2013 Debut Author Bash-Jennifer Iacopelli

Hi everyone! I am so excited to be part of the 2013 Debut Authors Bash and to be hosted the very awesome, and very talented Jennifer Iacopelli, author of GAME.SET.MATCH!

Bio

Jennifer Iacopelli was born in New York and has no plans to leave...ever. Growing up, she read everything she could get her hands on, but her favorite authors were Laura Ingalls Wilder, L.M. Montgomery and Frances Hodgson Burnett all of whom wrote about kick-ass girls before it was cool for girls to be kick-ass. She got a Bachelor's degree in Adolescence Education and English Literature quickly followed up by a Master's in Library Science, which lets her frolic all day with her books and computers, leaving plenty of time in the evenings to write and yell at the Yankees, Giants and her favorite tennis players through the TV.

Author Links: Website / Facebook / Twitter

Interview with Jennifer Iacopelli

LB: What inspired you to write your first book, GAME.SET.MACTH?

JI: I've always been a sports nut. If my TV is on, odds are it's on ESPN or the Yankee game. Writing about sports was just a natural progression from that! 

LB: How did you come up with the title for your book?

JI: It's a tennis pun. The last words of a tennis umpire at the end of a match are to declare the winner of the last game, the last set, the winner of the match, so "Game. Set. Match." I liked that it could apply to the actual tennis in the book, but also the character's lives. Who will come out on top on the court and off it?

LB: I follow you on twitter and I can tell you love sports. What made you choose tennis as the sport to write about?

JI: Tennis was what popped into my head at the same time Penny Harrison did. She was the first little tidbit from the OBX universe that came to life in my imagination. Then the more I thought about it, the more I realized my first instinct was really spot on because tennis is one of the only sports where an athlete, regardless of gender could be super famous (or not famous at all) and I wanted that for my characters. 

LB: Is there anything in your book based on someone you know, or events in your life?

JI: In my own life, honestly the only one that I did consciously was Dom Kingston, their coach, who is very, very loosely based on a combination of my father and several of the coaches I've either worked with or seen in action over the years.

LB: What was the hardest thing about writing and/or publishing GAME.SET.MATCH?

JI: REVISING! When you write a novel, you tend to become very attached to it and Game. Set. Match. now and Game. Set. Match.'s first few drafts are so incredibly different. Whole plotlines and characters cut, reshaped or invented, word choice changes, setting decisions. People think writing is hard. Writing is easy. CHANGING what you've already written, that's the hard part for me! 

LB: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in GAME.SET.MATCH?

JI: Nope, because like I said in the above answer, I DID change things already and I'm so happy with those changes! 

LB: Did you learn anything from writing GAME.SET.MATCH that you didn’t know before?

JI: Honestly, I learned more about myself than anything else. It still boggles my mind on a daily basis that I sat down, wrote a novel and someone published it. I have that knowledge inside of me for the rest of my life and it's sort of a, "if I can do that, I can do ANYTHING," feeling.

LB: What are your current projects? Can you share anything about them?

JI: Right now I'm working on the sequel to GSM! And I have a few other plot ideas swirling around in my head. They're all New Adult projects. One is a sci-fi/romance idea that's been in my head for YEARS now, but obviously I don't have time to write it, so it'll be on the back-burner for a little while, but it will get done eventually! 

Game. Set. Match
by Jennifer Iacopelli

(Outer Banks Tennis Academy #1)

Synopsis:

Nestled along the North Carolina coast, the Outer Banks Tennis Academy is the world's most elite training facility. In this pressure-cooker environment, futures are forged in blood and sweat, and dreams are shattered in an instant.

Penny Harrison, a rising female star, is determined to win the French Open and beat her archrival, Zina Lutrova. But when her coach imports British bad boy Alex Russell as her new training partner, will Penny be able to keep her laser-like focus?

Tennis is all Jasmine Randazzo has ever known. The daughter of two Grand Slam champions, she's hell-bent on extending her family’s legacy and writing her own happily-ever-after...until her chosen Prince Charming gives her the just-friends speech right before the biggest junior tournament of the year, the Outer Banks Classic.

With a powerful serve and killer forehand, newcomer Indiana Gaffney is turning heads. She’s thrilled by all of the attention, especially from Jack Harrison, Penny’s agent and hot older brother, except he keeps backing off every time things start heating up.

With so much at stake, dreams—and hearts—are bound to break. Welcome to OBX: Where LOVE is a four-letter word, on and off the court.

 Giveaway

 2 e-book copies of GAME.SET.MATCH 

2 swag packs
[Open Internationally]

a Rafflecopter giveaway