Winging It Guest Post and Giveaway

Winging It (Corrigan Falls Raiders #3)
By Cate Cameron

Release Date: May 16, 2016

presented by Entangled Teen Crush!

Book Summary

Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains adult language, ice-melting kisses, and a swoon-worthy hero. This fake relationship romance will have you wishing for a hockey player of your own…

Natalie West and Toby Cooper were best friends growing up, on and off the ice. But when Toby’s hockey career took off, their friendship was left behind. Now Natalie has a crazy plan to land her crush—Toby’s biggest rival—and she needs Toby’s help to pull it off.

When Nat asks Toby to be her fake boyfriend, he can’t say no. Not when it means getting his best friend back. But Natalie is all grown up now, and spending time with her—even when it’s just playing hockey together—stirs up a lot of feelings, old and new. Suddenly pretending to be interested in her isn’t hard at all…if only she wanted him and not his enemy.

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Guest Post

Corrigan Falls Raiders – the theme of friendship

Winging It is the third book in the Corrigan Falls Raiders YA romance series. And a fun thing about a series is that you can include not only the individual stories of each book, but also include larger themes and arcs.

One of the themes I’ve been exploring in this series is the importance of friendship. On the surface this feels kind of redundant in a YA series—is there any other time of our lives when our friends are as central to our lives as they are when we’re teenagers?

But as an adult looking back, (and as an adult who has spent a fair bit of her life working with teens) I think the nature of teen friendships is worth exploring because so many of them shouldn’t be as central as they are! The whole “peer pressure” bugaboo is powerful because kids care so much about the opinions of their friends, even when their friends’ opinions aren’t that great.

So in the Corrigan Falls series, I’ve tried to present strong, constructive (but still fun and non-preachy and real) teen friendships. In Center Ice Karen feels completely isolated in her new town until she becomes friends with Tyler, and once that shifts toward romance she develops friendships with her half-sister Miranda and with Dawn. They aren’t always kind to each other, especially at the start, but they do eventually learn to be supportive.

This theme explodes in the second book, Playing Defense, with Claudia and Karen forming the Sisterhood of Awesomeness. It’s essentially a club set up to challenge each other to be their best selves—and that’s exactly what I think friends should do for each other.

In Winging It, the theme is continued, with Toby and Natalie being ex-best- friends, not because they had a fight but because they just gradually grew apart. When Nat’s stupid idea throws them back together, it’s easy for them to fall back into old patterns of support. And Toby shows he’s a true friend when he calls Nat on her self-pity and challenges her to take charge of her life.

All of these friendships were fun to write, but my favorite by far is the friendship between the Raiders themselves. They’re a true team. Whether it’s Tyler talking up his teammates to NHL scouts or Chris trying to harass Tyler out of a bad mood and shielding Toby from his annoying cousin, the guys have each others’ backs. It was this quality that the other students tried to adopt with their Sisterhood, and it’s this quality that makes these books so much fun to write.

I hope they’re fun to read, as well!

Other Books In The Series

Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains adult language, underage drinking, sexual situations, and crazy squirrels. It may cause you to become a fan of hockey – or at least hot hockey players.

The hometown hockey hero won’t know what hit him…

Karen Webber is in small-town hell. After her mother’s death, she moved to Corrigan Falls to live with strangers—her dad and his perfect, shiny new family—and there doesn’t seem to be room for a city girl with a chip on her shoulder. The only person who makes her feel like a real human being is Tyler MacDonald.

But Karen isn’t interested in starting something with a player. And that’s all she keeps hearing about Tyler.

Corrigan Falls is a hockey town, and Tyler’s the star player. But the viselike pressure from his father and his agent are sending him dangerously close to the edge. All people see is hockey—except Karen. Now they’ve managed to find something in each other that they both desperately need. And for the first time, Tyler is playing for keeps…

Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains adult language, swoon-worthy kisses, and sexy hockey players. It may cause you to watch a hockey game…or ten.

Sixteen-year-old Claudia Waring has never kissed a boy. Never been popular. Never been to a hockey game. All that’s about to change. Assigned to tutor Chris Winslow, a prank-loving, gorgeous hockey player, Claudia’s perfectly planned life immediately veers off course. And she kind of likes it. But as fun as Chris is, she knows she’ll never fit in his world.

After his latest prank lands him in hot water, Chris has to get serious about school or lose hockey. Not an easy thing for someone as carefree as the defenseman. The biggest problem, though, is how much he wants to help his cute, buttoned-up tutor loosen up a little. But while confidence has never been a problem for him, around Claudia, Chris is all nerves. Why would a girl as smart as her ever fall for a jock like him?

About the Author

Cate Cameron grew up in the city but moved to the country in her mid-twenties and isn’t looking back. Most of her writing deals with people living and loving in small towns or right out in the sticks—when there aren’t entertainment options on every corner, other people get a lot more interesting!

She likes to write stories about real people struggling with real issues. YA, NA, or contemporary romance, her books are connected by their emphasis on subtle humor and characters who are trying to do the right thing, even when it would be a lot easier to do something wrong.

Author Links

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