Tag Archives: NASCAR

Michelle Monkou. Racing Hearts. Toronto: Harlequin Kimani, 2012.

racingheartsDoctor Erin Wilson is intelligent, savvy, and dedicated to her profession. At the young age of twenty-seven, she has already graduated from Harvard Medical School and runs a successful practice in Raleigh, North Carolina. But her life is far from perfect. Her younger sister, Lani, is in and out of both financial troubles and relationships, and Lani expects Erin to pick up the pieces from both. Her mother has passed away and her father is in a nursing home, so it’s up to Erin to support everyone. She doesn’t feel sorry for herself, however– she’s worked hard, and it’s paid off.

Marc Newton has also worked hard. Breaking into the top fifteen drivers in the National Car Racing Federation is no easy task, especially without any connections or money. Of course, Marc has money now. His rise to the top came with certain perks, such as sponsors, and those who wanted to buy into his personal brand. Unfortunately, one crash too many has him seeing spots. A sponsor-mandated visit to a local doctor specializing in orthopedics has him steaming when she issues her orders–rest for two weeks, and no racing! He’s matching wits with none other than Dr. Erin Wilson, who is seemingly immune to his charm. Worst of all, he’s attracted to the brainy, good-looking woman–and she’s not even his type!

Erin hasn’t had a man in her life for years, but is now the time, and is Marc Newton really the one? She finds him arrogant, aggressive, and absolutely attractive. Will they each be able to overcome their own personal demons and find happiness? Or despite their mutual desires, will their problems keep them apart? This steamy romance novel will keep you guessing, and get your heart racing.

Check  this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Monkou, Michelle, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Wake

Erin McCarthy. Slow Ride. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2011.

Tuesday “Talladega” Jones has a reputation as a spirited, fun-loving party girl. As a sports reporter, she writes serious pieces, but is best known for her relationship gossip blog. It isn’t a celebration without Tuesday, but the free-spirited woman everyone loves is struck with some hard times in this fifth book in the Fast Track series.

Grieving over the loss of her father, in whose journalist footsteps she followed, Tuesday doesn’t know where to turn. She has many friends, most notably the recently married Kendall Monroe, but instead Tuesday turns to the bottle. What begins as a way to ease the pain quickly becomes a serious problem before anyone realizes it…except handsome, reclusive Daniel “Diesel” Lange. Tuesday meets Diesel at Kendall’s wedding, and the pair immediately send sparks flying. Diesel was a legend on the track before a crash nearly killed him, leaving him with a busted knee and a sense of hopelessness. However, the crash couldn’t dampened his passion for stock cars. When Tuesday holds a cancer benefit in memory of her father, Diesel decides to donate a vintage car he restored. The two quickly become an item, but will their love be enough to help each overcome their individual fears, addictions, and grief?

A touching addition to the Fast Track series, readers will sympathize with Tuesday and Diesel as much as they will be swept up by their romance.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, McCarthy, Erin, Mecklenburg, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship

Erin McCarthy. Fast Track.

  • Flat-Out Sexy. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2008.
  • Hard and Fast. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2010.
  • Hot Finish. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2010.
  • The Chase. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2011.
  • Slow Ride. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2011.
  • Jacked Up. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2012.
  • Full Throttle. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2013.
  • Final Lap. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2014.

The motorsports industry is reported to pump $4 billion into the economy of the Charlotte metro area–that means lots of jobs beyond just racers and their pit crews.  That wider circle of racing is present in Erin McCarthy’s Fast Track series.  The drivers—all hot, hot, hot—share their high-pressure world with journalists, PR consultants, team owners, sponsors, hangers-on, and even a few academics.  Each book features two people who are clearly attracted to each other but whose path to happily-ever-after is complicated things such as professional jealousies, previous relationships, pride, and Mars/Venus misunderstandings.  Snappy repartee and sexy scenes are standard elements of this series, but some of the novels include as plot elements serious subjects such as adult illiteracy and alcoholism.  The novels are loosely connected in that some characters–especially the Monroe brothers–appear in several books, but each book can stand on its own–and each one is a wild, fun ride.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2010-2019, Cabarrus, McCarthy, Erin, Mecklenburg, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Series

Erin McCarthy. The Chase: A Fast Track Novel. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2011.

