Oof. Steele is hit or miss for me, and this was a HUGE miss. After reading Heartthrob back in late 2022, I knew I wanted to read more by Steele, but it seems he’s only just hit his stride with Heartthrob, because this one was just not good and the middle one Catch Me If I Fall was mediocre, and I think that had more to do with timing than the book itself.
On the surface I should’ve loved Racing Into Love, awkward bookstore owner Aiden, is forced to face his fears when he meets athlete/race car driver Derrek, in order for them to be together.
There’s an awkward unrequited love that would 100% be the next book in the series and a young teen that Aiden helps get on his feet that could be the other protagonist in the next book, and if this was better written I would be here for it, but I struggled so much to stick with this one through the end, there’s not a chance I’ll finish the series.
‘Life would be easier if we were all robot boys,’ Theo said. ‘But for better or for worse, we have hearts and thoughts and feelings.’ (151)
My biggest problems with this one were that it just didn’t feel polished. I’m not sure if Steele uses beta readers or if he just found a better copy editor, but there is a vast difference in quality between this one and the other two I’ve read by him.
There were also issues with telling (over describing) and not showing and WAY too much internal dialogue. Take this two sentence passage:
I held on to that thought and moved on to the next set of large gray doors, moving from lecture hall to lecture hall until I found one that didn’t have a presentation queued on the screen. It would be the perfect place to sit out of the way, and it was far enough from the track beyond the building that I couldn’t hear the same echoing revs and screeches of rubber on asphalt as I could from the street outside. (207)
What is 81 words could easily have been just as descriptive and yet a lot more powerful using less than half of those words:
I held on to that thought as I fled looking from room to room for a quiet space far from the roaring engines and screeches of rubber on asphalt.
It wouldn’t be an issue if it was just once or twice, but it was page after page of over description and it wore me down. I also had issues relating to Aiden’s trauma and the repercussions and impact on his life, but a better writer would’ve been able to bring me in and make me empathize rather than get annoyed.
The sex scenes were also underwhelming and not as well written as in Steele’s more recent books.
Recommendation: Pass. Stick with Steele’s two newer works: Heartthrob and Catch Me If I Fall. They were better written and better edited. I’m a little sad this was the case as I enjoyed the first so much and the second enough that I thought it was worth reading Steele’s back catalog only to be shocked by this one. Hopefully, he’ll continue with the Honeywood series, because I won’t be reading finishing this series.
Opening Line: “I took a slow sip of my coffee as the attractive man across from me went on excitedly about law school for the tenth full minute, hiding a tiny yawn with my mug.”
Closing Line: “The city wouldn’t know what hit it.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)
Additional Quotes from Racing into Love
“My eyes unfocused as I handed a bag back across the counter and thought about being married to piles of books. It couldn’t be any more boring than real life. If the stories were exciting enough, it could even be a happy marriage.” (5)
“I stood outside the door to my apartment shuffling from foot to foot for almost ten minutes before finally opening the door. The place looked like it had been ravaged by thieves. Oliver’s desk was buried under a cascading mound of crumpled paper balls and loose sheets with great red streaks of marker drawn across line after line of prose. There were spatters of water leading from the couch—cushions lopsided in a little pile on the floor—to the kitchen, where empty take-out containers had impressively taken over a large part of the counter.” (132)
“‘Theo,” he said as he lifted himself back into a cross-legged position. I shifted to sit across from him, picking up one of the books from his pile and aimlessly leafing through it—a cute gay romance about witch boys who fall in love while fighting the forces of evil.” (146)
“Derrek sat cross-legged on the floor beside me where I slouched forward, elbows resting on my knees. I pressed the glass against my lips, watching the haze of my breath appear and vanish as I breathed heavily into it.” (252)