Once Upon a Twilight!: Blog Tour: Swinging at Love by Kendra C. Highley | Guest Post

Welcome to the our stop on Swinging at Love tour for Kendra C. Highley This tour is hosted by Chapter by Chapter.

Swinging At Love
Suttonville Sentinels #2
Author: Kendra C. Highley
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary
Released: March 13th 2017
Publisher: Entangled TEEN

Outfielder Tristan Murrell has a problem. As the number two slugger for the Suttonville Sentinels, his team is counting on him to make their very first run at the state championship. But he has a secret—his swing has totally deserted him. As in, he can’t hit anything. He needs to fix the issue, and fast, but how?

Ballerina Alyssa Kaplan has a problem, too. The shiny new sports complex in town has left her family’s batting cage business on the verge of going under. Nailing her audition for a prestigious dance company is everything, but there’s no way she’s letting her some shiny big-box company destroy her family’s livelihood.

Tristan needs a miracle. So does Alyssa. And maybe, just maybe, Tristan’s secret weapon might be the girl of his dreams…

Disclaimer: This book contains hot, shirtless baseball players, kisses that bring a ballerina to her knees, and a lot of baseball smack-talk.

Top 5 favorite Book Boyfriends

So I was asked who my five favorite book boyfriends are….it’s hard to narrow down to just five, but here’s what I came up with:

1. Hector, The Girl of Fire and Thorns. Hector is the youngest captain of the King’s Guard in history. When Eliza, the young Queen, comes to the palace, he’s the first to be truly kind to her. As she grows in beauty and power as the widowed Queen Regent, he stands by her side and watches over her. But, beyond that, he’s desperately in love with her and not willing to settle for being simply a lover: “I love you the way a drowning man loves air. And it would destroy me to have you just a little.” And their happy ending is so sweetly satisfying, I had to read it twice.

2. Akiva, Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Akiva is probably the most tragic of my book boyfriends. It’s hard to say why without spoilers, but let’s just say he’s willing to use his lifetime to right a wrong done to his beloved Karou. His solidity, his want for something more, something better, his beauty, it all adds up to something special. “Your soul sings to mine. My soul is yours, and it always will be, in any world. No matter what happens. I need you to remember that I love you.”

3. Kaz, Six of Crows. I like flawed men—men who are dangerous and have quirks, but can be felled by the right woman. Kaz hits every note. He’s like a caged tiger—graceful and dangerous and not afraid to draw blood, but Inej turns him inside out. When you find out why he can’t let anyone close, it’s heartbreaking, but makes you ‘ship this couple even more. “She'd laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.”

4. Ezra, The Illuminae Files #1. OMG, Ezra. Six-five, athletic, broken, quick-witted Ezra. He’s separated by six thousand KMs of empty space from Kady, but everything he does is with her in mind—even if they did break up on the first page of the book, and it was his fault. The dialog in these books (Gemina is fantastic, too), is so awesome, you can’t help but love the big goofball. He has a big heart, too, and that makes him irresistible. “You have me. Until every last star in the galaxy dies. You have me.”

5. Gansey, The Raven Cycle. When Blue first meets Gansey, she thinks he’s everything she hates in a guy: rich, from the local private boys’ school, handsome, and arrogant. In truth, Gansey is a tortured soul, on a quest to find a mystical dead king who brought him back to life when he was young and dying of hornet stings. He can be all the things Blue detests—including calling her Jane for reasons only he can understand—but he’s so much more: a scholar, a friend, a rich kid, a popular boy, a romantic. He’s complex, fully-formed, and knows who people think who should be, while actively rebelling again it. “‘I wish you could be kissed, Jane,' he said. 'Because I would beg just one off you. Under all this.' He flailed an arm toward the stars.”

Kendra C. Highley lives in north Texas with her husband and two children. She also serves as staff to four self-important and high-powered cats. This, according to the cats, is her most important job. She believes in everyday magic, extraordinary love stories, and the restorative powers of dark chocolate.