Ten years ago, Evan Monroe broke Kendall Holbrook’s heart when he mocked her dream of becoming a professional driver with the North Carolina racing circuit. A fresh-faced eighteen-year-old, she had thought what they had was true love, and when he laughed at her goals it hurt her so deeply that she wasted no time in cutting him out of her life. Unfortunately, ten years later, both she and Evan meet again as a part of the same driving team. Kendall is an unstoppable force as the first female to successfully break the glass ceiling of the racing industry, while Evan is struggling to keep his head above water.

But Kendall isn’t as happy with her life as she should be. She’s thrilled with how her career is going, but misses having a dating life. If she’s being honest with herself, Evan really was the only man for her, until he turned out to be a sexist pig. But when her best girlfriend discovers that what divided Evan and Kendall may have been only a terrible misunderstanding, it looks like they might have a happy ending after all…the only thing that could get in the way would be their competitive racing careers. Will they be able to rekindle their romance? And more importantly, will they be able to keep that flame alive?

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, McCarthy, Erin, Mecklenburg, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship

Erin McCarthy. Hot Finish. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2010.

Ryder Jefferson and his feisty ex-wife, Suzanne, take center stage in this third book in McCarthy’s Fast Track series.  Suzanne has her hands full planning an over-the-top wedding for a race car driver and his bridezilla fiancée.  After a stint on the board of a medical charity, Suzanne’s heart just isn’t in wedding planning anymore, but she has to keep at it.  Suzanne is close to broke, without a steady income or alimony from Ryder.

Ryder would be happy to pay alimony to Suzanne.  He considers himself an openhanded man, and he is concerned about Suzanne’s financial security.  But there’s more to it than that.  He still has feelings for Suzanne and wishes that he tried harder to keep her.  In the parlance of his profession, he thinks he quit the race a few laps too soon.

But fate may give them another chance.  For the past few months, Suzanne has been enlisting Ryder’s help with the matchmaking she’s done for some friends; Ryder is to be a groomsman in bridezilla’s wedding; and on top of that, it turns out that the paperwork for their divorce is incomplete.  Suzanne and Ryder are still legally married!  As the story unfolds, readers learn the history of Ryder and Suzanne’s marriage and the source of Suzanne’s prickliness.  The character development is particularly good  in Hot Finish, but the book also delivers the snappy repartee and sexy scenes that are standard elements of  this series.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Cabarrus, McCarthy, Erin, Mecklenburg, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship

Erin McCarthy. Hard and Fast. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2010.

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.

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, McCarthy, Erin, Mecklenburg, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship

Erin McCarthy. Flat-Out Sexy. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2008.

Tamara Briggs was widowed at thirty when her husband, NASCAR driver Pete Briggs, was killed during a race at Talladega.  In the two years since then, Tamara has concentrated on her career as a sociology professor and on providing nurture and normalcy for her two children.  Her only foray into the world of dating has been some decidedly lukewarm evenings with one of her colleagues.  When Tamara takes him to  a cocktail party fundraiser and her good friend Suzanne gives the sweater-clad professor a very critical once-over, Tamara knows that Suzanne speaks the truth–this man is not for her.  Distracted by this realization, Tamara bumps into a stranger, Elec Monroe. The attraction is instantaneous and mutual.

During their first night together (graphically described) Tamara remembers how exciting a man can be, but Elec is just the kind of man she promised herself she’d stay away from–a race car driver.   A driver’s life is too  nomadic and unpredictable–and full of temptations and danger.  Having lost her husband, the father of her children, Tamara can’t face that heartbreak again.  Plus, Elec Monroe has more than the average amount of baggage–his father and Tamara’s father-in-law, once good friends, are now bitter enemies; he is being pursued by a woman who just might be crazy;  and Elec’s career is about to take off–he may even be rookie of the year.

Like a race track designed by a joker, Tamara’s romance with Elec takes some unexpected turns.  Chicken pox, jury duty, unhappy in-laws, a wreck, and a false paternity claim all stand between Tamara and Elec and happily-ever-after, but readers will enjoy the ride.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, McCarthy, Erin, Mecklenburg, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship

Kathy Reichs. Flash and Bones. New York, NY: Scribner, 2011.

This image courtesy of www.kathyreichs.com/bones.

Emily Deschanel portrays Dr. Temperance Brennan in the TV show Bones. She poses here with Kathy Reichs (right). Image courtesy of www.kathyreichs.com/bones.

What do NASCAR, missing teenagers, and an audacious tabby cat all have in common? None other than Dr. Temperance Brennan, the brilliant, savvy forensic anthropologist based in Charlotte, NC. In her latest case, Brennan is called out to the nearby Charlotte Motor Speedway to look at a barrel containing human remains. Soon she is caught in a tangled investigation involving the FBI, a dangerous white supremacist group, a local organic farmer, and sweaty, chain-smoking detective Erskine “Skinny” Slidell. But perhaps most dangerous of all, Brennan’s ex-husband, Pete, has asked her to intervene on his behalf with his new fiancée: blonde, bosomy Summer. Driven to hysterics over planning their wedding (and Pete’s disinterest in the ceremony), Summer clings to Brennan for emotional support, calling at all hours of the day and night. Harassed by both FBI agents and dangerous militants, drenched by unpredictable Piedmont storms, and romantically adrift, disgruntled Temperance doesn’t realize that she will soon be more thankful for the needy Summer than she thinks.

Kathy Reichs upholds her winning formula of science, mystery, and a strong female lead in this fourteenth installment of the series that inspired the hit TV show Bones. NASCAR fans will be delighted to watch Brennan’s education in racing , as well as the slew of characters she meets along the way. When she can take a break from the Speedway, Temperance touches base with her daughter Katy, old flame Andrew Ryan, and stalwart feline companion Birdie, although beau Charles Hunt doesn’t make an appearance. But Team Ryan and Team Hunt beware- there’s a new man on the scene providing Brennan with equal parts assistance and annoyance: tall, dark and handsome ex-detective (and ex-con) Cotton Galimore.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Reichs, Kathy, Suspense/Thriller

Mark Schweizer. The Bass Wore Scales. Hopkinsville, KY: St. James Music Press, 2006.

The plot moves along at a leisurely pace in this, the fifth book in Schweizer’s Liturgical Mysteries series.  Hayden is experiencing writers block, so he is talked into a bit of competitive writing. Several locals want to enter a bad writing contest, and Hayden is certain that this kind of challenge will help jump-start his creative process.  St. Barnabas Episcopal Church is once again the site of mishaps and humor–the church is now sponsoring a NASCAR team and bad luck with the birds at the Pentecost service leads yet another rector to leave town under a cloud. But at least this time St. Barnabas is not the scene of a murder–that dubious honor goes to New Fellowship Baptist Church.  The pastor of the church, Brother Kilroy, is found dead in his study.  Although it appears that he was killed by Kokomo, a gorilla, Hayden knows that things are not always what they appear to be.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Humor, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Schweizer, Mark, Watauga

Bethany Campbell. One Track Mind. Toronto: Harlequin, 2009.

Halesboro has seen better days.  In its heyday the racetrack in town was part of the NASCAR circuit, bringing crews, spectators, and publicity that made the businesses on Main Street thrive.  Lori Garland’s family owned the track, and Lori was the unofficial town princess. Kane Ledger was a poor boy, from a troubled family; he left Halesboro under a cloud, without even finishing high school.

My how things change.  In his final years, Lori’s father made some bad business decisions.  He lost the NASCAR contract, and the track became rundown.  Lori quit her job as a schoolteacher to try to save the track, but she can’t make a go of it.  In steps Kane, now a successful lawyer and sports agent in Charlotte.  He buys the racetrack and hires Lori to run the track for a year.

Lori and Kane have a history together (after all, this is a romance novel), but their attempts to work together are clouded by more than the high school romance that was squelched by her parents.  Vandalism at the track is becoming a common occurrence and it’s getting more violent.  Also, the town has suddenly come to the notice of outside investors who are trying to buy up downtown real estate and the nice mansion on the hill.  Lori wonders if Kane has anything to do with this, and if he is somehow getting revenge on her and the town. Before the novel ends, all the pieces fall into place.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Campbell, Bethany, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Romance/Relationship