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Racing Hearts
June Walker isn't the type to throw punches. At least, not anymore. She's given too much for her career as a showjumper to risk it. But too many whiskey shots and one misunderstanding later, she finds herself in a bar brawl with a man she hoped she would never see again. Now, her sponsor is threatening to drop her over her scuffle with the one and only Diego Cabrera. Not only is her combatant a well-known race car driver in Formula One, but he's sponsored by the same company.
With no new sponsorship deals, a public scandal, and a rough start to her showjumping season, June needs a positive shift. So when Diego offers her a deal-one involving a fake romance with them at the center-June is left with no other choice.
The bargain is struck and the lie begins. But when their feelings-and the dangers of their sports-start to feel more real, will their dedication be enough to bring them together, or will it be the one thing that tears them apart?
With no new sponsorship deals, a public scandal, and a rough start to her showjumping season, June needs a positive shift. So when Diego offers her a deal-one involving a fake romance with them at the center-June is left with no other choice.
The bargain is struck and the lie begins. But when their feelings-and the dangers of their sports-start to feel more real, will their dedication be enough to bring them together, or will it be the one thing that tears them apart?
- GenresRomance
404 pages, Paperback
Published July 25, 2025
17 people are currently reading
268 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 30, 2025
This is an easy book to read with a great slow burn romance. The banter between the two main characters is something I loved (even if June made me want to bash my head off a wall with her decisions occasionally).
This is so close to being the perfect equine related romance bar one niggle Midus’s ‘career ending injury’, navicular usually causes bilateral lameness and is generally not so sudden that he would have been fine one day but not the next! A tendon injury would have been more realistic HOWEVER you can tell every other detail has been researched and the writer has a real understanding of the sport which makes it far better than many of the others out there!
This is so close to being the perfect equine related romance bar one niggle Midus’s ‘career ending injury’, navicular usually causes bilateral lameness and is generally not so sudden that he would have been fine one day but not the next! A tendon injury would have been more realistic HOWEVER you can tell every other detail has been researched and the writer has a real understanding of the sport which makes it far better than many of the others out there!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 22, 2025
Overall this was cute book. I almost DNF'd at the VERY inaccurate representation of injuries to upper level equine athletes but overall I'm glad I didn't. However, if you're an equestrian looking for a novel that is FINALLY accurate.... keep looking. This one is better than most.... but when you miss accuracy on the major plot point of the book, it's a big mistake. Now- if you're a sucker for a good slow burn like I am, keep going, because that is one aspect this book DELIVERS in.
SPOILER:
It very much felt like the author googled "career ending injuries for horses" and picked the first thing that popped up, despite the fact that navicular disease is a completely unrealistic diagnosis for this horse for a number of reasons. Changing one detail (mechanism of injury for the MC's horse) would have made this a 4 or 5* book. But when you have a book you're basing on real sports with real injuries and real diagnoses, adequate research is essential and Jude Barnes fell short there. Navicular disease is a slow progressing, bilateral condition that would have been easily caught on a BASIC pre purchase exam for even someone's backyard horse, much less a Grand Prix horse one would presume is getting consistent vet exams + baseline rads (which navicular disease this severe would appear on). Navicular doesn't speed run from jumping 1.60m courses to non-weight bearing lameness overnight, that's progression that takes years. It also doesn't only affect one leg. Midus would have been showing symptoms for months, possibly years, not suddenly the morning of the Grand Prix. And while navicular can eventually cause a horse to need to be retired, it's usually not an immediate retirement and there are so many options to help keep them as comfortable as possible. There are many realistic, career ending injuries that can suddenly pop up the morning of competition on one leg only. A torn tendon. A minor fracture. There are even some like an abscess, that would not be career ending. But navicular? Not realistic to suddenly pop up the morning of a competition, in one foot only. Missing such essential research and accuracy on such a major plot point was extremely disappointing to read.
SPOILER:
It very much felt like the author googled "career ending injuries for horses" and picked the first thing that popped up, despite the fact that navicular disease is a completely unrealistic diagnosis for this horse for a number of reasons. Changing one detail (mechanism of injury for the MC's horse) would have made this a 4 or 5* book. But when you have a book you're basing on real sports with real injuries and real diagnoses, adequate research is essential and Jude Barnes fell short there. Navicular disease is a slow progressing, bilateral condition that would have been easily caught on a BASIC pre purchase exam for even someone's backyard horse, much less a Grand Prix horse one would presume is getting consistent vet exams + baseline rads (which navicular disease this severe would appear on). Navicular doesn't speed run from jumping 1.60m courses to non-weight bearing lameness overnight, that's progression that takes years. It also doesn't only affect one leg. Midus would have been showing symptoms for months, possibly years, not suddenly the morning of the Grand Prix. And while navicular can eventually cause a horse to need to be retired, it's usually not an immediate retirement and there are so many options to help keep them as comfortable as possible. There are many realistic, career ending injuries that can suddenly pop up the morning of competition on one leg only. A torn tendon. A minor fracture. There are even some like an abscess, that would not be career ending. But navicular? Not realistic to suddenly pop up the morning of a competition, in one foot only. Missing such essential research and accuracy on such a major plot point was extremely disappointing to read.
September 7, 2025
read the entirety of this book in a single sitting and i ate it up !! as a lifelong horse girl this book filled a void i didn’t know i needed filled, and i need 1000 more books just like this one. there was a perfect balance between the romance and horse aspects to keep me thoroughly entertained, and i loved all of the characters! obsessed <3
February 7, 2026
i feel really conflicted on this one. i commend the author because her marketing campaign was incredible, and i feel like this was a really unique idea for a book. i'm challenging myself to read less litfic and expand into other genres this year, and as a show jumper myself who will never make it to the lgct because she isn't a billionaire, i always get excited to read books about horses that go beyond the whole "this little girl has a bond with the wild mustang next door and they need to work together to save the farm" and instead focus on the sport as a whole. and i think it worked for the most part, save for some of the inconsistencies that other reviewers have pointed out with the injury/presentation of lameness she chose to use as the catalyst for june's career conflict. i was genuinely very engaged learning about her riding growth, thought the career-specific drama was done very well, and loved the mentor/mentee relationship between her and another pro-rider. i read this on a plane and was kickinggg my feet through the showing scenes. should the girl who wrote this ever choose to move away from romance, i think she should really consider sports fiction if that's what that genre is called. u get what i mean. anyway.
that being said, at points this was all i really cared about. i understand that there are certain things that need to happen that make a romance book fit into the genre and that sometimes that can include slightly cringy banter/over-the-top unbelievably dramatic scenes to keep things moving, so i won't speak on the parts that i didn't like just because im an old hag and have preferences to match it. but i don't think i really bought diego as a character, and i didn't love the dynamic between him and june for the majority of the book. june spends a good part of it treating him very nastily and being needlessly cruel, which i wouldn't mind if diego wasn't written like a guy who is a pretty normal, chill person and is largely polite and nice to june, even when she's being intentionally hurtful to him. i wish the author had blown up his more playboy, cocky personality that is referenced by june but that we as readers never really see.
what makes me write this review instead of just giving it 3 stars and keeping it pushing was because i see exactly what the author was going for, and she was SO close to getting there. it's clear to me as a reader that june has some trust issues and is working through her hyper-independence and beefs with nepo babies (which i respect, me too girl), but i think that i would have supported her more in her diego-hating endeavors if he'd also been guarded with her at first and came off as a typical large-ego-having successful man. because without this, i feel like i'm just watching june kick a very sad-eyed man who has a pleasant personality while he's down...and i'll support a woman doing that once, but any more and i start resenting the fact that a book is making me feel like i need to defend a man! it also means that the bulk of the character development lands on june as opposed to a shared journey of growth between the two of them.
i also was a little meh on the whole fake dating thing, because it read as a little insta-love from diego's side and also didn't hit on one of the most crucial pressure points of the fake dating trope, which is "is this real or is this just for the cameras?" at points i felt like we were kind of hinting at that, but this wasn't communicated as strongly as i would have liked, and it disappointed me bc that is like the whole reason for fake dating! without that inclusion, it felt more like the trope was being used solely as a vehicle to push the characters together.
finally, i do think that this could've been edited a bit more closely. i understand that self-publishing does mean that there isn't an unlimited budget and that things will slip through the cracks, but i found that there were quite a few very repetitive paragraphs that likely would've been cut or condensed under a more critical eye.
i'll get off my soapbox but overall i had a good time, even as someone who doesn't gravitate towards romance. i am so happy to see more horsey/show jumping books and i hope that this author will continue to write!
that being said, at points this was all i really cared about. i understand that there are certain things that need to happen that make a romance book fit into the genre and that sometimes that can include slightly cringy banter/over-the-top unbelievably dramatic scenes to keep things moving, so i won't speak on the parts that i didn't like just because im an old hag and have preferences to match it. but i don't think i really bought diego as a character, and i didn't love the dynamic between him and june for the majority of the book. june spends a good part of it treating him very nastily and being needlessly cruel, which i wouldn't mind if diego wasn't written like a guy who is a pretty normal, chill person and is largely polite and nice to june, even when she's being intentionally hurtful to him. i wish the author had blown up his more playboy, cocky personality that is referenced by june but that we as readers never really see.
what makes me write this review instead of just giving it 3 stars and keeping it pushing was because i see exactly what the author was going for, and she was SO close to getting there. it's clear to me as a reader that june has some trust issues and is working through her hyper-independence and beefs with nepo babies (which i respect, me too girl), but i think that i would have supported her more in her diego-hating endeavors if he'd also been guarded with her at first and came off as a typical large-ego-having successful man. because without this, i feel like i'm just watching june kick a very sad-eyed man who has a pleasant personality while he's down...and i'll support a woman doing that once, but any more and i start resenting the fact that a book is making me feel like i need to defend a man! it also means that the bulk of the character development lands on june as opposed to a shared journey of growth between the two of them.
i also was a little meh on the whole fake dating thing, because it read as a little insta-love from diego's side and also didn't hit on one of the most crucial pressure points of the fake dating trope, which is "is this real or is this just for the cameras?" at points i felt like we were kind of hinting at that, but this wasn't communicated as strongly as i would have liked, and it disappointed me bc that is like the whole reason for fake dating! without that inclusion, it felt more like the trope was being used solely as a vehicle to push the characters together.
finally, i do think that this could've been edited a bit more closely. i understand that self-publishing does mean that there isn't an unlimited budget and that things will slip through the cracks, but i found that there were quite a few very repetitive paragraphs that likely would've been cut or condensed under a more critical eye.
i'll get off my soapbox but overall i had a good time, even as someone who doesn't gravitate towards romance. i am so happy to see more horsey/show jumping books and i hope that this author will continue to write!
July 20, 2025
4.5 stars (rounded down)
This is my first written review on Goodreads, and I think this book deserves it!
Now let me just say I was glued to this book for a whole day and got no chores done. On that note, let me rave about how good this fucking book is.
It is the slowest of slow burns I've read recently, and my god, did I need that yearning. The FMC June is a fierce LGCT competitor with abandonment issues and infuriated me at moments, but I still loved her regardless. As an equestrian myself who used to compete but definitely not on the levels June does, the author did an amazing job capturing the joys and heartbreak of the equestrian community!
Now, let me talk about the hunk of a man the MMC is. Diego Cabrero, the man you are. The amount of yearning this man does HURT bro. The care, love, attentiveness, yearning, and other positive synonyms I cannot come up with right now that Diego shows to June had me giggling and kicking my feet, oh my god.
Now let me tell you about the plot of this book. Fake dating between an LGCT rider and an F1 driver was not something I knew I needed, but god was it good. The turmoil, highs, lows, and everything in between in the book had me not at the edge of my seat. I will warn you that some parts may want you to bash your head into the wall because of the FMC, but it will get 100000% better.
Anways, all in all I thoroughly enjoyed this book and hope you will too!
This is my first written review on Goodreads, and I think this book deserves it!
Now let me just say I was glued to this book for a whole day and got no chores done. On that note, let me rave about how good this fucking book is.
It is the slowest of slow burns I've read recently, and my god, did I need that yearning. The FMC June is a fierce LGCT competitor with abandonment issues and infuriated me at moments, but I still loved her regardless. As an equestrian myself who used to compete but definitely not on the levels June does, the author did an amazing job capturing the joys and heartbreak of the equestrian community!
Now, let me talk about the hunk of a man the MMC is. Diego Cabrero, the man you are. The amount of yearning this man does HURT bro. The care, love, attentiveness, yearning, and other positive synonyms I cannot come up with right now that Diego shows to June had me giggling and kicking my feet, oh my god.
Now let me tell you about the plot of this book. Fake dating between an LGCT rider and an F1 driver was not something I knew I needed, but god was it good. The turmoil, highs, lows, and everything in between in the book had me not at the edge of my seat. I will warn you that some parts may want you to bash your head into the wall because of the FMC, but it will get 100000% better.
Anways, all in all I thoroughly enjoyed this book and hope you will too!
September 28, 2025
Ok - this grabbed me on TikTok as an equestrian and F1 fan. The first 1/4 of this book had be wanting to throw my kindle due to just how blatantly incorrect so much of the riding stuff was as well as some continuity issue within the book.
The second quarter of the book was more bearable, but still with a lot wrong.
Once we got to the final half it was more relationships, racing, and sports psychology based I was able to read in peace.
If you’re looking for a fun fake dating book, this is great. If you have very little understanding of horse sports, equine injuries, or the travel of horses at an international level, the book is great. If you are deeply familiar with that world - you will struggle because there are a lot of details that is wrong. The navicular being the career ending injury blew my mind. It’s like she googled it and went yep that’s it. These horses get routine vet check and x rays. You’d see that diagnosis coming a mile away, not from one lame leg after a flight. There’s a few other little things that left me highlighting and annotating in frustration.
Overall this was fine. I wish the author had done more research or been more vague in those areas. But everything improved as the book went on and the relationship between the FMC and MMC was adorable.
The second quarter of the book was more bearable, but still with a lot wrong.
Once we got to the final half it was more relationships, racing, and sports psychology based I was able to read in peace.
If you’re looking for a fun fake dating book, this is great. If you have very little understanding of horse sports, equine injuries, or the travel of horses at an international level, the book is great. If you are deeply familiar with that world - you will struggle because there are a lot of details that is wrong. The navicular being the career ending injury blew my mind. It’s like she googled it and went yep that’s it. These horses get routine vet check and x rays. You’d see that diagnosis coming a mile away, not from one lame leg after a flight. There’s a few other little things that left me highlighting and annotating in frustration.
Overall this was fine. I wish the author had done more research or been more vague in those areas. But everything improved as the book went on and the relationship between the FMC and MMC was adorable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 19, 2025
giggled and cried my way through
4.5 ⭐️ (rounded up bc of all the ponies in this book & the Spirit shoutout which is my fav childhood movie)
.5 🌶️
I truly enjoyed the journey of this book! It hit way too close to home as an old hunter jump girl who now loves F1 and it had me sobbing (horses, iykyk), giggling, & feeling so many more emotions throughout. And lawwwdddd that slow burn almost cooked me. I love a black cat FMC & that’s definitely what we get here!
& I’m usually not a slow burn gal, but this actually reminded me of things that I liked from Mariana Zapata without the overindulgence in the mundane (imo lol).
Now, did I wanna smash my kindle bc of our MCs sometimes? Yup, but I will allow a lot due to ~trauma~ lol. Also, the side characters were darling.
I was overall very happy and honestly surprised at the writing a quality of the book as I just ran across the author on Booktok! Highly recommend if you love a slow burn sports romance with a teensy bit of spice!
