I was really looking forward to Coming in Hot, but unfortunately, it missed the mark for me. It was hard to follow and I didn't enjoy how almost every chapter was a large jump in time. I wish there had been more depth to Natalia's relationship with Klaus because nothing about their interactions lead me to belive they were a good fit for each other. I felt like this book had a lot of potential, but it just wasn't for me.

Having not read the first book Double Apex I did check before diving into this to make sure I would be go ok to read this. This book run concurrently with the first. Our FMC is Natalia Evans. She is a reporter for the Auto Racing Journal. She ends up having a one night stand with someone she later finds out that night was the Principal of the Emerald Team.
I find that when it comes to the F1 books I really like when the chapters are over the season and the chapter headers are the different countries and races that they are at. Coming in Hot has that. This is my first book by Josie Juniper. I found the pros engaging. I liked how the plot progressed. Even though there were time jumps it was done well. I don't have any issues with accidental pregnancy but I did like where this one was placed within the timeline of the book and found that it worked well. Overall I will be going back and reading Double Apex and be looking for future titles by Josie Juniper including Sage's story!

Thank you to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the complimentary copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The romance in this story happens at the same time as the events of book 1, so I thought I had an idea of what their relationship was like. Based on the first book, I thought they had been sleeping together for a while. However, in this book, I learned early on that they slept together one time without knowing who the other was, and then the rest of what I saw in book 1 was just tension?? I don't get all the sneaking around from book 1 if they weren't together....??

Besides my annoyance at that not lining up, I just got the ick from a few things early on. 1) Natalia mentions that she doesn't ask anymore if a man is married and doesn't like being a homewrecker, but it's inevitable...? WHAT?! Which leads me to 2) Based on that quote, I'd think she sleeps around and has casual hookups all the time, but when Klaus proposes a friends-with-benefits situation, she says she doesn't do that. Huh?? Isn't that all you do?? 3) There's a weird miscommunication the first time they sleep together, and I hated it.

The timeline is also weird. How can I connect to these characters and care about their relationship when some of the development happens off page?? This book solidified that this author's writing isn't for me.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

A big thank you to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

After reading Double Apex, I was so excited to get approved for Coming In Hot! I am happy to report that I really enjoyed the 2nd book in the Frontrunners series!

Since I am a huge F1 fan, I would have loved to have had more of the F1 atmosphere that we experienced in Double Apex.

That being said, I still really liked Coming In Hot! I was happy that we got to revisit some characters from the first book and get a sort of update on them. One of my favorite things about this book was the growth between the characters. Both of our main characters come with baggage/traumas, and they have to figure out how to push through them both individually and together. It's got some great tropes, such as the age gap, work place/forbidden love, push & pull. I found the "second love" narrative to be tastefully and beautifully written, too.

Let's not forget about the beautiful covers of these books! The detail and colours are so eye catching.

Easy 4/5 stars from me!

Josie Juniper is by far my favorite F1 romance writer. She easily meshes the upstairs, downstairs environment of F1 into delicious deep dives of romance. Cannot wait for the next book in this series.

Thank you to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) | Forever and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

Generally into sports romance, and I'm glad to see some different cultural representation as well! (Even though neither of the characters was an athlete themselves, this book is part of a series with interconnected standalone books, and I feel that it has sporty elements to it. )

Really loved the characters' relationship progression and how they had to get over their own emotional baggage. This is the first time I've ever had the 'dead wife' trope not give me the ick as well. Being the second love of someone's life does not sound pleasant most of the time, but Coming in Hot was so well done, it didn't bother me.

**Thank you to Forever Romance for the advanced reader copy. I received this book for free, but all thoughts are my own. – SLR 🖤

I've already read (and thoroughly enjoyed) Double Apex, the first book of the Frontrunners series, so I was excited to read Coming In Hot.

This book follows journalist Natalia Evans and team principal Klaus Franke. The two of them are not always easy characters to love. They are headstrong and hold their secrets close. While their mutual attraction is powerful, the walls they've each built around their hearts keep them in constant turmoil.

I loved this book. Klaus and Talia are flawed humans who I cared about because Josie wrote them so well. I was deeply invested in their story, as well as the greater story of the Emerald racing team.

Coming In Hot was fun, spicy, and thoroughly enjoyable. I've never watched F1 racing, but I feel like I should, just based off of reading Josie's books.

The pros…. Every chapter is in a new location so that’s fun! The cover is super pretty. And there’s a fun one night stand at the beginning!

But…. There didn’t seem to be a lot of character development. Klaus definitely had some quirks and he didn’t really do it for me :/

Tropes~
🏁 sports / formula 1
🏁 workplace
🏁 one night stand
🏁 accidental pregnancy

🏎️ “‘Are you shy, kleine Hexe?’ I know only a smattering of German but am pretty sure this deliciously bad man just called me a little witch.”

🏎️ “Hot-blooded woman,” he teases, setting us in motion down another gravel path. “You’ll get us in trouble.”

🏎️ “I’m in love with you, Talia. I have been since before I was sure I could love again. And I’ll do whatever it takes, for as long as you need, to become worthy of your love in return.”

If your a girly who loves Sports F1 / sports romances then this is the perfect book for you. This is book 2 in the Frontrunners series but can be read as a standalone. Although I didn't read book 1, im excited to dive into it after reading Coming In Hot. There was lots of spice, banter, angst between the two MC's, which I absolutely loved. The only thing that did bother me was that there was some many time skips and made it a little hard to know what's really going on. But overall, I enjoyed the book and would rate it a 4/5 stars.

I am a big F1 lover but unfortunately this story was not for me. While the main characters had chemistry and the story had potential, the time jumps gave me too much of a headache to keep going - I did not love the characters enough to push forward enough to claim I loved it. Thank you for the e-arc and the chance to read the story!

This biggest thank you to the Forever team for this widget. I was so excited to jump into this book. Double Apex was a huge hit for me. Unfortunately, while I loved the vibes of this book, I had trouble getting through it.

This felt like more an extension of the first book than its own entity. In Coming in Hot, we’ve gone back in time to events that took place in book one, but are viewing them from the perspective of our two new main characters. Although this method of writing can be very interesting, in this book it felt repetitive. It pulled me from the story, especially because I didn’t feel like I was getting any additional information from these flashbacks. Instead I kept feeling like I was experiencing deja vu, but really it was genuinely just the same conversations happening over again.

Then when I wanted to know more about something I would start the next chapter only to find that there was a significant time jump that left me wanting more. The book closely follows the F1 calendar, jumping weeks between races. While this moved the pace of the story along, I felt like I wasn’t able to truly connect with these characters. I would have loved to see some development between them during their downtime. A large portion of the romance seems to happen off page, and what little I did see didn’t leave me entirely invested in the relationship between Natalia and Klaus.

I enjoyed that Natalia was very headstrong. It was nice to see a strong woman in a male dominated job, but the way Klaus and Phaedra treat her was disappointing. Klaus felt like a walking talking red flag. I couldn’t ever truly fall for him because his behavior was too weird and whishy washy for me. I’m sure he’s somebody’s book boyfriend, and that’s great… They can have him. As for her bestie? I was already annoyed by Natalia’s friendship with Phaedra in the first book, and this book drummed up those same feelings of frustration once again. These two have an interesting dynamic that doesn’t always feel friendly, and eventually leads to a big friendship blowup. I felt like a majority of the book was Natalia rightfully holding a grudge. Even though I knew what the outcome would be, because it was rehashing the same events of the previous book, I really wanted Natalia to walk away from her bestie and never speak to her again. I kept thinking to myself that Natalia deserved better.

I loved all the F1 references. It’s such a fascinating sport and seeing it translated on page is very cool. I found myself looking forward to all the chapters that focused on the races and the story Natalia was trying to uncover.

I suspect this book will either be an hit or miss for fans of F1. I’d highly recommend jumping into this book as a standalone. I think it’ll read so much better if people haven’t already read book one. Although this book wasn’t my jam, I’m still very much looking forward to more from this author.

I’ve been so excited to read this book for so long and while I loved it I had imagined it differently. The characters were lovely and had development, but the book had a lot of time jumps, from a few days up to a few months it was sometimes hard to keep up with the timeline. Talia was a strong female character and Klaus had clear character traits. The book had a lot of secrets and intrigues that kept the reader as well as the characters on their toes. The twists in the storyline were a bit fast for me sometimes, but considering the time jumps it made sense and would not have been too quick in real life. The power balance was sort of off between Klaus and Talia, something I wasnt soo sure about. Sometimes I wasnt sure whether Phae was really a friend to Natalia or what was going on between them, but perhaps thats just because our characters were just too different. The spice and smut scenes were great and I really liked them. The racing aspects were believable and I liked seeing the team principle side of the circuit. The whole plot is set over two years / two formula 1 seasons, so some tracks are visited twice. All the settings were well described and I could picture them vividly. Overall a good book that I enjoyed reading, I would however recommend to read it in your mother language if possible. Plot wise there was a whole strand that I didnt really understand, but it was necessary to get to the rift. Perhaps a different one wouldve been more believable.

