3.5 ⭐️

(thankyou netgalley for the arc!)

start your engines follows connor dane, a struggling f1 star and senna coulter, a communications officer turned f1 team boss.

i had so much fun reading this! i had no expectations going into this but rebecca chase wrote a fun, fast paced f1 romance and left me wanting more. the romance had soooo much tension and build up, i was eating it up the entire time. i loved the representation of women in motorsport and how hard it can be, it was such an accurate reflection on real life and how hard it can be for women to be respected in sport.

I really enjoyed the first 50% but i did find myself cringing quite a bit through the last half. Connor’s character felt like it did a 360 in the last half aswell which i did expect some turn in character from his healing but i think it could have been written slightly better.

i am excited to read more from this author though! this was a fun read.

4.5 stars ⭐️ I loved Senna. She’s a strong, determined FMC! Conner had me swooning. Together there was so much tension and chemistry!! I was hooked!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

why is miss girl walking barefoot

So in my f1 era rn, and this was another f1 romance to add to the list of books I enjoyed!

I did really love the characters and I felt their personalities were really strong, and went together in an amazing way. Their romance was super cute, even though they were "enemies".

The mental health rep was done wonderfully in my opinion, along with the family issues.

Also can we take a moment to appreciate this stunning cover??

4 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher and Rebecca Chase for providing me this ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts! This is your typical F1 romance book, where the driver is the typical bad boy and the girl is his best friends sister and they ‘hate’ each other. Senna is a strong woman lead, who is trying to make it inside a field that is dominated by men. I will admit Sienna’s brother annoyed me throughout most of the book, especially when he thinks he has a say in Sienna’s life after disappearing for months.


Tropes:
- Teammates Sister
- Enemies to Lovers
- Female Empowerment
- OCD + Mental HealthRepresentation

Fi romances have become one of my favorite sport romance recently! And I really loved this one, the Romance was so fun and the banter was amazing!

💌my thoughts: thank you so much to victory editing for this ARC via netgalley! i love watching f1 so this one immediately caught my eye & i was intrigued! i did enjoy this one, but there were a few things that i didn’t love, which is why this one was a 3 stars for me.
for the pros: i love a badass fmc & senna is 100% that. the racing aspects were super interested and loved the tidbits we would get about it. the side characters, specifically jacs were so fun. i love a dual pov & no third act breakup. i loved the banter between our fmc & mmc!
for the cons: sometimes the spicy scenes didn’t seem to really add much to the story & i wish we would have had a few more deeper conversations between the fmc & mmc. the ending with nikki and her dad felt a bit rushed. they kept mentioning lips, like licking lips or biting their lips and idk why but it was enough for me to notice and pull me out of the story lol.

overall, if you want a sports romance with a badass fmc with great banter, give this one a shot when it comes out march 14, 2025✨

Ok I have to start with ew, why does Senna walk around the office barefoot… even to the bathroom. I don’t care what her reasoning is behind that… just no.

Other than her weird shoeless habits, Senna is the true embodiment of a boss b*tch. She said glass ceiling who? And is sprinting up the hill of a male dominated field and shoving anyone who tries to stop her down that hill.

I needed her brother to take about 5 steps back. He was gone for a year and then immediately jumps back in and starts disapproving about her and Conner… only to immediately drop it and approve of them. Honestly I think he could have been a distant character that never needed to show up in person. But it’s cool.

Conner turns out to be a complete cinnamon roll of a man and I’ll never be mad about that. Even through all of his own mental health struggles he still did whatever he could for Senna. He loves her ❤️❤️

I am looking forward to the next book and seeing Nikki’s story!

Thank you to NetGalley, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts are my own and are in no way influenced by early access to this title.

I know next to nothing about F1. Only that they are fast cars that go around a track!
I enjoyed the relationship between Senna and Connor. Loved the ending too.

Oh, I really wanted to like this book but it just didn’t quite work for me. The FMC as the boss who can’t date her employee for appearances, the MMC who has loved her forever, the brother who has made the MMC promise not to get together with his sister…I just felt like I’ve read this book a hundred times.

I love dual POV but this is a book that I think would have been much better as a single POV. Knowing immediately that they have loved each other for years cause a lack in tension for me as a reader. Not knowing Connor’s feelings would have added more suspense to the story. Of course we all know in a romance that there will be a HEA, but I just never felt any butterflies wondering how it would resolve.

So bummer. Not the worst book I’ve ever read, but I hoped for more based on the description. I’d give this author another try though as I did like her characters and writing style. This plot just didn’t quite hit for me.

I read this as an ARC via NetGalley. It releases March 14.

3.5⭐️

What a fun read! You’ll enjoy it if you like-
🏎️friends to lovers
🏁workplace romance (she’s his boss)
🏎️F1 romance
🏁found family vibes

Senna - badass, resilient, strong female lead. LOVED the focus on empowerment in a male dominated field and how she navigated that and gave even more opportunities to other women in the sport.
Connor - he started off with bad boy vibes, then reformed bad boy (?) then just full on golden retriever vibes.

The mix of plot & spice was perfect for a fun contemporary romance, although one thing for me was that some of the spice I found the language super cringe (but maybe that’s a me issue😂).
Topics like men’s mental health, bias in a male-dominated space, misogyny & bullying - were all involved in the plot and I think it really added authenticity of what still happens in sport.

Overall, I really enjoyed this! Definitely intrigued as to what was going on with Niki when he disappeared all that time and why he was acting so strange!

I loved this bok

it had a strong female lead, a hot but troubled love interest AND it has enemies to lovers trope.