4.5 ⭐️ (rounded up bc of all the ponies in this book & the Spirit shoutout which is my fav childhood movie)
.5 🌶️
I truly enjoyed the journey of this book! It hit way too close to home as an old hunter jump girl who now loves F1 and it had me sobbing (horses, iykyk), giggling, & feeling so many more emotions throughout. And lawwwdddd that slow burn almost cooked me. I love a black cat FMC & that’s definitely what we get here!
& I’m usually not a slow burn gal, but this actually reminded me of things that I liked from Mariana Zapata without the overindulgence in the mundane (imo lol).
Now, did I wanna smash my kindle bc of our MCs sometimes? Yup, but I will allow a lot due to ~trauma~ lol. Also, the side characters were darling.
I was overall very happy and honestly surprised at the writing a quality of the book as I just ran across the author on Booktok! Highly recommend if you love a slow burn sports romance with a teensy bit of spice!
July 21, 2025
This book blew my expectations out of the water. As both a horse girl and avid F1 fan I was ecstatic to come across this book on my FYP. It was the niche I didn’t know I needed. Still, I was a little skeptical at first. Though I don’t really know a lot about the ins and outs of elite showjumping, I do know a lot about horses. I was nervous about how accurate the books would be to both sports. I was pleasantly surprised when everything about this book just seemed so real. From the characters to the intricacies of the sports everything was just so believable. I probably could find things to complain about if I really went digging but honestly it would just be nitpicking. This story was so compelling. It just felt so alive. Truly one of the best sports romance books I’ve ever read and I’ve read a lot. There is so much more I could say but truly I think you should just experience it for yourself.
July 28, 2025
I don't normally write reviews on here, but this book deserves it. I discovered this book on tiktok before the release, and was ecstatic when it finally came out. I mean, fake dating between a show jumper and f1 driver? Such a fun concept, I honestly wish there was more like this out there. I read this book in one day and could not put it down. Everything about this book was captivating, although there were quite a few moments I wished I could reach in and bang the characters heads together. The slow burn was great, and most of the side characters were well written with compelling plot points/relevance. The "villain" of the story was very well written, that I felt genuine rage at some of the things they did. Overall a fantastic story. My only complaint is that it might be a little bit difficult to understand for somebody who doesn't know at least the very basics of horse riding, but I'm not sure, because I know a good amount.
July 22, 2025
Fun and emotional read
The characters are attaching, the plot is fun and compelling and some bits had me sobbing. As someone who enjoys both of the sports portrayed, it's quite realistic as well.
Yeah just a really nice read :)
The characters are attaching, the plot is fun and compelling and some bits had me sobbing. As someone who enjoys both of the sports portrayed, it's quite realistic as well.
Yeah just a really nice read :)
August 13, 2025
I’m not one to write a review but I’ve kept my eye on this book for a while now. I just wanted to say that while there were things that could have been improved I really enjoyed being able to see my own sport in a sports romance. Overall a pretty good read.
September 19, 2025
Had no idea what to expect after seeing the author promote this on tiktok and I was not disappointed. of course there are maybe 2 things that annoyed me but overall it's the sport romance that was needed in my life.
October 18, 2025
4.75!!!
Such a great book and you can get whisked away into the world of competition and challenge and finding’s one purpose and passion, even when the world is against you!
Totally recommend it!
I’m still constantly thinking about this book and I really already miss it
Such a great book and you can get whisked away into the world of competition and challenge and finding’s one purpose and passion, even when the world is against you!
Totally recommend it!
I’m still constantly thinking about this book and I really already miss it
July 26, 2025
Go support an indie romance author and read this book!!
August 4, 2025
This felt like breathing air on a cold winter morning
I needed a romance to get me out of my slump and this did that
I needed a romance to get me out of my slump and this did that
September 2, 2025
10/10!!! 🐎🏎️
September 9, 2025
f1 driver x horse rider could not be more of my niche omg. ate this up
October 21, 2025
I really enjoyed this book! They were the cutest!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews