Lucy D. Briand

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: Amazing romance that I literally couldn’t put down. I loved every minute of this book and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a cute love story!

Opening Sentence: I jumped down from the truck, gawked up at the fence arching over Daytona International Speedway’s tri-oval tack, and groaned as my gut twisted in the worst way.

The Review:

Lexi Adams has a very special talent that allows her to manipulate metal with just the flick of show more her hand. It comes in super handy when it comes to taking apart and putting back together a car. But her power can be unpredictable at times and she doesn’t always have the best control of it. No one knows about her special abilities and Lexi wants to keep it that way. The key to not being discovered is to keep her life as normal and low key as possible. She has done a great job for seventeen years, but her life is about to change big time.

Lexi’s stepfather has some serious debt and to get out of it he sends Lexi to work for Dean Grant, the owner of a NASCAR team. Working the NASCAR circuit is as far from calm as you can get and then add the hot young race car driver, Colton Tayler, to the mix and this is just one big disaster waiting to happen. