This book gets off to a fast start. Who can resist a novel in which the heroine quotes Shakespeare and the hero compares himself to an old work boot? Yet that’s just what Imogene Wilson and Ty McCardle do as they sit in her car debating whether to go back into the party they’ve been at or take off to his condo for a night of more private adventure. Ty is a stock car driver, just pushing past thirty and starting to think that he should begin dating women closer to his age with whom he might want to settle down. Imogene is a graduate student in sociology at a Charlotte area university. She and Ty meet because Imogene’s academic mentor is Tamara, the heroine in an earlier Erin McCarthy novel who is now married to NASCAR drive Elec Monroe. Through Tamara Imogene meets drivers, their wives and ex-wives, and women who think it would be great to be a NASCAR wife. Mixing with these people and coming across the book How to Marry a Race Car Driver in Six Easy Steps gives Imogene the idea for her thesis: she will test if it’s possible to follow a set of guidelines to success in an area as unpredictable as courtship. Imogene is as straight-forward as they come, so early on she lets Ty know her interest in him is purely academic. She even enlists his help to prepare her to move around more knowledgeably in racing circles. (The book says that drivers like a woman who knows the history of the sport.) Despite the odds, Imogene and Ty fall in love, but when Ty shares a secret that he had kept from Imogene and most everyone else, their romance hits a rough patch. Readers of McCarthy’s previous race car romance, Flat-Out Sexy, will enjoy the reappearance of Tamara, Elec, Suzanne, and Ryder as characters in this book, and they can look forward to McCarthy’s next novel in which Suzanne and her ex-husband Ryder take center stage.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.
Savannah Stone isn’t pleased that her husband Zach, the retired police chief of Charlotte, North Carolina, is going back to the Queen City to help with a murder investigation, but she knows that she can’t stop him. Their friend, Mayor Grady Winslow, appears to be in danger, and besides, Zach misses the thrill of the hunt. That’s one of the benefits of Savannah’s job as a crossword puzzle maker – she can work on the go and even help Zach solve cases from time to time. As much as Savannah and Zach hate leaving their new happy home in Parson’s Valley, they are excited to return to their old stomping grounds. From the get-go, Savannah and Zach are confronted with questioning their friends to find out who has already murdered two people. As they collect clues left by the villain, the Stones realize that they are in danger. Using her gifts as a math whiz, Savannah cracks the code – and uncovers a mystery about her own family.