I fell in love with Senna coulters character from the first pages. she's a strong women, determined to make her mark in the world of f1 however, everything is stacked against her, including her teams number one driver, Connor dane was once sennas best friend and teenage crush until a secret pulled them apart. now senna hates Connor, but she can't deny the spark between them.

This is such a sweet childhood friends to lovers! They over come so many obstacles from there pasts to end up together.

The book focused on female empowerment in a male dominated work space, mental health and family issues.

It was an easy, enjoyable read and I’m excited for the second book in the series.

I enjoyed this book, although I definitely could have used more spice and more character development. I’ll definitely check out the author’s future works.

Senna and Connor have know each other for a long time but one moment when they were teenagers and a huge misunderstanding has meant that Senna cannot stand to be around Connor. Years later when they are forced to work together as Team Principal and Driver, tensions reach boiling point.

This was a fun read. I loved seeing the dynamics between Senna and Conner play out around the backdrop of the F1 season. There was tension, tattoos, and Taylor Swift all thrown into the mix

Rebecca did a good job of highlighting the misogyny that’s still present in sport particularly F1 and how women create opportunities for other women to succeed.

I will say that there were moment that felt rushed and a few plot points that didn’t quite flow into the main body of the story that needed a little more work.

🏎️F1 Romance
🏁Found Family
♥️Enemies to Lovers
🏎️Second Chance
🏁She’s his boss
♥️Secrete Relationship
🏎️Cat Daddy-ish
🏁Reformed Bad Boy
♥️Forced Proximity
🏎️Workplace Romance
🏁Brother’s Best Friend

3.5 stars
Victory Editing

3.75

Firstly thank you to Netgalley and Victory Editing for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was excited for this book, especially after enjoying Go Cook Yourself by Rebecca (also an ARC), which I rated 4.75 stars.

Reading this F1 romance just before the season started was perfect. I really enjoyed the first half, but around the 50% mark, it became a bit too cringe and spicy for me. Connor felt a bit too much like a "cinnamon roll" and overly "lovey-dovey."

That said, the book's themes, such as female empowerment, mental health, and family issues, were great and written well.

Overall, it was a quick, enjoyable read, and I'm excited for the second book in the series, especially to learn more about Niki!

The book is a ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 star in my opinion. I thank Netgallery for the Arc copy.

The reading is enjoyable but at times it falls into situations that are a bit far-fetched, as far as I am concerned. The first 50% went off without any problem and in fact, it was even quite attention-grabbing, but after that it got a little lost in my opinion.

Senna becomes boss of the family's Formula 1 team after her brother, due to an accident, decides to leave her in charge (previously held by her father) and take refuge in a remote place to recover. We will only see him present in the book through calls to her and Connor (only to tell him to protect her, never taking an interest in him or his problems) and at the end of the book.

I found his presence at the end of the book almost annoying: he disappears for more than a year and then comes back and 'dictates' onhis sister's life and to not approve of the situation created with Connor, only to accept it immediately. I saw some confusion honestly.

You can't really tell whether they are: enemies or friends to lovers? And then they get together and become almost cloying.

The key situation is all resolved in the last 10% practically of the book: the father of Senna does not believe in the qualities of his daughter and does not really believe in her ability either (he is the anti-hero of the story, along with the one who really should be, Anthonie, but who is for a very short time and then disappears even just). In the final season's race, however, he realizes that his daughter has done a good job and so he leaves her the team (which he wanted to sell).

What a fun read!
This was more than a romance, this book was a powerful representation of the challenges that women face. Senna was such a relatable character and I loved that we're shown her insecurities and uncertainties running the team while fighting for respect from her own family. Seeing these struggles made it so easy to connect with and care for her character. Connor supports Senna so well and his character development was one of my favourite parts of this book. His mindset surrounding his need to protect Senna develops and changes so well it just made me love his character even more.
The racing theme in this book was so interesting and the teams non-linear progress was another great addition. Coulter racing made great progress and they didn't get first, and I really appreciated that, it made the book more relatable and left room for improvement for another book. 👀
Overall, I loved this book, it was a swoon worthy, inspiring, funny, heartwarming read!

Thanks to Victory Editing and NetGalley for the arc! My opinions in this review are unbiased and objective.

This review has been posted to StoryGraph, Goodreads, and Instagram on 02/25/2025

Read if you love:
*** Enemies to lovers
*** Brother’s Best Friend
*** Miscommunication trope
*** MMC is a bad boy
*** He falls first

I really enjoyed reading “Start Your Engines” by Rebecca Chase. I loved the fact that we got a strong female lead in male dominated sport, with her navigating running a F1 racing team. So many books out there are the reversed roles, and I love reading about a Girl Boss!

Senna and Connor had a great connection from the start; you knew that the chemistry was just simmering under the surface ready to explode.

I would love to read more books by Rebecca Chase in the future!

Thank you to Netgalley and Victory Editing Netgalley Co-Op for the ARC of this novel; all opinions are my own.

Rebecca Chase, you had me at sports romance (f1) with a little sprinkle of brothers best friend!

This book had me giggling and kicking my feet at 3am.
A super quick, entertaining read. I finished it in one sitting!

Just everything about this book was perfect, I was hooked from the word go. If you love romance and F1 this is the perfect book for you!

Review posted to Goodreads & Amazon when available✨

Thank you NetGalley for the e-arc!

This wasn’t anything special, it felt very similar to other f1 romances that I’ve read in the past. Lowkey felt like a very trope written book.

It’s your typical bad boy f1 driver and his best friends sister who happens to be his boss romance. There’s also some history between them which mix’s in the miscommunication trope.

Oh and ofc they’re “enemies” but really it’s just one sided from the FMC’s side.

I feel like the only thing that stood out was that the FMC like to walk barefoot in her workplace. She like even walked barefoot in the public bathroom…