This was such a a cute rom com! Rivals to lovers doesn't get much better than this. The banter was so entertaining and the romance was really sweet too. There is some spice, but it is a good slow burn and nicely written. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys MM romance and romantic comedies! I know nothing about racing, but had fun reading about it and it was easy to understand.

DNF at 15%. I really wanted to like this book. I loved the idea of a F1 romance, and I liked that it was a similar concept to RW&RB (MM enemies to lovers).
What I didn’t like:
-it promotes the sexual fetishism of gay men (especially written by a non-male author)
-it promotes a LGBTQ+ man lusting after an assumed straight male
-it promotes sexual fantasies of an unknown/unreciprocated sexual orientation/preference
If the tables were turned and this was about a straight man fantasizing and displaying a fetish for queer women, this book would immediately be considered NOT okay.

This was a sports romance that manages to balance both elements throughout the entire book, which is so rare! I appreciated that F1 was part of the story, and not just a character trait. Nothing is worse than picking up a sports romance to find the sports component to be barely present. It only look a few chapters and I was immediately invested in the characters, both as individuals and their relationships. I was rooting for them the entire time, and wish I could keep reading to see beyond the epilogue!

I enjoyed reading this book! I thought this was one of the best renditions of the “I’m too damaged for you” trope that I’ve experienced. This was my first F1 romance and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I really enjoyed that aspect of it, and F1 fans seem relatively please with the representation of the sport in this book.

Whatever is happening with Jo felt too intense to just leave hanging, especially for two and a half years if his story is going to pick up after this book’s epilogue!

This book had a surprising number of errors - grammar mistakes, typos, and continuity issues - for a traditionally published book. I do recognized that this was an ARC, so I hope those get fixed before publishing.

I was also surprised that this book was categorized as Erotica on NetGalley, as it was fairly tame. While there are open door scenes, there aren’t many and they aren’t very explicitly detailed.

as a huge f1 girly i was so excited for this!! i find f1 books quite scary because i worry they won’t come across as realistic but i actually really enjoyed this one! i loved the relationship, the struggles and the racing was so enjoyable to read! a solid book for sure!!

3.75⭐️

Tldr: a cute, sweet and sexy romance set to a backdrop of F1.

RW&RB meets F1??? Well sign me right up. As soon as I saw the description I wanted to read it, and I was initially drawn to this book because of the cover (I love it).

If you like grumpy x sunshine, snarky comments, enemies (ish) to lovers and forced proximity, all with a side of motorsports, then I'd give this a read!

We start off with the classic diametrically opposed personalities clashing with one another (see, enemy at first sight). Now I have to say, I loved Harper. I just wanted to give him a hug 😭 he was definitely a favourite from the start, I found his cockiness endearing and really enjoyed unravelling the layers of his character. He gave hyper puppy energy and I was here for it.
It took me a little while longer to warm up to Kian as I found him to be a bit abrasive at first, however I grew to really like him.
The pacing of them going from enemies to lovers was perhaps a bit off (read: fast), however, I found I really enjoyed the two of them together - they were just really cute and I really did like it.

I will say, whilst I generally really love the trope of enemies at first sight, but for some reason here it felt slightly flat? I think I would have liked more of a reason as to why Kian dislikes Harper so intently at the start of the book, it seemed like there was no real concrete reason, and this meant that Kian's dislike felt a little bit forced/cold. I think perhaps because it seemed to be born out of jealousy, I wasn't a massive fan of the reason behind the whole being enemies.

I did also struggle with some of the grammatical errors/spelling errors/typos when reading this. It was just a bit jarring and caused a bit of detachment for me.

Overall, this was a fun, sexy and easy to read romance and I enjoyed it! Thank you to NetGalley and ONE MORE CHAPTER for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

This queer F1 romance delivered!

Kian Walker is on the cusp of retiring from Formula 1 and is looking forward to the season until his other driver and best friend Elijah suffers a season ending injury, which results in Harper James, a talented but party boy rookie driver. What follows is a season neither Kian or Harper envisaged!

Pole Position captured the rush of F1 (as far as I can tell) and the mix between the races, the preparation and training, and the lifestyle. What I liked was it wasn’t sordid but there were healthy doses of the realities facing drivers and families caught up in this world. As characters Kian tends towards the pursuit of normalcy, which grates on Harper with his ‘here for a good time’ and only one time, mentality. The rivals to lovers draw card was what attracted me, and kept me well and truly interested.

As far as MM romances go, it’s emotive and there’s a sense of frustration from Kian about Harper’s inability to commit, as well as some miscommunication from both of them, which is a repetitive source of friction. It’s light on the steam and reliant on connection which I think just needed a tad more oomph to get it over the finish line.

Really loved this though, and would absolutely recommend it.

I don’t know anything about F1 but I ate this book up I really enjoyed it

As someone who isn’t much into sports it’s easy to follow and the relationship is pretty cute!

Thank you for the ARC

This wasn’t it. I was so excited to read this because I’m a pretty big F1 fan, but the writing was so cringy at parts that it totally took me out of the story. The characters were bulky and the dialogue was clunky. I did like the family dynamic aspect, but it didn’t make up for the main romance being not it. I do think sports romance girlies may enjoy this so I would recommend this to them.

If you enjoy the drama of F1, you’ll love Pole Position! Caffery injects just enough track strategy and behind the scenes details to pull the reader into the story.

Four time champion Kian Walker is all work, no play. Does that make him a dull boy? Rookie driver Harper James sure thinks so.

Harper’s dreams are coming true when he gets called up to racing’s big leagues, but will his unprofessional behavior cost him everything? Kian is sure of it.

How will these drivers make it through a whole season in close quarters with reporters watching their every move? And why are they both secretly attracted to the other?!

Just like Monaco, this has twists and turns and wrecks (literal and emotional), with just enough angst to make the resolution satisfying.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. My only gripe, and this may be resolved in the final edition, is that apostrophes are used in the place of quotation marks throughout, which was frustrating and often made dialogue read like an internal monologue. I hope it’s changed for print.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK/One More Chapter for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Pole Position releases June 6, 2024

This was… not good.
To preface: I am <u>not</u> an F1 enthusiast, so I was more so interested in seeing whether the romance could hold up on its own. It couldn’t.

- dual pov
- F1
- MM romance (one is bisexual)
- teammates/forced proximity
- age gap (25/33)
- taking care of scene

Kian’s teammate, Elijah, has just suffered a severe injury of a broken leg. To take his place, we have Harper, who is a driver in one of the lower leagues.

A key component to liking a story has to do with the characters, and I hated Harper with a fiery passion. He was so annoying! It’s one thing to be cocky, arrogant, and only care about fame, money and having a good time partying, but Harper had no sense of personal space or consideration for others routines and shared spaces.

The romance was not believable because the two leading characters were not compatible in any way. This was basically just a story of two head-butting teammates that wanted to scratch a sexual itch, and I honestly don’t know what Kian saw in Harper romantically or as a person.

From what I understand, this sport takes a lot of discipline, so I couldn’t really get behind how childish Harper kept acting. It felt like he was in a constant state of needing to be babysat which is not a turn on.
For how much focus there was on Harper’s friend, Johannes, I thought it was such a cop-out that we didn’t even get to find out why he became so closed off.

This has one of the most pathetic third-act conflicts ever (all because he didn’t say yes to going out to dinner!! lmfao!!), and I also really disliked the fact that the first intimate scene between Kian and Harper happened while Harper was basically black-out drunk and not in a clear headspace.

<i>“Silence makes me restless.”</I> Okay?? Doesn’t give you the right to pester someone else and be all up in their face when it’s clearly bothersome. Read the room!

cw: parent with Parkinson’s, abandonment issues, on-page panic attack, death of a parent

Thank you Netgalley and harper Collins for the arc!

When I saw that this was advertised as red white and royal blue meets f1 I was so eager to get my hands on this! I love sports romances and this was right up my alley. Unfortunately it did not meet my expectations.

The writing does a lot of telling and not showing which is something that takes me out off books and makes me less inclined to finish them. The overall story was cute but the characters did not feel fully fleshed out either. I liked them but the chemistry was lacking and the sex often felt like a way to cover up this lack of chemistry.

I really wanted to like this one but I think it needs a few more rounds of editing to really fine tune the plot and characters.

Let me start by saying… I ate this book up. I’m talking twirling my hair, kicking my feet, so invested in the characters…. Absolutely ate this book up. Pole Position is the queer F1 romance of my dreams, fast paced and instantly riveting I enjoyed every second with this book.
Not only was this book full of romance, it also had such interesting characters beyond the main characters. As well as interesting storylines, a mix of small ones and ones that lasted throughout the entirety of the book. The mix of these was what kept the book interesting throughout.
I found myself pleasantly surprised and intrigued by the characters not fitting the exact archetype that the back of the book painted. This made the book intriguing right off the bat, a great quality to have in a book. It had my curiosity from the start. Sometimes with books one character seems to have it together and the other doesn't, a bit of a tilted scale, but this book both characters needed to learn something from each other and the people around them. The characters were written to be perfectly imperfect. I would much rather have an imperfect character that grows than one who is perfect and never grows.
I also liked that the dual POV wasn’t split evenly, refreshing because usually in dual POVs it’s split every other chapter. With the uneven split we got to know more of what one person was thinking before immediately knowing what the other was thinking/ feeling. It created more suspense.
Finally, I like that the races weren’t dragged out, there’s only so much action in one race! We don’t need a full blown plot in every prix on the F1 schedule. That being said, there was just enough to keep the vibe of it being an F1 based book. The perfect mix.
Overall, this was such a swoonworthy book. I would recommend it to anyone who needs a quick, interesting romance. It would be a good book to get you out of a book slump.

***Thanks to One More Chapter through NetGalley for providing me an ARC for my honest review!***

I wish I had better things to say about this. I really dig sports romances, I've been learning to appreciate them a lot more this year as I've had the pleasure to read a lot more of them. I have a few F1 racing books on my radar, but this is the first queer one I've seen, so of course I requested it! I will start out and say god did I love the representation. Harper was the golden retriever who was secretly a mess and felt like he could never be loved, so he self sabotaged his own life. Kian was anxious and dealing with holding himself to standards separate from his own burn out father, whilst trying to stay together and not beat himself up for staying with his mom who has Parkinson's. This is the first time I've ever seen a book with Parkinson's rep in it, by the way. My grandma has Parkinson's, so it really hit close to home. I wish maybe it would've been expanded on a little more, but I did learn some things about the condition that I didn't know prior. Now as for the things that caused this low of a rating, it really just boils down to personal preference of mine. I don't typically like drunk sex, especially when only one person is drunk, and was piss pouring drunk only to be apparently fine enough to commit an sexual act not even half an hour later? That and the amount of times they did things like that together after moments in which they were down or upset. I just don't really see the appeal or like it when that happens in books. It feels like the acts are being done to distract from the bad things, or to make one another feel better and that just feels so dirty to me. I also abhorred Johannes so much as a character I almost couldn't stand it. There were a few grammar mistakes that don't impact my rating as I know this is an ARC, but there was one instance of a definitely not correct part described as a part of one of the two MCs that kinda made me cry a little bit inside because how do you not know the difference between male anatomy and female anatomy. Did you not research? All this to say, the premise was there. Really, it truly was. I just felt that it lacked and didn't deliver in some parts. I loved the F1 racing elements, I just wish it felt more like an F1 racing romance and not a romance with a dash of F1 racing. For as much as it was about F1 racing, and how often it was described, how many scenes included racing, it was simultaneously anything but racing.

This book was... not as good as I wanted it to be. (I wonder how many reviews I've started with some variation on that sentence.) I liked the premise, and the character setups were good, but the book ended up feeling awfully long—and that's coming from someone who adores long books. As at least one other reviewer has noted, there were some plot holes that needed filling, and the resolution felt too easy, given the issues that needed to be addressed. I think a stronger developmental edit might have made this a five-star read. As it is, I'm rounding up to four.

Oh, and the "maybe we should have kids" at the end... No. That almost takes it down to three stars for me.

My thanks to the publisher/NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

[Thanks to NetGalley for proving me with an arc!]

3.75 ⭐️

I really really liked it. I don't know a thing about F1, but when the book mentions stuff about the sport, it never got boring. And I really liked the couple and side characters.
I feel like there's gonna be a second book about J. (with J.!, if my suspicion is correct). If so, can't wait to read it!

Love it! Love it! Love it! Pole position is soooo good, it is such a great read.

This book is a cute F1 romance, with well written and thought out characters. Who both underwent character growth and felt realistic. I loved the pace and story, but felt the romance could have been a bit more front and centre. I really hope that we get more books in this world.

Summary: Motor racing prodigy Kian Walker faces his greatest challenge yet: his new teammate Harper James, whose presence disrupts Kian's world on and off the track.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book, all thoughts are my own.

A cute F1 romance! The characters are complex and we get to see a lot of their life outside the track with I enjoyed. I do think the relationship itself felt a little lack luster at times, but I still found myself not wanting to put it down! If you’re a fan of F1, you’ll enjoy this book.

Thank you NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[ARC provided by NetGalley and One More Chapter. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review Pole Position.]

Rating: 3/5

When I saw that Pole Position was being described as Red, White & Royal Blue meets Formula 1, I hit that request button faster than Max Verstappen on race day. Expectations were pretty high because these are two of my favourite things, but at the same time I tried to not approach this too critically because I never pick up sport romances for realism. Unfortunately, even with that in mind, this book fell flat for me. I couldn’t connect with the characters at all and found myself bored with the predictable plot. If you enjoy Formula One then you might still enjoy a romance in this setting, but every other element leaves a lot to be desired.

Pole Position follows Kian Walker, an accomplished veteran of motor sport aiming for his fifth championship win, and Harper James, the up and coming rookie who has been given the opportunity to race in the big leagues. Harper is arrogant, hot-headed, and most importantly, Kian’s new teammate. The pair get off to a rocky start but as the Grand Prix calendar progresses, sparks begin to fly on and off the track, and the racing duo might just find some common ground.

I wanted to love this story, I really did, and during the first half I found myself ignoring some glaringly obvious issues that became common throughout the entire book. For example, the writing style was jarring to read and I often found myself being taken out of the story as my attention was diverted to the dull prose. This is a book where there’s a lot of telling and very little showing, so it can feel like there’s no room to form your own opinions and theories which for me is half of the fun with reading. This left the story feeling quite flat and had an unfortunate knock on effect with other elements such as characterisation and the overall story.

Another issue for me was the plot which I found underdeveloped. There were a lot of instances where something was mentioned that would seem important at the time but then never amounts to much and this stitching together of ‘almost moments’ made the story feel less impactful. The romance didn’t feel fleshed out enough either, because although Kian and Harper have chemistry, it mostly felt forced and unbelievable. I think I really struggled with imagining this pair as professional racing drivers and by the end of it didn’t really care if they were or weren’t together.

Although this missed the mark for me, I’d still recommend Pole Position to racing fans because there’s a severe lack of the sport in romance books. It looks like there could potentially be more relationships to follow so I might check them out, but I’ll probably wait to read other reviews first.

I LOVED this book. As someone who is a fan of F1 romance and also LGBT+ representation, I was so excited to see a book with an m/m relationship. I thought the characters were really well-written and the story was amazing. The concept of teammates dating was really interesting and I loved how the author explored the dynamic between the different personalities. I would definitely recommend this to any F1 and/or romance fans, as I thought this was fantastic!