Alexa, play 21 reasons by Nievea! This book was nothing short of amazing. Thomas.... Thomas... Thomas you got me ready to watch Fomula 1 racing and that's not even my type of thing. Thomas, I think you might be new book bae! He definitely took the cake for me... excuse me I meant donut for me. Stella, girl, you almost gave me a heartattack a few times. But, I knew you would seal the deal! I love how honest, raw, emotional, cautious with your heart but was still ready to ride for your man or did you? What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas.... and I love that for them!

Ride with Me is a sizzling romance following Stella, a recently jilted bride and businesswoman, and Thomas, an F1 racer weathering a scandal. When the two meet in Vegas at a combined bachelor/bachelorette party, they spend one wild night together exploring their instant chemistry. However, when they both wake up the next morning, only to discover they've gotten married, the two decide to use their marriage to their advantage and ride out the drama together.

I'm a complete sucker for a marriage of convenience romance and this book delivered everything I love about the trope and more! The banter, chemistry, and tension were top tier; Stella and Thomas were just so perfect for each other. I loved how they communicated and followed their rules, all while struggling to not fall for each other. The hint of drama surrounding their relationship was the perfect balance to their sweet romance and the slow burn steam. From stellar writing to relatable characters and the most delectable romance, this book had me hooked from the very beginning — I can’t recommend it enough!

An F1 rom-com that I couldn't put down. This was a fun book to read. I enjoyed the writing style and the characters. A bi-racial couple that happen to both be millionaires find themselves married after a night on the town drinking in Vegas. They decide to stay in a marriage of convenience to help both their reputations and business. Once I found out this was book 2 in a series I ran out and got the first book. The author is now on my must-read list.

After settling into the story a bit, I realize this book has everything to do with opposites attract. He’s white, she’s black. He’s a racecar driver. She’s a baker and owns a growing company. She was dumped at the altar. The last thing he thinks of is getting married.

The beginning of this book is fabulous and fun. The connection is hot, and the author keeps it relatively clean, although the attraction is definitely palatable.

Then, as we settle into the story, it becomes more complex. There are parts of the story where I really didn’t like her much. She refused to see the truth in front of her and refused to hear or understand his feelings. She didn’t even want to admit she liked him for the most part. He was definitely head over heels for her.

Of course, in the end, we get the coming together, and all things become wonderful. In terms of heat and spice, I would call it mid-range as there is only one truly open-door scene. The rest of it is just admiration and lust.

The author has a wonderful gift for crafting a story that is entertaining, including a blend of humor, strife, happiness, and frustration. Her characterizations of the main couple push-and-pull throughout most of the book. The supporting characters are diverse and add a lot to the enhancement of the story, allowing Soltani to build in the next book to come.

Ride With Me is a great choice if you love the slow burn. This is an uber long burn, and while I appreciate more of the physical aspects of a story romance than the buildup and lust phase for most of the book, it was engaging in an overall sexy and sweet story.

This was one of my most anticipated reads for this year, and it did not disappoint! I absolutely loved this book. Both characters are so easily lovable with real human flaws. Stella Baldwin is everything I want to be. When I grow up, I want to be Stella Baldwin. Thomas Maxwell-Brown, the man that you are! I think a new book boyfriend has been added to the list. He is so lovely and wonderful and so painfully British, I am in love. To quote Taylor Swift, you know I love a London boy! Stella and Thomas fit so well together. I enjoyed reading their banter, they had me laughing so much.

Such a good sports romance, and the main trope is so good. I enjoy a good marriage of convenience story, and this one is definitely a good one. I loved seeing Stella and Thomas slowly fall in love with each other. They had me swooning the whole time. I said it in my "Cross the Line" review, and I’ll say it again, but Simone Soltani does F1 romance so well. I really like how you can tell she’s knowledgeable about F1 in that a lot of it doesn’t feel unrealistic the way it does in other F1 romances.

Overall, I had a wonderful time reading this book. It’s such a fun, cute little rom-com. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs a good sports romance.

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley for the e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Per Berkley’s approval request I will wait 1 week prior to release date before publishing my review which is May 13th

THE ANGST. I hate angst… ok I love angst. I hate that I love angst 🤣

This book is so good yall. Stella’s wit is just 🤌🏾✨ and Thomas 😍. Another book boyfriend added. Prince Charming by day and rogue by night 😮‍💨

The tension between the two was palpable. I don’t know how many times I told Stella to go get her man or Thomas to take his woman. Stella’s willpower must be made of steel because I would have folded like a pretzel 🥨

This was my first race car themed story and now I’m trying to see something 👀. The author did a phenomenal job with this book and I’m so happy I went along with the ride.

This book was a wild ride! From a drunken marriage to steamy vacations, this story has it all. I loved the characters so much, they both deserve the world and I’m so happy for them to have found each other! Definitely would recommend giving it a read!

A charming and sexy story of an American business woman and a British Formula 1 driver maybe not so fake marriage. Stella heads a successful empire of macaroon bakeries and lives in D.C. After a 5 year relationship with Etienne, he leaves her at the alter on their wedding day and leaves her reeling. Stella end up soured on love and no longer the up-for-anything woman that she once was. Just a few weeks after her wedding debacle, she goes to Vegas to attend her dear friend and cousin’s wedding to a recently retired British soccer (aka football) star. While there, she alternates between being sick of the sympathetic looks she’s getting from her family and missing her old self. On the combined bachelor and bachelorette party, Stella decides that she going to reclaim herself and shamelessly flirt with any of the great looking men in the group. She focuses on Thomas who looks amazing in a tux and seems very interested in her. Thomas is at this wedding because he was in Las Vegas to drive in the Grand Prix and goes to the wedding because his older brother is best friends with the groom but he can’t be at the wedding because his wife is about to give birth in London. Thomas is trying to recover from a media disaster when he went of a rant about a fellow driver that was filmed and leaked to the press. Unfortunately, right after that, the other driver was in a crash and is paralyzed. Stella and Thomas instantly have a very sexy chemistry and decide to leave the party and go off on their own. Unfortunately, they drink way too much and drunkenly get married by “Black Elvis” after getting a legitimate marriage license. Now what??? Of course word gets out and, to save what’s left of their reputations, they decide to stay in a fake marriage for a year. But, can their chemistry and feelings for each other lead to a fake marriage turning into a real one???

I was provided a digital ARC of this book by Berkley on NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

What a fun time I had while reading this! Ride With Me is an “accidental marriage/marriage of convenience” Formula 1 romance novel that perfectly blends a strong female protagonist with a supportive/protective love interest. Stella and Thomas are EVERYTHING and their story is so well written that you really see the depth of their relationship even after a short time together. The pacing of the novel is great and while you get to see the couples chemistry immediately, I’d definitely classify this as a slowburn, considering there’s only about one full on-page intimate scene nearing the 70% mark. Though you do get almost-moments throughout.

Ride With Me is the second novel in the Lights Out Series and while this can be read as a standalone, the first book, Cross the Line is definitely worth the read, especially if you’re into F1. Ride With Me does take place during the last two races of the season and while I’m not really an F1 girlie, I definitely missed more of the race action in this book compared to Cross the Line.

Overall, a great and quick romance that hits all the right tropes, Simone Soltani is quickly becoming an automatic buy for me!

Oh goodness. Honestly I was both nervous and excited for this because sometimes the second book of a series just loses me completely. However, the author knocked this one out of the park. The banter, the tension, the chemistry were perfect. It was a roller coaster of a slow burn which I normally don’t like but it worked so well for this story. I gave it 4/5 starts since something this that were presented as large incoming issue such as Figgy, Daphne, Stella’s mom were just kinda just forgotten until the end of the story. I wish we would’ve gotten more of Thomas’ story too. It was still an amazing story that I would and will recommend to like everyone.

Thank you Netgalley and Berkley Romance for access to this copy!!

I had a great time reading this. There’s just enough formula 1 in it to be fun for those of us that are fans and watch it, but not too much for someone who knows nothing about it. There’s an instant connection between the main characters which leads to a drunken accidental marriage in Vegas. They end up deciding to stay married given neither of them need negative publicity at the moment. Despite the chemistry, they decide to keep things platonic to avoid any heartbreak when it comes time to end the marriage. As they spend more time together and get to know each other, it’s obvious that there isn’t just physical chemistry but emotional as well. They’re a perfect match for each other, it just takes a little bit for them to admit it. The mmc was incredibly swoony and the fmc I admired a lot.

Can’t wait to continue this series and see who the next couple will be!

🏎️ formula 1
🤍 strangers to lovers
💍 marriage of convenience
🤭 “my wife”
💵 they’re both millionaires
❤️‍🔥 fast then slow burn

dual POV
4/5 stars ⭐️
2/5 spice level 🌶️

This was my first Simone Soltani read and OH MY GOSH, why did I not bump Cross the Line to the top of my TBR sooner?! 🤯💘 Because WOW. I'm completely obsessed.

🏎️ I’ll admit—I know nothing about F1 racing, but that didn’t matter one bit. This book? Pure fun. One of the things I adored most was Thomas “my wife, my wife, my wife” Maxwell-Brown. He’s not the flashy F1 golden boy, and I loved that! He knows he’s worked hard, he knows he’s good, but he doesn’t have that “main character” arrogance. It made him feel so real… and so swoony 🥹
Sure, he might’ve had a bit of a past pre-Stella, but honestly? We didn’t have to sit through the details 🙌 and it never once mattered. Thomas is just a genuinely good man—and the way he shows up for Stella?? Literal perfection.💘

As for Stella… what a sweetheart 💕 She was fierce, soft, resilient, and just so lovable. I didn’t always agree with every choice she made, but I understood her. She never projected her pain from the past onto Thomas. She stood strong, loved deeply, and gave us the ultimate ride-or-die vibes. Together? Absolute FIRE.🔥

My only teeny complaint? I wish the slow burn hadn’t been quite so slow 🐌 With a book this long, I just wanted more of them as a couple before the final page. But even still, their connection was everything—and the payoff was 💯 worth it.

✔️ Marriage of convenience
✔️ Soft F1 hero
✔️ Emotionally healing heroine
✔️ Heart-melting chemistry

This one exceeded all my expectations and then some!

I never ever do this with arcs but I think its important to be honest so here goes. I enjoy the diverse cast and the unique premise of this story. I love marriage of convenience romances so perhaps I set my expectations a bit too high. I'm going to call this at 33% as a DNF for now. Perhaps I will pick this story back up at another gime, maybe on audio. Right now though the story is just starting to cover the plot in the synopsis blurb and it felt like such slow going to get there. It starts off with several chapters focused on the two MCs getting to know one another at a joint bachelor/bachelorette party the night before the wedding (yes you read that right...). The getting to know you content is there prior to their drunken Vegas wedding that causes them to second guess whether of not staying married is worth trying. Honestly might pick this book up later to see what happens but right now I'm losing interest after multiple times of trying to motivate myself to pick up this book and continue reading. It might be my current mood or it much be (what felt to me) like a super slow build up to the main plot of the book. Super cute cover though!

Many thanks to netgalley for an advanced copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

I usually don’t like slow burn romance but this one changes my mind completely. It was done right. I loved the characters both together and separately. I bought myself smiling several times while reading this. Thomas is that dude and I loved Stella. This was my first read from the author and it won’t be my last!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

I would recommend if you're looking for (SPOILERS)

-m/f contemporary romance
-one night stand
-insta attraction
-accidental marriage of convenience
-what happens in vegas doesn't stay in vegas
-F1 romance
-just get it out of our system

I fully have to credit Simone for getting me on my F1 obsession. But her books are incredibly accessible whether you binged Drive to Survive on Netflix or have never watched a single F1 race in your life. I had so much fun diving back into this world, getting a chance to catch up with my favorites and also dive into a new couple somehow even messier than book 1. Both needing to repair their reputations, which a drunken Vegas wedding wouldn't help and suddenly these two are married and falling for each other. I love how softly it happened as they leaned on each other even when it didn't come natural to them. Simone's writing just pulls you in and I cannot wait to read whatever comes next.

thanks so much to berkleyromance for the ARC!

how lucky am i to read two books in a row where the man is absolutely <b>down bad.</b> thomas said “rules” and then proceeded to break every single one of them while staring at stella like she hung the moon. and listen, i love a slow burn, but 80% in and y’all are still playing pretend? give me the “my wife” energy earlier next time, please. that said, the yearning? exquisite. the english breakfast references? elite. the vacation braids? a cultural reset. and stella? an icon. my queen. the only thing stopping her from getting her man was her ex and a few misplaced boundaries.

and thomas? thomas is him. i don’t know what kind of man just quietly waits with open arms and rationalizes being left as character growth, but it’s giving <i> olympic-level patience.</i> personally, i would’ve liked to see stella grovel a bit more…just a sprinkle of “i’m sorry for making you suffer in silence, king” but alas, i still ate it up. it’s insta-curiosity, it’s interracial romance, it’s f1 racer fantasy, and it worked. four stars because while i wanted more “we’re married now” moments, what we did get was swoony as hell.

✨ Synopsis: Ride with Me by Simone Soltani is a romance novel following an entrepreneur named Stella who finds herself in a marriage of convenience with a Formula 1 driver by the name of Thomas after a crazy night in Vegas. ✨

Review:

As this was both my first Formula 1 romance and novel by Simone Soltani, I had no idea what to expect. And what I received in return was everything. ANGST! PINING! YEARNING! This is all I needed, and Ride with Me delivers.

Ride with Me effortlessly blends themes of romance, independence, strong friendships, and complicated family dynamics. As the book unfolded, I couldn’t help but become attached to Stella and Thomas. Stella is a feisty, boss woman who I found myself relating to at certain points, while Thomas is a wealthy Brit with golden retriever energy. Thomas, specifically, has quickly emerged as one of my favorite male love interests. He was sweet, kind, and understanding of Stella. As the book unfolded, you can truly feel the genuine love and admiration he develops for Stella. The pining and yearning was another LEVEL, and was probably my favorite thing about the book.

In addition, another thing I really enjoyed was how the love interests were crafted as their own characters with their own interests and identity. Stella and Thomas both didn’t change themselves as they found themselves in a marriage of convenience, but adapted. Soltani did a great job in crafting complex characters who happened to fall in love. Reading Stella’s healing journey from relationship trauma was inspiring to watch. It was like Stella got her groove back (lol).

The only critiques I have of the book is the slow burn WAS VERY SLOW and I wished it included more extended moments between the two that weren’t driven by lust.

SIMONE YOU BRILLIANT BRILLIANT GAL, you took me out of my reading slump. I looooved Stella! And don’t get me started on Thomas. I love me a simp who can whisper good girl as he has me against a wall. I needed this romance. Also F1? Sounds hot.
Big thank you to #berkleyromance & #netgalley for this e-arc bc I’m such a fan of Simone’s. Ride With Me is book 2 but it’s also a standalone. BUT, I 100% think everyone should read CTL too bc it’s cayuuuuute.

So, a fun little factoid about me before we proceed with this review is that I read a lot of sports romances but I don't actually follow a lot of sports. I've read a metric ton of football and hockey romances and I know next to nothing about football and even less about the NHL. But I enjoy the romances and don't really know how accurate the sports stuff is...nor do I care!

Another little factoid about me: my husband is a massive F1 fan and so is our 14 yo daughter. They talk about the races and the teams and the drivers all the time and so, it stands to reason that just by virtue of being around them for any length of time, I have started to absorb some of this information. I may even, on occasion, sit and watch a race or 2.

You might be able to see where I'm going with this now. It's a lot easier for me to enjoy a sports romance the less informed I am about the sport featured in the romance. Sadly, I think I may know too much, or just enough to be dangerous when reading a F1 romance.

This is my first F1 romance and more than likely, my last one as well. There's a lot that didn't work for me in this story so let's start with what DID work for me. I really liked that the book was dual POV because I think it really helped to have a glimpse at both Thomas and Stella's inner thoughts.

However, the rest of the book was a miss for me. There were some pacing issues early on (ironic, considering that this is a F1 romance) and I really wished so much of the book didn't focus on Stella trying to heal from the trauma of being left at the altar 6 months earlier. I wish this book had taken place after more time had passed since that incident. So much of her hesitation is influenced by this horrible event and I can understand that she has trust issues and doesn't fully believe that Thomas won't leave her the same way her asshole ex fiancé did. But there's a big part of her that needs closure from what Étienne did to her and even at like the 70% mark, she admits to Thomas that there's a part of that that thinks she's still waiting for Étienne to come back to her and tell her he made a mistake. It's hard to root for a couple when the FMC is still stuck on a past relationship. That's not to say she's still harboring feelings of love for Étienne but I never quite believed that she was really and truly ready to let her heart belong to another man again either. And that makes it hard to root for the relationship and the HEA.

Secondly, let's talk about Thomas, the upper crust Brit F1 driver from a very posh and wealthy family. He's struggling with some terrible publicity that has turned a lot of F1 fans against him and he needs to clear his name, although that seems weird phrasing for what's actually happening here. Also, the team he drives for, it's implied that he's got that position because of his family's wealth and they are his main sponsor and his team doesn't want to lose that sponsorship. (His family owns a chain of luxury hotels). A lot of revelations come to light about what/who actually caused his publicity nightmare and it's implied that one of the people that can help fix his image will be giving an interview to do that but...the book ends and there's no mention of whether that happened or how it all turned out. There's even a scene towards the end of the book that implies that Thomas isn't happy with his current team and might be looking to make a change and then there's an epilogue that takes place months later and still, we get ZERO resolution about Thomas' future in F1. It's a bizarre way to leave us hanging and if the argument is that these answers will be revealed in a future book in the series (I'm guessing there will be more books about more drivers introduced in this series) then that also makes no sense because THIS is Thomas' book and his story should have been fully resolved at the end of it. If we get an epilogue that's months after the final chapter, there could have been some clue as to what ended up happening with his career. That feels like a reasonable ask.

I'm not going to talk too much about the actual F1 aspect though I will say what I mentioned to a friend of mine, that the top two drivers in this book are both American and one of them ends up winning the Drivers Championship and of the 20 F1 drivers currently racing in the actual F1, not a single one is American. Sorry, that just made me LOL. Also, Thomas' toxic family (mainly his asshole brother and father) make it clear they won't be sponsoring him anymore and thus essentially ending his career but then a last minute email from his sister towards the end of the book (but before the epilogue) fixes that and it's such a weird way to fix it. I guess, like Stella, I needed more closure about Thomas and his professional future and just did not get it.

All these words really boil down to the simple fact that I didn't really like the story. The characters really frustrated me with their behavior and decisions. Despite the fact that it was dual POV, there were times that I just couldn't get a handle on either of these characters and while this is obviously a book where the hero falls first and falls hardest, all of their shared angst made it hard to believe in the HEA.

ARC from publisher, review is all mine.

Content Notes: FMC gets left at the altar, MMC has a toxic family dynamic, someone recorded the MMC saying problematic things about another driver and then released it to the public, FMC also has complicated family dynamics

This was cute!
I really enjoyed this book!
It was a slow burn fake marriage troupe!

What happens in Vegas, don’t always stay in Vegas….

Stella was absolutely stunning! She was so sweet and kind with a feisty personality.

I love the chemistry that Stella & Thomas have from the beginning. Their attraction to each other grows slowly but becomes so strong later in the storyline!
It will have you gushy over them two. So freaking adorable!


I knew nothing about race cars or F1, but I would love to attend a race in the future. Maybe I’ll find my future husband.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc! Great book!