I received this book for free from Entangled Publishing, Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Driving Her Crazy (Entangled Lovestruck) by Kira Archer Published by Macmillan on August 17th 2015
Genres: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, General
Pages: 226
Format: eARC
Source: Entangled Publishing, Netgalley
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Driven to (sexy) distraction...
Cher Debusshere hates being the black sheep of her posh, well-to-do family almost as much as she hates driving-which is exactly what she's forced to do when her flight home for her perfect sister's wedding is grounded. Fan-freakin'-tastic. Then a hot guy offers to share both the car rental and the driving duties...only to drive her crazy by assuming she's just some spoiled little rich girl.
Mechanic Nathaniel "Oz" Oserkowski is about as blue-collar as they come. There's never been a time he hasn't worked his ass off, and he's determined to prove it to the gorgeous princess in the passenger seat. As the miles pass, they bait and needle each other...until their lust and longing gets so hot it nearly overheats the engine.
They have nothing in common. Hell, they can barely stand each other. But sometimes it takes a journey to change the destination...
Cherice Buchanan Debusshere is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Her alarm didn’t go off, she’s stuck in the airport security line, and when she finally screeches to a halt at the gate for her flight, she sees that the door is closed and she’s not getting on. Which ends up not mattering five minutes later when the flight is canceled for crappy weather. She absolutely must get from North Carolina to upstate New York that night. Her sister is getting married the next day and if she misses it, she’ll never hear the end of it from her parents. Her parents who already consider her the black sheep of their extremely wealthy, snobby, upper-crust family.
Nathaniel Oserkowski, “Oz”, is in the same boat. He has to get to New York for a job interview. A very important job interview that could change everything for his family. Family, in this case, is his sister and her son, who he lives with and helps out. This being a romance novel, by the time Cherice gets to the car rental counter, Oz has taken the very last car. You see where this is going, I’m sure.
Oz and Cherice make a lot of assumptions about each other very quickly, and neither seems to be very interested in correcting them. Mostly Oz, really. He assumes Cher (as he insists on calling her) is a “stuck-up piece of work.” And he assumes she sees him as a lower-class peon. And if Cher sees him that way, she never shows it. She says a lot of bone-headed, classist things, but I don’t think she even realized the comments could be taken that way. I never got even a hint that Oz’s occupations or background mattered to her in the slightest. She didn’t really do a lot to clear up his misconceptions, though. He got the absolute wrong idea about her job, totally dismissing it as frivolous and snotty, and she just let the topic fizzle. She didn’t correct him. Toward the end of the book he heard the name of the company she worked for and knew exactly who they were and what that meant she did. It would have been that easy for her to explain it.
The bickering and back-and-forth banter was a lot of fun to read. It forced them both to look at the world in ways they hadn’t even considered. And they had really great chemistry, when Cher would loosen up enough to let it fly. She was really wound tightly. Not that I could totally blame her. Every single thing that could go wrong for her did. Canceled flight, road tripping with a stranger, rain storms, clothes in mud puddles, terrible food, etc. I’d probably be a stressed-out wreck, too, and I’m not nearly as uptight as Cher was in the beginning.
Overall, I really liked this book. There were a few things I wish had been fleshed out a little more. There’s an epilogue, and we see that both Cher and Oz have gotten some of the things they talked about wanting, but I would have liked to have seen exactly how that happened. I wanted to see some of the fallout, if there was any, with Cher’s family. And I really, really want to know why Cher is so scared of driving. I mean, I don’t love driving, to be honest, but it isn’t a deep phobia that leaves me unable to leave my hometown. She spent literally twenty-five minutes with the car rental attendant asking him questions about their car’s safety ratings and features. I got the sense there was a reason for it, but Oz never asked her about it. She seems to be genuinely terrified just being in a car.
But those are minor quibbles about an otherwise fun, easy read. I’ve already pre-ordered the next one in the series, which features my favorite minor character from this one. I definitely recommend you pick this one up.
About Kira Archer
Kira resides in Pennsylvania with her husband, two kids, and far too many animals in the house. She tends to laugh at inappropriate moments, break all the rules she give her kids (but only when they aren’t looking), and would rather be reading a book than doing almost anything else. She has odd, eclectic tastes in just about everything and often lets her imagination run away with her. She loves a vast variety of genres and write in quite a few. As Kira, she writes contemporary and urban fantasy romance. If you love historical romances, check out her alter ego, Michelle McLean
