Review: SUCH A RUSH by Jennifer Echols!

SUCH A RUSH
by Jennifer Echols
pub date: 7/10/2012


product description from goodreads.com


A sexy and poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.

High school senior Leah Jones loves nothing more than flying. While she’s in the air, it’s easy to forget life with her absentee mother at the low-rent end of a South Carolina beach town. When her flight instructor, Mr. Hall, hires her to fly for his banner advertising business, she sees it as her ticket out of the trailer park. And when he dies suddenly, she’s afraid her flying career is gone forever.

But Mr. Hall’s teenage sons, golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson, are determined to keep the banner planes flying. Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business — until 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 brothers — and the consequences could be deadly.

My Review:

The above description doesn't even begin to describe the magic that lies within the pages of Jennifer Echols's latest hit, SUCH A RUSH. This book is wrought with love, hate, passion, sexy...all the great adjectives used to describe an Echols book! I read it in one sitting, and for the first time in a long time, I actually wanted to immediately start over from the beginning.

SUCH A RUSH tells the story of Leah Jones, a girl often thought from the "wrong side of the tracks" as we say here in the south, who hops from city to city over the course of her life. Her deadbeat mother constantly follows this boyfriend or that boyfriend, always putting them and herself before her daughter. The result is Leah not feeling like any place is home.

That is, until she strolls onto the tarmac of a tiny airport in Heaven Beach, South Carolina, and instantly falls in love with the entire world of flying. From here, we begin to see Leah come alive. At only 14 (the story progresses to age 17 really quickly), Leah seems to understand and comprehend the world that sits above us all, just waiting to be explored and enjoyed. She gets a job pumping gas and working the desk, but her true want lies in learning to fly. She saves her money (hiding it from her mom) for a flying lesson and approaches the owner of a banner flying company adjacent to the airport. What ensues is one of the most touching relationships in the entire book.

With a non-existent dad and absentee mom, Leah has never had a real parental figure in her life. But when Mr. Hall, the owner of Hall Aviation, agrees to teach Leah to fly, she then learns the truest meaning of the word "father". Mr. Hall takes Leah under his wing, seeing something inside her that can't be taught: Passion. Leah's passion for flying is unsurpassed, maybe even more prominent than the actual pilots of the story, and Mr. Hall is more than happy to teach Leah everything she needs to know about this exciting new world. 

But everything isn't perfect in Leah's life, as she soon learns when something tragic happens that sends this amazing story spiraling--right along with its characters. Leah's long-time unrequited crush, Grayson Hall, becomes much more present in her daily life, spending every waking minute at Hall Aviation.  Being so close to Grayson, seeing him everyday, watching him grow and suffer like, well, her, makes Leah look at her crush in an entirely different way. She sees him as human, not just some unattainable guy to be watched from afar. Throughout the novel, Leah's feelings for Grayson sit just below the surface, which makes for some very, um...entertaining scenes. ;-P

I really can't say much more for fear of giving away the story (hopefully I haven't done that already, lol), but I will tell you this: You want to read this book, trust me.

My Rating:

I couldn't be happier to give this book 5 stars. A beautiful, touching story of love, loss and flying, SUCH A RUSH makes you want two things: To become a pilot...and to fall in love. This is Echols at her best!