Review: Throttled by Lauren Asher

A romance set in the glamorous and high stakes world of Formula One? Bring it on! (Or should that be start your engines?) As soon as I saw a copy of Lauren Asher's Throttled at my local Big W, I was very keen to give this one a chance. What an opportunity this one had for high stakes drama. Sadly, it proved to be an opportunity lost, but good on the author for having a go and taking romance into a near perfect setting.

Throttled tells the story of Noah, a three times world champion Formula One driver and Maya, the sister of Noah's former rival and new teammate. Noah is a bit of a party animal and a womaniser who doesn't 'do' relationships. Maya is fairly innocent and when she discovers Noah's dark family secret, she feels compelled to help. But what happens when that help leads to attraction?

This one had such a fantastic setting, and I liked the way that the story took the characters to all of the different Grand Prix circuits across the globe. That said, I found that the world building was poor and the romantic tension didn't build up as well as it should--I would have loved for it to work in more closely with what was happening on the racetrack and while the opportunities were there for more melodrama and romantic tension the author did not use them to their full potential. I also found the dialogue a bit odd, with most of the characters, including adult men in the thirties, using language that I would normally associate with teenage girls. Still, Noah and Maya make for an interesting couple and pair of polar opposites who bring out the best in each other.


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