The Hard Count Review Tour

 

Welcome to THE HARD COUNT review tour with Ginger Scott, hosted by Wordsmith Publicity. Be sure to check out all the participating blogs, reviews and enter the tour giveaway!

 

 

THE HARD COUNT

Mature YA Contemporary Romance-Stand Alone

Release Date: July 15, 2016

Goodreads:  http://bit.ly/1O7xc52

Amazon: https://amzn.com/B01HSM221W

iBooks: http://apple.co/1WMNjb8

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1tuu6yY
Kobo: http://bit.ly/260udA4

Google Play: http://bit.ly/29Bc3j4

Nico Medina’s world is eleven miles away from mine. During the day, it’s a place where doors are open—where homes are lived in, and neighbors love. But when the sun sets, it becomes a place where young boys are afraid, where eyes watch from idling cars that hide in the shadows and wicked smoke flows from pipes.

West End is the kind of place that people survive. It buries them—one at a time, one way or another. And when Nico was a little boy, his mom always told him to run.

I’m Reagan Prescott—coach’s daughter, sister to the prodigal son, daughter in the perfect family.

Life on top.

Lies.

My world is the ugly one. Private school politics and one of the best high school football programs in the country can break even the toughest souls. Our darkness plays out in whispers and rumors, and money and status trump all. I would know—I’ve watched it kill my family slowly, strangling us for years.

In our twisted world, a boy from West End is the only shining light.

Quarterback.

Hero.

Heart.

Good.

I hated him before I needed him.

I fell for him fast.

I loved him when it was almost too late.

When two ugly worlds collide, even the strongest fall. But my world…it hasn’t met the boy from West End.

  

Globug's Review

The Hard Count is one of my faves so far this year! I really think it's the author's best work to date and I have loved all of her books. I don't usually imagine a high school debate as being anything beyond boring so imagine my surprise when I finished reading the first chapter about a boy and girl having a debate and realized that I was entirely invested in the magic Scott was creating. 

Some might say it's like a modern day West Side Story. You have Nico and Reagan who are from different classes and ethnicity. Most would see Reagan's family as a picture of what an all American family should be. In reality they're struggling with the expectations society and their community has placed on them just as much as Nico's family living on the wrong side of town. It's their common ground, a football field and debate team, that brings them together.

There's something so special about Nico. The first image the author creates of Nico is of him as a scared little boy trying to avoid the leader of the neighborhood gang. "His eyes look like the devil's, and there's always smoke coming from his mouth." Nico works hard to make good grades to make his mother and older brother proud. His effort pays off when he is awarded a scholorship to a private school on the "right" side of town.

Reagan is a Daddy's girl. I loved that even though her Dad is the football coach her character wasn't written as the head cheerleader like I expected. She's actually one of the top students in her class and she's filming a documentary about her school's football team who are known as The Tradition. One bad season is all it takes for a Coach to lose the support of board members and the community. Reagan's twin brother also happens to be the starting quarterback that lost last season's big game. So you can imagine the tension in their home. 

In the beginning, Reagan felt sure that Nico hated her. He's her biggest rival in debate class. When she's see's him playing football with his buddies from the West End she knows instantly that he could be her hero. He could save the football team and her dad's job which could also save her family. All it took was for her to see something special in Nico for him to be able to see something special in himself. Convincing the team and community to look past their prejudices will be the biggest battle they face. Nico and Reagan prove to be up to the challenge and ready to play *the hard count.

*The hard count: a strategy used by the quarterback in which they will use a deceptive snap count in an effort to draw the defense offsides.

GIVEAWAY

1 signed copy of In Your Dreams, $10 Amazon gift card

Open International

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

About Ginger Scott

Ginger Scott is an Amazon-bestselling and Goodreads Choice Award-nominated author of several young and new adult romances, including Waiting on the Sidelines, Going Long, Blindness, How We Deal With Gravity, This Is Falling, You and Everything After, The Girl I Was Before, Wild Reckless, Wicked Restless and In Your Dreams.

A sucker for a good romance, Ginger’s other passion is sports, and she

often blends the two in her stories. (She’s also a sucker for a hot quarterback, catcher, pitcher, point guard…the list goes on.) Ginger has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and blogs for more than 15 years. She has told the stories of Olympians, politicians, actors, scientists, cowboys, criminals and towns. For more on her and her work, visit her website at http://www.littlemisswrite.com.

When she's not writing, the odds are high that she's somewhere near a baseball diamond, either watching her son field pop flies like Bryce Harper or cheering on her favorite baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Ginger lives in Arizona and is married to her college sweetheart whom she met at ASU (fork 'em, Devils).

Connect with Ginger

Website:  http://bit.ly/1M8g5bi

Facebook:  http://on.fb.me/1U7lDvQ

Twitter: http://bit.ly/1TBkPPT

Pinterest: http://bit.ly/YHKtlF

YouTube:  http://bit.ly/1RcfgqZ
Google:  http://bit.ly/1Rcfjmt
Goodreads:  http://bit.ly/1QKNuyr