Imagine being Jinshi. You just let go of the girl you are smitten with in an honorable attempt to set her free from a life she didn't choose and return to her family. It was definitely the right thing to do, a selfless act your brother, the emperor himself, never had the courage to do.
But you are miserable. Everyone is making fun of you for ruining your own life. Your guardian drags you to a party in a futile attempt to lift your spirits, but the boisterous laughter and the conventionally beautiful women just make you feel even more out-of-place.
A servant girl offers to refill your drink, but you refuse because having a hangover the next day will only make this even worse, if that is possible.
Then you feel the light, gentle hand glide over your forehead to brush your hair out of your face. You look up and see this:
Maomao, the girl of your dreams, who you thought was lost forever, suddenly appears. Not hiding her beauty and dressed elegantly in a bright cheerful yellow dress (a color often associated with imperial royalty). She touches your face affectionately for the first time.
Of course you would want to touch her, just to know she is real. You would want to set her free and give her the life she wanted. Of course you would proudly mark yourself as hers where everyone could see. Of course you would move heaven and earth to make her happy.
I know the Geneva convention don’t exist in like the faerie realm or whatever, but sometimes I’ll look at the actions of “good guys” in a fantasy book and go like ok so this is definitely a war crime
because i am a bookworm and aspiring goodreads influencer. this is where i am going to fawn over fictional men and addictive storytelling.
part one/ ?
throttled - lauren asher ( dirty air #1 )*
rating: 4 stars
where to begin with this one? i have a whole pinterest board but that’s a story for another day. maya alatorre’s brother santiago just beame the secondary driver for bandini and she’s joining the team on the road for race season, where she meets ( and ultimatley falls in love with ) noah slade, formula one’s resident golden boy and legacy driver with daddy issues. featuring enemies to lovers, brother’s rival and secret romance.
collided - lauren asher ( dirty air #2 )*
rating: 4.5 stars
set in the same world as throttled, collided follws sophie mitchell, daughter of bandini team principal james mitchell as she spends the summer on the road with the team, and finds her way into the arms of german mccoy driver liam zander ( who is literally the PERFECT man, like he hits every single point on my trifecta: he’s german, he drives a formula one car and he reads books ). liam is mccoy’s resident bad boy, and his pr team has him on a dating ban after he sleeps with the team principals niece. sophie has a naughty ( vvv spicy ) bucket list, and liam offers to help her out, falling hopelesley in love along the way.
shelby jackson is the co-owner of the last family owner team in the nascar nextel cup series. sadly, thunder racing is in a terrible financial position and they haven't won anything in years. something that british soccer player mick churchill wants to change when he offers to by the other half of the team. shelby is unimpressed, and keeps trying to push mick out of the business, ultimately falling in love with him in the process. shelby is a girlboss, who commands attention everywhere she goes. mick is a dumbass, match made in heaven. the cover on this one SUCKS but the book is pretty good for being written in 2007, however it lacks any sexy time scenes, as the scenes always cut before there is any real smut.
a dead body is found in an oil drum in the waste processing facility behind the charlotte motor speedway ahead of nascar race week. forensic anthropologist temperance brennan lands the case, and begins looking into the disappearance of a seventeen year old girl and her older boyfriend twelve years prior at the behest of a nascar mechanic related to one of the missing. from there, it’s a rich mystery and vast conspiracy involving militia groups, the fbi, biotoxins and car racing. listen, i was already in love with detective andrew ryan from the other temperance brennan books, but to find out that he is a jacques villeneuve fan, i am swooning.
wrecked - lauren asher ( dirty air #3 )*
rating: 5 stars
this book broke me, i'm not even kidding. this book is forced proximity and enemies to lovers between driver jax kingston and elena gonzalez, his media rep. they both have torubled pasts, and i f i could just warp them both in bubble wrap and protect then from the rowld, i would. jax is dangerously self-destructive, and elena has a hard time letting people in, but once they break down their walls (and god does it take a while) they are truly made for each other.
yes i cried like a baby, no i will not elaborate.
taming zach - amy sparling ( team loco #1 )
rating: 3 stars even.
cute, wholesome but predicatable and a little lame. this book follows motocross racer zach pena who has lost his focus on the sport and this also lost his place at the summer classic. as he risks getting cut from the team, he heads back home to hopewell, where he falls in love with bree grayson, the daughter of the groundskeeper ath hopewell motocross park. it's calssic good girl-bad boy shit, and it's been done many times before. although it can get steamy, there's no smut.
currently undecided if im actually going to finish the series.
redeemed - lauren asher ( dirty air #4 )*
rating: 5 stars
santaigo motherfucking alatorre. santaigo is recovering from a crash at silverstone three years ago that resulted in the loss of his right leg. since the crash, he's sequestered himself inside his mansion on lake como and hidden himself away from the world. chole carter never knew who her father was. after her roomate buys her a drugstore dna kit, she finally has her father's identity and finds herself on a trip to lake como to find him.
what i really liked about this one was that as they fell in love with each other, they also learned how to love themselves more in the process.
the final ranking order i have for the dirty air series (and men) is as follows: 1. Redeemed (Santi), 2. Wrecked (Jax), 3. Collided (Liam), 4. Throttled (Noah).
*bonus chapters are available for all the dirty air books at lauren asher’s website!