3,5 stars

Thanks to Forever Pub for the gifted copy!

This very cute cover absolutely caught my eye! While this is not quite a sequel to the first book, there are a LOT of overlapping events that are reiterated in this book. However, I did like the FMC of this book SO much more than the FMC of DOUBLE APEX. I would've actually been okay with it if she wasn't in this book at all. While I enjoyed Natalia's job and how she was bringing more women into F1, there was a lot of telling and not showing of this happening, and less F1 than expected in general. There were some minor errors there (like when the Suzuka race is dring the year, and Azerbaijan), and a more major plot hole of a problematic country that would maybe host a Grand Prix that was committing human rights violations that would also welcome in tourists for the event. Lastly, I didn't really love the relationship between the MCs either - there was a weird power imbalance and the tension wasn't rising so much as back and forth and seemed immature.

I thought this book was for me?? but no that is not the case..

there are so many time jumps that are within chapter that it felt more like work than just reading. the characters are also irritating and toxic.. there was no sign of character growth or even development.

I dnfed it at chapter 20

I hate that I didn't love this book. I wanted to so badly. I went in with really low expectations and thought it was going to work but man these two could not have a conversation. After almost 60% of secrets and not talking, I just couldn't do it anymore.

Sadly, this one just didn’t work for me. I couldn’t connect with any of the main characters, and the constant time jumps left me confused. Every chapter skipped ahead, so we never really saw their connection—just the aftermath of miscommunications. It’s hard to root for a romance when all the good parts are off-page

For the angst lovers!

Nat and Klaus were for the angst lovers. The whole forbidden love, age gap, and workplace romance was a great blend to create a lot of tension and angst. I couldn't get enough of the mutual pining. It was so good. Plus the spice here is great. I was expecting this to be hot and it definitely delivered on that front.

The characters were well written too. My favorite was Nat because I love a strong FMC in a male dominated field.

The F1 sport was represented well and made the sports romance element interesting.

Would recommend!

This is a spicy, edge-of-your-seat, can’t-put-it-down romance that delivers on every level. If you’ve ever wanted to feel the rush of F1 and the slow-burn passion of a forbidden romance, this book is your next must-read.

Natalia is about to start her dream job: covering F1 for Auto Racing Journal. That means traveling the world, experiencing the glitz and glamour, and interacting with the teams and drivers. A hook-up with a handsome stranger on her first night on the job seems to be just that, until she recognizes him as Klaus Franke, the Team Principal for Emerald Racing. After a disastrous parting, Natalia and Klaus continue to orbit one another, trying to balance growing attraction with ethics, professionalism, and the need to seek out what they really want in life.

Natalia is a difficult character to fully warm up to. She's clearly capable in many ways, but she has such difficulty standing up for what she needs. Her friendship with Phaedra is one example of that - it takes a significant rift to help Natalia stand up for herself in their relationship. Natalia's difficult childhood does inform a lot of her choices and decision-making, but it doesn't excuse everything.

The hardest thing to reconcile is Natalia's decision-making when it comes to her job and relationship. Dating Klaus is so clearly in conflict with Natalia's job, especially the special profile she's supposed to be doing, but the reader is intended to root for their relationship. The good thing is that Klaus is easy to fall for as a love interest. His love for his late wife underlies his icy exterior, and his chemistry with Natalia is evident throughout. It helps you want to root for the relationship, despite the ethics.

I did have a difficult time truly engaging with the third-act break-up. The basis for it was more complicated than necessary, while also being underexplained. Without giving anything away, I just found myself not fully understanding the issue Klaus was handling that Natalia wanted to report on. They were talking past it so much that it made it difficult to fully appreciate the stakes. As for the ultimate reconciliation, let's just say it involved one of my least favorite tropes in romance.

Despite these concerns, I still enjoyed the book as a whole, and I'm glad I got to experience my first F1 romance! Thank you to Forever and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my review!

The book does NOT stand up next to blurb.
I could write down all my reasons for disliking this but so many other reviews have already said most of them.
My biggest issue was how the MMC treated women as sex workers. Then he has the gall to try and hook up with the FMC while he has a woman (who he isn’t sure is a sex worker or not) waiting for him in his hotel room.
Honestly, he grossed me out. Zero class.