le grade story as the NWSL game was just announced to be in Atlanta and the World Cup this summer will be hosted there as well! Inspired by the author’s desire to see more stories where girls in sports are portrayed as more than just competitors, The Twin Stars and the Soccer Superstar (June 9, SparkPress) by Atlanta local Kristine Rudolph follows soccer-obsessed sixth grader, Cassaty, as she faces a season that will test both her heart and courage.
For Cassaty, Spring in Texas Hill Country means two things: state soccer playoffs and the anniversary of her twin brother’s death. When the Battling Billies’ star midfielder suddenly disappears, Cassaty throws herself into finding her teammate and hopefully, doing so will help her family heal.
Blending the thrill of a sports mystery with the deeply relatable exploration of loss, The Twin Stars and the Soccer Superstar unpacks the pressure to perform, the ache of silent grief, and the complicated beauty of family.
I had a chance to learn more in this interview.
What inspired the storyline of your book?
I have three children and two of them are girls who play soccer. They’ve played since they were four years old and now I have a high school senior who is committed to play in college as well as an 8th grader excited to play in high school. My girls are about the same years apart as Katey and Cassaty, the two soccer players in the book.
Watching my girls interact with the game, I got really interested in questions around pressure and expectations. I think most parents get their kids involved with sports and other activities because they hope they will stay physically active plus learn skills like teamwork, discipline, collaboration and how to win or lose well. But I also think most parents expect their kids to have fun and, somewhere along the path from childhood to adolescence, I think kids often lose their joy in what they do.
Sometimes the loss of joy means the child needs to shift her interests. Sometimes it’s the normal loss of exuberance that accompanies puberty. As a parent both of those can be difficult to witness and tough to navigate but not excruciating because it feels developmental and normal. On the other hand, when activities stop being fun because of external pressures and oversized expectations, that’s something we need to unpack. Thinking about these ideas helped me carve out my story.
What has been the biggest surprise about the publication process?
This isn’t something I’ve learned through publication, but more from the decades spent working to be published. I have a longtime critique partner. She’s so talented. She’s dedicated so much time to her craft and to the business of books. Her manuscripts are fantastic and she makes mine infinitely better than they would be without her advice. She has two novels that I absolutely adore. Both are better than so much in the marketplace now. Yet, she has struggled to get representation and still hasn’t sold a book as of this writing. It’s shocking to me that work can be that good and yet readers can’t get their hands on it!
How would you describe your writing style?
I write contemporary realism for kids around the age of 9 up to about 12. I try to write for today’s readers, so that means shorter paragraphs than the books I grew up devouring. I try to present characters who grow and change through challenge. I have a lot of respect for children and especially child readers, so I hope my style reflects that.
What do you hope readers take away from the book?
While The Twin Stars and the Soccer Superstar is a rompy mystery with soccer at its center, it’s also about loss, grief, mental health and the ways in which those things can get integrated into the daily life of a family to the point that they can be difficult to recognize. I hope my young readers will finish Cassaty’s story with heightened self-awareness but also feeling less responsibility to solve their grown-ups’ problems.
Kristine Rudolph is a mom of three with two soccer-playing daughters, a left-winger and a defensive back who won her high school state championship in 2024. Kristine splits her time between Atlanta, Georgia, and Austin, Texas.
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