Reviewed by Taylin
TITLE: The Academy 
AUTHOR: Quinn Anderson
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 366 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 17, 2018
BLURB:
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.
REVIEW:
To finish his degree, science nerd Nick Steele gets a full ride at a prestigious Catholic Academy. But it’s not only his body he’s taking there. He is recovering from an incredibly emotional event and all the issues that accompany it. Nick is gifted in the field of physics, and although he is nervous about being in a new place, he intends to focus on his studies. One of his anxieties includes being a gay man in a Catholic establishment.
I loved the line – I’m about as Catholic as a sock monkey.
Enter, a distraction – Sebastian Prinsen. On his first day, Nick doesn’t expect to lock eyes with the Academies well-known heartbreaker. Sebastian, on the other hand, using the excuse of an old bet, seizes the opportunity to explore fresh meat and makes Nick the focus of his attention. Neither man expected what followed. Because at the end of the day Sebastian is as flawed as Nick and each is the key to the other’s salvation. Unfortunately, the battle for the Barbzilla trophy could be the making and the undoing of a beautiful thing. The weird mockup of a prize is the wrong incentive for initiating a relationship, attractive in the making, but possibly disastrous if ever the secret came out. Their journey isn’t helped by Sebastian’s fall on your sword personality, or Nick’s couldn’t care less, outer façade that doesn’t reflect his internal state.
The story is told in the third person from several pov’s, and technically, I thought it was a delight. The descriptions are detailed – including college life, surroundings, thoughts and reasoning. The Academy community is a somewhat insular one, where six degrees of separation means everyone knows each other intimately. As entertaining as it was to immerse myself in the Academy experience; occasionally, I found the micro detail a little too much and succumbed to occasional skim reading. There are also lots of film references. So, unless you’re up on your film studies, have google to hand.
The cast makes for fun, scheming entertainment and a sweet little side arc which I won’t go into because it would spoil an element of the story. Either way, Sebastian’s friend Theo is training to be a shrink, and he uses some of his skills with the would-be lovers.
The further into the story I got, it was clear that there was more to the main characters than playing games. They all had stories to tell.
The story is an extremely slow burn mixed with doses of misdirection, flirting, avoidance, impromptu emotional sex, and tempers. Given the emotional turmoil involved, what would seem a rather straightforward situation converts into a journey of soul seeking, getting it wrong and trying again. There are some surprises in there, too which made this not as predictable as one might think.
The Academy isn’t a story of great acts of angst and gestured drama. It is a journey of two people with emotionally traumatized pasts, learning to trust and how to love.
RATING: 
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