I could drink myself to death over the noise like everybody else, or I could learn to fly.

Heaven Beach, South Carolina, is anything but, if you live at the low-rent end of town. All her life, Leah Jones has been the grown-up in her family, while her mother moves from boyfriend to boyfriend, letting any available money slip out of her hands. At school, they may diss Leah as trash, but she’s the one who negotiates with the landlord when the rent’s not paid. At fourteen, she’s the one who gets a job at the nearby airstrip.

Hello Jennifer! It's great to have you back on YA Fresh! Please share with our readers at YA Fresh what your YA novel is about.

Jennifer: My hardcover debut, Such a Rush, is a sexy and poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.

High school senior Leah Jones loves nothing more than flying. While she’s in the air, it’s easy to forget life with her absentee mother at the low-rent end of a South Carolina beach town. When her flight instructor, Mr. Hall, hires her to fly for his banner advertising business, she sees it as her ticket out of the trailer park. And when he dies suddenly, she’s afraid her flying career is gone forever.

But Mr. Hall’s teenage sons, golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson, are determined to keep the banner planes flying. Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business--until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret. Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers--and the consequences could be deadly.

What was the main inspiration for this book?

Jennifer: I took a trip to the beach with my family. While there, I drove with my dad to the tiny airport to watch the advertising banner planes take off and land. When he told me the pilots were very young because they were amassing hours to become airline pilots someday, I knew that would be my next book.

Other than your main character, who's a favorite character of yours in your novel and why?

Jennifer: The hero, Grayson, is a reformed bad boy trying desperately to take charge and save everyone. He’s doing the best he can, and I feel terrible for him.

What’s been your favorite author moment so far in your career?

Jennifer: On December 26, 2010, Forget You hit #7 on BarnesandNoble.com. Before this, it had sold fine but was nothing like a best seller. I’d been watching it climb the rankings through the Christmas season, and on the day after Christmas, my husband called me in to look at the ranking. We both thought it must be a mistake, but it hovered there for many weeks--long enough for me to point it out to my editor. ;) A few months later, I was able to get a hardcover deal for Such a Rush. I am eternally grateful to everyone who got a Barnes and Noble gift card in their stocking and used it to buy my book.

That's so amazing! Tell us something fun about your new book. It can be a character detail, something that inspired the story, or a behind the scenes story from the writing process.

Jennifer: During the writing of this book, my career suddenly stepped up, to the point that I was finally able to quit my day job and write for a living. However, because of the way all my deadlines fell, I had to stop writing this book in the middle of it, write an entirely different YA romantic comedy called The One That I Want, and then come back to this book. That’s the first time in my career I’ve had to turn on a dime, and it made for a crazy summer!

Thanks for hosting me on your blog, Kelly!

Thank you and best of luck with Such a Rush!

Jennifer Echols was born in Atlanta and grew up in a small town on a beautiful lake in Alabama—a setting that has inspired many of her books. She has written nine romantic novels for young adults, including the comedy MAJOR CRUSH, which won the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the drama GOING TOO FAR, which was a finalist in the RITA, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Book Buyer’s Best, and was nominated by the American Library Association as a Best Book for Young Adults. Simon & Schuster will debut her adult romance novels in 2013, with many more teen novels scheduled for the next few years. She lives in Birmingham with her husband and her son. Visit her website, http://www.jennifer-echols.com.