The Academy by Quinn Anderson

An Ashlez Review: The Academy by Quinn Anderson

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Rating – 2.5 stars out of 5
 
True love stabs you in the front.


Nick Steele just wants a normal life, cliché or not. He had one once, back in Chicago. Before his father died and he took a year off from college to grieve. Now, he’s starting fresh at a prestigious—but tiny—Catholic university. Adjusting to small-town life will be a challenge, along with making friends and keeping his scholarship. All he wants to do is blend in, get his diploma, and go back home.

But Sebastian Prinsen—campus heartthrob and a notorious player—has other plans. He notices Nick right away and makes a bet with his two best friends: Who can kiss the new kid first? Nick seems immune to Sebastian’s charms, and yet genuine chemistry sparks between them. Even worse, real feelings do too. Sebastian falls more and more every time Nick blows him off, but if he comes clean about the bet, Nick will hate him forever.

 

The last thing Nick wants is to fall in love while he’s still grieving, but Sebastian feels like home to him. Nick wants that so badly he may ignore the warning signs and risk his fragile heart once more.
 
This book reads like a movie – you have the few main characters who the story is about and then you have side groups – posse as it work – and those characters interactions with the mains, and sometimes their own parts of chapters.  This made for a  very long read – it’s only a 300 page book but it felt much much longer.  Not to say that’s a bad thing but I like stories more cut and dry and to the point – I felt a lot of this book was “filler” as it were.
 
I think Theo is my favourite character – which is strange given Nick/Seb are the mains you’re supposed to have a connection to/feel for.
 
The school atmosphere was fun to read – it was written like I figure a dorm, etc. experience would be like and since I never had that experience it was cool to read it through anothers eyes.
 
Nick – tragic past, not used to $ in a world where the people have a ton in this book – feels like a big fish and hates he’s the subject of gossip
 
Seb – rich of course – struggling family dynamic – arrogant.
 
I think the fact that the book is only 300 pages made me feel a little bad – it took me WEEKS to finish because it felt so long and overfull of information – some chapters/parts would be awesome and others would just be like, why do you have this in here it does nothing for/against the book it’s just there for the sake of it.
 
Overall the book fell flat for me – but I think others might really like it – if you like the school atmosphere, and a cute if not strange romantic relationship this book is good.
 
Cover Art by Garrett Leigh:  just generic art  (2 men on cover) – I think maybe a school background would have been cool you don’t, at all, realize it’s a book about school until you start into it – although the photo itself is adorable.
Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon
Book Details:
ebook, 366 pages
Published September 17th 2018 by Riptide Publishing (first published September 15th 2018)
ISBN139781626498440
Edition Language English

n the Spotlight Tour and Giveaway for The Academy by Quinn Anderson

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The Academy by Quinn Anderson

Riptide Publishing
Cover Art:  Garrett Leigh

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

Hi, everyone. I’m Quinn Anderson, and I’m here to share some behind-the-scenes facts about my latest release, THE ACADEMY. Stay tuned and comment on stops along the way for a chance to win a $10 Riptide gift card.

 

About The Academy

True love stabs you in the front.

Nick Steele just wants a normal life, cliché or not. He had one once, back in Chicago. Before his father died and he took a year off from college to grieve. Now, he’s starting fresh at a prestigious—but tiny—Catholic university. Adjusting to small-town life will be a challenge, along with making friends and keeping his scholarship. All he wants to do is blend in, get his diploma, and go back home.

But Sebastian Prinsen—campus heartthrob and a notorious player—has other plans. He notices Nick right away and makes a bet with his two best friends: Who can kiss the new kid first? Nick seems immune to Sebastian’s charms, and yet genuine chemistry sparks between them. Even worse, real feelings do too. Sebastian falls more and more every time Nick blows him off, but if he comes clean about the bet, Nick will hate him forever.

The last thing Nick wants is to fall in love while he’s still grieving, but Sebastian feels like home to him. Nick wants that so badly he may ignore the warning signs and risk his fragile heart once more.

