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Drive Me Crazy
After winning first place in Chugger Charlie's tight butt competition, TZ Blake, a gorgeous mechanic, must serve as navigator in a four-day rally race across Florida alongside sexy Cade Nyland before she can claim her money--a wild ride that leads to true love. Original.
306 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2004
196 people want to read
About the author
Kate Angell
37 books591 followersUSA Today bestselling author Kate Angell lives in Naples, Florida. She’s an animal lover, avid reader, and sports fan. Bookstores are her second home. She takes coffee breaks at Starbucks. Her philosophy: Out of chaos comes calmness. Enjoy the peace.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 14, 2010
I went back and forth on whether to give this one 2 or 3 stars. I decided on 3 because I did like the story between the main characters in the book - TZ and Cade. The other characters, Rhett & Kimmie and Mick & Risa were okay. Mick & Risa were better than Rhett & Kimmie (Kimmie just got on my nerves). The story is sort of a combination of the Amazing Race meets Herbie the Love Bug. Cute, but not much substance.
dnf
December 5, 2020This just didn't do it for me. I thought the story was vague and the characters kept doing things that didn't make sense. If I'd been in the mood for a mindless romp, it probably would have been fine. I enjoy Kate Angell's sports books, but this was a non-starter for me.
January 4, 2022
This book has a little bit of everything in it: Romance including lots of sex, vintage cars, a road trip, crime, and the supernatural. The primary characters are TZ Blake, who is a female mechanic with great skill and Cade Nyland is the rich son of a family that has a major car parts brand but wants to stay out of the suit-wearing demographic.
There are other characters, and the way TZ deals with other drivers plays a major part in the way things go during the race. The "lesson" felt to me to be a bit contrived, however. I find it a bit too preachy.
Other than that, the story was interesting the supernatural element fit within the story fairly well a well.
There are other characters, and the way TZ deals with other drivers plays a major part in the way things go during the race. The "lesson" felt to me to be a bit contrived, however. I find it a bit too preachy.
Other than that, the story was interesting the supernatural element fit within the story fairly well a well.
January 9, 2025
A rip off to a classic storyline made this pretty cringey. The car language and puns were painful but thankfully the two main characters were endearing enough I enjoyed the story.
July 26, 2011
If Cade Nyland wins the SunCoast Run road rally, he'll be the first person to ever sweep every race in the season. It's a goal he's been working towards for years and now that it's in his grasp, he can almost taste victory. Unfortunately, it's a short taste, as he receives word that his mechanic has broken his leg and he won't be able to participate. Without a mechanic, Cade is out of the race.
Forced into taking time out of the search for a new mechanic to judge a tight butt competition...a humiliation that Cade couldn't care less about...he comes face to buns with the young woman who had just minutes before swung open her car door and put a big scrape in his classic car. The only thing good about her...beside her smoking hot body...is that just before she sauntered off on him, she'd given him the card of one TZ Blake, a mechanic with a stellar reputation who will hopefully be the key to Cade's racing salvation.
Tight Buns looks like a co-ed, but up on stage she shakes her goodies like a pro, and though Cade would never admit it, she gets his vote. She doesn't win, but when her name is called in the tie, Cade's day takes an even worse turn.
TZ Blake is a woman...with very Tight Buns.
She can't read a map and her car is a handful, but after her aunt's death and the dubious inheritance of a mechanic shop deep in debt, TZ needs the money Cade offers to spend four days racing with him down the state of Florida. He needs a mechanic, and in that regard, she's got him covered, but she knows nothing about rallying and the charts, racing lingo, and map reading are real concerns. The fact that she suspects something very peculiar is going on with her classic Mustang doesn't help matters, either.
A drop-dead gorgeous Cade Nyland intent on winning at all costs, a car that vibrates like a sex toy at full tilt and keeps rolling off on its own, and four days to wing being able to read a map. No doubt about it, she's going to drive him crazy.
I'm a fan of Kate Angell's Richmond Rogues series, and I was interested in reading some of her earlier stuff when I came across Drive Me Crazy. It definitely has some trademark Angell moments, with its wacky characters, light humor, and charm. Unfortunately, it also has two ancillary romantic plot lines that develop alongside TZ and Cade's, one of which I found completely distasteful, and together they limited the depth of the character definition and relationship evolution of the main pair, and hampered the plot of the book.
I don't have any complaints about TZ or Cade. They were likable. I think Angell tried to add a little conflict about the difference in their financial situations, but it wasn't fleshed out well and fell largely flat. More interesting were the...nuances of TZ's Mustang. I wish that had even more of a focus, actually...without TZ and Cade always referring to the car as the 'Stang. I got so sick of that by the end. How hard is it to say Mustang?
TZ's virgin friend and secondary character Kimmie was very hard to take. Not only do I have a big problem with a woman who glances at a guy and decides to marry him, but the manipulations and games she played to convince him she's his future wife were pretty disturbing for a modern woman. Brett was no more likable with his unwavering focus on getting Kimmie to sleep with him. Their pairing did nothing but annoy me.
I would have rather the focus stayed on the threads of suspense and the paranormal aspects. Even though I wasn't as turned off by the thread between Mike and Rissa, they didn't get as much page time, and their relationship evolved later in the book. It was too late by then to serve as a significant distraction to Kimmie and Brett. In fact, most of this book left me feeling like there was a lot of missed opportunity, as if what's there was okay, but could have been so much better with just a nip there or a tuck there.
Shifting focus just a little, widening the arc of the rally hijinks, explaining the main characters a little more, increasing the complexity of their story and fleshing them out more, all would have improved this book nicely. I didn't dislike it, but I can't actually say I liked it either.
It seems to me that Angell's skill and storytelling abilities have shown improvement over the years, judging from what I've read of the Rogues so far. Though I dislike baseball, Richmond Rogues snagged me from the start, and I'll always favor sports-centric stories over books that are car-centric. Richmond Rogues is just a better fit for my reading preferences, I think. I hope the next one is out soon.
~*~*~*~
Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.
Forced into taking time out of the search for a new mechanic to judge a tight butt competition...a humiliation that Cade couldn't care less about...he comes face to buns with the young woman who had just minutes before swung open her car door and put a big scrape in his classic car. The only thing good about her...beside her smoking hot body...is that just before she sauntered off on him, she'd given him the card of one TZ Blake, a mechanic with a stellar reputation who will hopefully be the key to Cade's racing salvation.
Tight Buns looks like a co-ed, but up on stage she shakes her goodies like a pro, and though Cade would never admit it, she gets his vote. She doesn't win, but when her name is called in the tie, Cade's day takes an even worse turn.
TZ Blake is a woman...with very Tight Buns.
She can't read a map and her car is a handful, but after her aunt's death and the dubious inheritance of a mechanic shop deep in debt, TZ needs the money Cade offers to spend four days racing with him down the state of Florida. He needs a mechanic, and in that regard, she's got him covered, but she knows nothing about rallying and the charts, racing lingo, and map reading are real concerns. The fact that she suspects something very peculiar is going on with her classic Mustang doesn't help matters, either.
A drop-dead gorgeous Cade Nyland intent on winning at all costs, a car that vibrates like a sex toy at full tilt and keeps rolling off on its own, and four days to wing being able to read a map. No doubt about it, she's going to drive him crazy.
I'm a fan of Kate Angell's Richmond Rogues series, and I was interested in reading some of her earlier stuff when I came across Drive Me Crazy. It definitely has some trademark Angell moments, with its wacky characters, light humor, and charm. Unfortunately, it also has two ancillary romantic plot lines that develop alongside TZ and Cade's, one of which I found completely distasteful, and together they limited the depth of the character definition and relationship evolution of the main pair, and hampered the plot of the book.
I don't have any complaints about TZ or Cade. They were likable. I think Angell tried to add a little conflict about the difference in their financial situations, but it wasn't fleshed out well and fell largely flat. More interesting were the...nuances of TZ's Mustang. I wish that had even more of a focus, actually...without TZ and Cade always referring to the car as the 'Stang. I got so sick of that by the end. How hard is it to say Mustang?
TZ's virgin friend and secondary character Kimmie was very hard to take. Not only do I have a big problem with a woman who glances at a guy and decides to marry him, but the manipulations and games she played to convince him she's his future wife were pretty disturbing for a modern woman. Brett was no more likable with his unwavering focus on getting Kimmie to sleep with him. Their pairing did nothing but annoy me.
I would have rather the focus stayed on the threads of suspense and the paranormal aspects. Even though I wasn't as turned off by the thread between Mike and Rissa, they didn't get as much page time, and their relationship evolved later in the book. It was too late by then to serve as a significant distraction to Kimmie and Brett. In fact, most of this book left me feeling like there was a lot of missed opportunity, as if what's there was okay, but could have been so much better with just a nip there or a tuck there.
Shifting focus just a little, widening the arc of the rally hijinks, explaining the main characters a little more, increasing the complexity of their story and fleshing them out more, all would have improved this book nicely. I didn't dislike it, but I can't actually say I liked it either.
It seems to me that Angell's skill and storytelling abilities have shown improvement over the years, judging from what I've read of the Rogues so far. Though I dislike baseball, Richmond Rogues snagged me from the start, and I'll always favor sports-centric stories over books that are car-centric. Richmond Rogues is just a better fit for my reading preferences, I think. I hope the next one is out soon.
~*~*~*~
Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.
April 22, 2012
Drive Me Crazy by Kate Angell
This was a good story.
The description of the book I am listing below is from the back jacket of the book. I'm adding it because I believe the one on the Goodreads page does not depict this story.
GOOD VIBRATIONS
Cade Nyland didn't think that anything good could come of the new dent in his classic black Sting Ray, even if it did happen at the hands of a sexy young woman. He was determined to win his twelfth road rally race of the year. Little did he know he would soon be in for the ride of his life.
TZ Blake only entered Chugger Charlie's tight butt competition to win enough money to keep her auto repair shop open. What she ended up with was $2,500 and a position as navigator in a rally race. All she had to do was pretend she knew where she was going--despite the fact that she could read a road map about as well as she could resist the male heat emanating from the bad boy behind the wheel.
It was the SunCoast Run, a four-day race across balmy Florida, and Cade and TZ were stuck with each other in the close quarters of a vibrating '67 Mustang with a mind of its own. All factors indicated that the unlikely duo was in for a bumpy ride . . . and each eagerly anticipated the jostling that would bring them closer together.
This was a good story.
The description of the book I am listing below is from the back jacket of the book. I'm adding it because I believe the one on the Goodreads page does not depict this story.
GOOD VIBRATIONS
Cade Nyland didn't think that anything good could come of the new dent in his classic black Sting Ray, even if it did happen at the hands of a sexy young woman. He was determined to win his twelfth road rally race of the year. Little did he know he would soon be in for the ride of his life.
TZ Blake only entered Chugger Charlie's tight butt competition to win enough money to keep her auto repair shop open. What she ended up with was $2,500 and a position as navigator in a rally race. All she had to do was pretend she knew where she was going--despite the fact that she could read a road map about as well as she could resist the male heat emanating from the bad boy behind the wheel.
It was the SunCoast Run, a four-day race across balmy Florida, and Cade and TZ were stuck with each other in the close quarters of a vibrating '67 Mustang with a mind of its own. All factors indicated that the unlikely duo was in for a bumpy ride . . . and each eagerly anticipated the jostling that would bring them closer together.
March 2, 2009
3 1/2 stars
An enjoyable read...a little goofy with the car having a soul, but cute. I liked both TZ and Cade--they were good main characters. Good chemistry. No deep issues keeping them apart--whatever there was, wasn't addressed.
Some of the secondary characters were good, some weren't. I didn't really like Kimmie--she was a little annoying and I breezed past her parts in the book. I liked Mick--he made things interesting.
The conclusion of the book was a bit abrupt and not fulfilling enough. Overall, a good book, but not great.
An enjoyable read...a little goofy with the car having a soul, but cute. I liked both TZ and Cade--they were good main characters. Good chemistry. No deep issues keeping them apart--whatever there was, wasn't addressed.
Some of the secondary characters were good, some weren't. I didn't really like Kimmie--she was a little annoying and I breezed past her parts in the book. I liked Mick--he made things interesting.
The conclusion of the book was a bit abrupt and not fulfilling enough. Overall, a good book, but not great.
September 27, 2009
Now I want to go on a road rally!
August 9, 2024
first rea i read by her and love all the others
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November 23, 2015I decided not to read this after learning about the numerous POV characters.
November 23, 2016
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6...
Not really worth the effort of reading. Too silly for me - from the bum contest to the ghost in the machine. Meh!
Not really worth the effort of reading. Too silly for me - from the bum contest to the ghost in the machine. Meh!
June 2, 2009
Really cute book...little bit of the "Love Bug" in the book...
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews