Review: Hot Finish by Erin McCarthy

Not all marriages last forever . . . Suzanne Jefferson is broke, which is why she has given up charity work for wedding planning. Fortunately, she has a high-profile client--and best of all, he's paid in advance. There are just two teensy problems: The bride is a bon fide bridezilla, and Suzanne's ex-husband is the best man. At least she thought he was her ex-husband.

Two years after their marriage fell apart, stock car race driver Ryder Jefferson still can't stop thinking about Suzanne. Which is why he isn't too upset that, due to a glitch, the two are still technically married. Now he is imagining easing Suzanne's woes by satisfying her needs in the bedroom. After all, that's the one room they never argued in. Besides, with wedding bells ringing all around them, Ryder is wondering if--even though they'd quite the race a few laps too early--they can still come on strong with a big, romantic finish.

Erin McCarthy's "Fast Track" novels are fun and full of energy, sex, hot guys, and the women who either love them or want to. Book 3 is no exception. It is somewhat different in character than the first two in that the main characters have had their hot and heavy relationship and it has blown all to smithereens. Now as a wedding planner, Suzanne is hired to plan the wedding of one of her ex's racing buddies--and she needs this job because it is now her only means of support. It is during one of the more trying encounters with the brainless twit who happens to be the bride, that Ryder Jefferson presents an envelope from their lawyer which contains the almost unbelievable news that in truth, Suzanne and Ryder are still married. Even as they try to work through the back-tracking and trying to get the divorce degree re-instated, they each must face the factors that brought them together and those which tore them apart.

The racing world in no different than any other professional sport: too much money and too much publicity. The romances and the break-ups are way too public and that factor alone can make a tentative situation really bad. These two individuals have gotten caught in the media meat grinder and on top of their personal issues there are all the other factors that being in the spotlight can engender. But most of all, it seems these two people just need to GROW UP. Their squabbles seem just a little on the adolescent side, and as one who has been in the helping professions for a number of years, I marvel how otherwise grown up adults can descend into the world of adolescent bickering when deep emotions become involved and heart really begin to hurt over real or perceived injuries.

McCarthy's style adds to the excitement of this series and this novel is no different. Some reviewers seem to feel that this third in the series is a disappointment. I don't think so. I just think that it takes a far different situation that the sexual rat race as its main plot. Public marriages don't seem to survive well, and often it is because of just the kinds of misunderstandings, hurt feelings, childish bickering, disappointments, and insecurities that drove these two so far from each other. Add in the loss of their unborn child and there was lots to overwhelm the good sense they were both born with.

I like novels that deal with substantive issues, and while McCarthy's writing embraces a sizzling eroticism and a fast-paced story development and dialogue, the journey these two make through their personal issues is fascinating and engaging. I think it is a fitting finish to this series. And, might I add, the guys on the covers are real "eye candy" too. (I may be old but I'm not dead). I give this novel a rating of 4 out of 5.

Oh My! Another Fun Book -- Hard And Fast by Erin McCarthy

An experiement in romance . . . New to Charlotte, North Carolina, stock car racing country, graduate student Imogen Wilson meets Ty McCordle, a driver who inexplicably has her pulse racing. After an encounter at the track with a woman whose main goal in life is to marry a driver, Imogen realizes she's hit on the perfect topic for her sociology thesis. If she follows "the rules" on how to get a man, can she steer her way into the hearts of the drivers and establish their dating and mating patterns?

That's testing the limits of passion . . . Although sexy and reckless Ty is the ideal test subject, Imogen knows she can't pursue him for the sake of science. Yet he's the one who's chasing after her, and Imogen realizes that she actually wants to be caught. A Southern gentleman like Ty won't disappoint--he will satisfy her curiosity and make all the risks worthwhile.

I had to chuckle when I first saw this book and read the title -- pictured with a gorgeous male in low-rider jeans, one of those models that made the title have new meaning! And the author, like one of the main characters, doesn't disappoint either. It is a funny, funny book with a studious, beautiful, sociology student who is friend of and teaching assistant to Professor Tamara Briggs as one of the main characters. She is not sexually inexperienced having had a somewhat extended affair while in college but has been focused on her academic pursuits while getting her master's degree. She encounters Ty McCordle at a party and who is squiring one classic empty-headed female,a woman obsessed with her figure and is interested only in money and celebrity. Ty breaks up with her at the beginning of our story and is almost immediately attracted to Imogen and who reciprocates with her own vibes. But the truly humorous part of their repartee is Imogen's almost incessant curiosity and the nearly endless flow of questions, questions, questions. Ty breaks the flow by engaging her in hours of heart-stopping, breath-arresting sex. There's alot of that in their relationship.

McCarthy is an author, though, that builds a parallel story consisting of their personal stories and their burgeoning emotional involvement. Ty is a very smart man who is insecure over his limited educational background, while Imogen is almost hamstrung in relating to others because she lets her scientific side interfere with expressing her feelings. Together they learn mutual giving and sharing, not only physically but in really talking and listening to one another. Imogen is fascinated with the world of stock car racing and while at the beginning she is seeking to make their culture and lifestyle the subject of her master's thesis, she ultimately abandons that idea because of her own emotional involvement with so many of the people in that world. She has a number of interviews with couples who have met and married within the racing world, and ultimately she uses this material to begin a book about racing relationships.

Ty, on the other hand, is bent on expanding Imogen's "real life" experiences with some down-home cooking, in addition to camping and hiking and fishing in the wonderful North Carolina country. Imagine a 28 year old, Manhattan born and bred Yankee who is learning to fish with earthworm bait (and the whole hilarious discussion of whether to kill the worm before putting it on the hook), swimming in the refreshing lakes of the south, learning the joy of expressing her desires in the remote confines of a tent at the end of the trail, and so on and so forth. It is fun and full of the joy of discovery. Ty shows us that he is a man of infinite patience who is slowly but surely realizing that there is not much on this earth nearly as sexy as a really smart woman. McCarthy intertwines Ty & Imogen's story with others who have become familiar to the reader if they have read her first book, Flat-Out Sexy, and further develops those personalities as a background scenario in this novel.

This is one of those books that is fun and easy to read. The people are real and warm and their private lives are removed from the celebrity that accompanies the adrenalin-saturated racing clime. This is not one of those multilayered, multi-situational novels that we sometimes love to read when we want something that demands all our attention and mental comprehension. This story is warm and funny, full of generous people, so well-written that it seems the characters are just folks like us, and who we would love to know in real life.

I like the fact that McCarthy fills her stories with men who are sensitive and generous with the people in their lives, who love their women wholeheartedly, and who, by virtue of their profession, are risk-takers to the max. But their risk-taking is not limited to their driving. They are open to emotional challenge and are smart enough to recognize authentic loving on those rare occasions when it surfaces in the sea of counterfeit emotion that swirls around public figures, perpetrated by those who would use sex to gain their own selfish goals.

This is a good book and a fun way to spend some time. And you'll love the guy on the cover, too. I give this book a rating of 4.75 out of 5.

Review -- Flat-out Sexy by Erin McCarthy

She met him at the racetrack which was the last place Tamara Briggs wanted to find a man, even a deeply intriguing, seductively sexy man like Elec Monroe. Tamara's a single mother now after losing her daredevil husband in an accident--and she's not about to get involved with another driver and put her kids, or herself, through that again. Besides, Elec's young enough to be her younger brother.

Now things are moving a little too fast. But he sure does get her heart racing. And after she's tricked into a blind date with him, Tamara gives in to her passion. Things screech to a halt, thought, when he asks to meet her children. Whatever happened to "wham-bam-thank-you-m'am? Suddenly Tamara has to decide how big a risk she's willing to take to experience the thrilling, terrifying power of true love.

Erin McCarthy has written a fast-paced, hot and heavy novel that embraces the peculiar and death-defying culture of stock car racing. Tamara Briggs is the widow of one of the racing legends and holder of many of stock car racing's records. She has been alone for two years and her loneliness has become a constant companion. As much as she loves her children and wants to honor their father's memory, she is more and more aware that she is still young and is not prepared to spend the rest of her life alone. The flip side of that situation is the presence of her husband's family and the young age of her son and daughter. She has ventured out into the world of adult dating only to find that her first attempt at dating a "safe and steady" person has nearly crushed her with boredom and the awareness that there is no zing or tingle, a condition that gives her a distinct loathing to continue the relationship with a fellow professor, a person she learns later even her children and her mother-in-law don't like very much.

Enter Elec Monroe, a "rookie" race car driver who is about six years younger than Tamara but who electrifies her immediately when she literally and physically bumps into him at a charity event and manages to spill an entire glass of wine on his shirt. She is swamped with the feelings she has buried for two years since her husband's death, and while she is totally unwilling to form any kind of enduring connection with anyone in the racing community, most especially a driver, Elec manages to make her body come alive in less time than it takes to imagine it. Circumstances beyond Tamara's control contrive to put Elec & Tamara in the same cab bound for the mobile park where the coaches for the drivers are parked. A tentative kiss ignites them both and Tamara says "Yes" to needs which have long been denied.

There's lots and lots of sizzle in this book, but the foundation of the story is the tender tale of a man who is mature beyond his years and who is weary beyond telling of the groupies who follow the racing drivers and who really care for the money and the publicity more than they do the men themselves. In Tamara he perceives he has found a woman who has the capacity to love deeply and truly, and who engages his heart long before he is aware that it is well and truly lost to her. Tamara is a woman who loves her children beyond all else and yet knows that loving them and caring for them can never be enough. She experiences surprise at many of Elec's kindnesses and his willingness to be a true friend to her children, to be a hands-on part of their lives, and who is completely sensitive to her feelings and concerns about dating and being involved with a member of a family with whom the father of her dead husband has a long-standing feud. Elec just simply wants to be with her and is willing to do whatever it takes. As much as she had loved her husband, it had always been about him. With Elec, Tamara is aware that he is focused on her in a way she has not experienced in the past. The underlying conflict really persists throughout this novel--can Tamara reach beyond her fears to allow Elec's love for her to be permanent?

McCarthy has peppered her story with colorful characters: the two drivers who are godparents to her kids, her dead husband's parents, a bimbo or two, a lovely but studious and otherwise focused teaching assistant, a best friend who can sometimes be more trouble than needed, and the winsome and delightful son and daughter. Love and caring are everywhere along with humor and genuine friendship. McCarthy has a proven ability to tell a great story and keeps the energy flowing without any lessening of the sexual tension. There are complications galore, but there always are in a good story. Her characters are real, flesh-and-blood people, celebraties possibly, but trying to live in a way that keeps them earth-bound. This is not a story with lots of complex situations or one that requires a great deal of energy to read, but if you like a great tale with lots of fun and bed-sport, you'll love this book! I give this book a 4.75 rating out of 5.