 

About Quinn Anderson

Quinn Anderson is an alumna of the University of Dublin in Ireland and has a master’s degree in psychology. She wrote her dissertation on sexuality in popular literature and continues to explore evolving themes in erotica in her professional life.

A nerd extraordinaire, she was raised on an unhealthy diet of video games, anime, pop culture, and comics from infancy. Her girlfriend swears her sense of humor is just one big Buffy reference. She stays true to her nerd roots in writing and in life, and frequently draws inspiration from her many fandoms, which include Yuri on Ice, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Buffy, and more. Growing up, while most of her friends were fighting evil by moonlight, Anderson was kamehameha-ing her way through all the shounen anime she could get her hands on. You will often find her interacting with fellow fans online and offline via conventions and Tumblr, and she is happy to talk about anything from nerd life to writing tips. She has attended conventions on three separate continents and now considers herself a career geek. She advises anyone who attends pop culture events in the UK to watch out for Weeping Angels, as they are everywhere. If you’re at an event, and you see a 6’2” redhead wandering around with a vague look on her face, that’s probably her.

Her favorite authors include J.K. Rowling, Gail Carson Levine, Libba Bray, and Tamora Pierce. When she’s not writing, she enjoys traveling, cooking, spending too much time on the internet, playing fetch with her cat, screwing the rules, watching Markiplier play games she’s too scared to play herself, and catching ’em all.

Connect with Quinn:

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of The Academy, Quinn is giving away a $10 Riptide gift card! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 22, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

A Lucy Review: The Academy by Quinn Anderson

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Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Sebastian, Theo and Dante are friends at a small private college. Sebastian is a notorious player, screw them and leave them.  When Nick starts at the college, grieving for his father and coming from a large city college, they resurrect an immature ploy from their younger days.  The first one to get Nick to kiss them wins Barbzilla, the trophy.  The caveat is, Nick has to be the one to initiate the kiss.  So they go after Nick, particularly Sebastian.  He is unrelenting in the face of Nick’s obvious distrust.

That is, I believe, what kept this from being a higher rating for me. To be honest, I liked Theo and Dante (secondary characters, friends of Sebastian’s) a little more than I liked Nick and Sebastian.  Theo and Dante were friends working on their relationship.  Nick and Sebastian spent most of the book snarking and being rude.  While I usually have no problem with the idea of “the bet”, having read this trope before, I didn’t like the way it was handled here.  You know at some point the bet will be revealed and it will cause problems but Sebastian’s actions were just so over the top nasty I couldn’t handle it.  The fact that Theo’s action, and true friendship towards Nick, made me believe Theo was the better choice wasn’t a good direction for a romance.  That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed Theo and Dante! They have their heads on straight and try to guide Sebastian.  “For Sebby.” 

Speaking of the secondary characters, I also loved Deen, Nick’s roommate.  “Deen didn’t ask him what’d happened again.  He didn’t say anything else.  He just hugged Nick and didn’t let go until Nick had finished crying.  Then he hugged him some more.”  Plus, he’s funny even though “Deen beamed, like he wasn’t used to people laughing at his jokes.”  Considering his name is Deenabandhu I did snort when he asked, “It is Nickolas, right?  And not like, Nickstopher or something?”  He’s sweet  Really, that’s the friend I want.  Sweet and funny.

The writing was very good in this book, although parts of it dragged.  Perhaps because it was long at 366 pages there were portions that just seemed to go on and on.  I got a little tired of the back and forth between Nick and Sebastian, because I didn’t feel the connection there.  The fact that it’s really just a matter of weeks could have something to do with it as well. 

Overall, the book was okay but not something I’d read again.

The cover art by Garrett Leigh was a little bit misleading for me because it shows two smiling, incredibly happy looking men holding each other.  The book itself didn’t have that fluffy feel to it.

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook
Published September 17th 2018 by Riptide Publishing (first published September 15th 2018)
ISBN139781626498440
Edition LanguageEnglish