Pit crew member Nolan Ford has had a crush on Eve Monroe for a while. The only problem ? She’s the sister and PR rep of the driver he pit crews for and has a reputation of being a cold ‘battle axe’. When Nolan finally finds the chance to ask her out their relationship will change Eve Monroe’s life forever. He helps her learn that maybe the reason she is so bitter is because she never took the chance to try her dream–becoming a professional driver.
I really enjoyed the romance in this book and was rooting for this couple so hard. Jacked Up has everything I like about this series; humor, conflict, complex heroes and heroines with just the right amount of tension. And while I started this review with Nolan, this book is really…all about Eve (I think I did a thing).
I came to romance from reading a lot of YA and a lot of times in YA there is talk about female agency and how a good story is one where a female characters life changes and she meets a guy and not a female character’s life changes because she met a guy. But in this book I think it’s fair to say Eve’s life changes because she starts dating Nolan and it works. Eve lives in a small community of people who only see her one way–a bitchy misanthrope. She needs someone like Nolan who can remind her she doesn’t have to be that way.
I returned to the audio version after being away for two books and I think Emily Durnate would be a great narrator if she wasn’t trying to do a southern accent. Her female southern accent in particularly is really annoying. That said, I do like her male voices which I think is what brings me back.
I like how for the last few books in this series have had titles that kind of relate to the story. Like in The Chase, the race they are in is called The Chase and in this book, Jacked Up, Nolan is the jack man, which means he jacks the car up so they can change the tires. All of that is to say that Nolan’s brother Rhett is the hero in the next book and his job on the pit crew is to change the oil so I’m super disappointed the next book isn’t called Oiled Down or Oiled Up or something.
