Such a Rush

A sexy and poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers. 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, the kids may call Leah 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. But there's one way Leah can escape reality. Saving every penny she can, she begs quiet Mr. Hall, who runs an aerial banner-advertising business at the airstrip, to take her up just once. Leaving the trailer park far beneath her and swooping out over the sea is a rush greater than anything she's ever experienced, and when Mr. Hall offers to give her cut-rate flight lessons, she feels ready to touch the sky. By the time she's a high school senior, Leah has become a good enough pilot that Mr. Hall offers her a job flying a banner plane. But then Mr. Hall dies suddenly, leaving everything he owned in the hands of his teenage sons: golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson. Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she's leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed businessuntil 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 brothersand the consequences could be deadly.

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. Her nine romantic novels for young adults have been published in seven languages and have won the National Readers’ Choice Award, the Aspen Gold Readers’ Choice Award, the Write Touch Readers’ Award, the Beacon, and the Booksellers’ Best Award. Her novel Going Too Far was a finalist in the RITA and was nominated by the American Library Association as a Best Book for Young Adults. She lives in Birmingham with her husband and her son. Visit her at Jennifer-Echols.com.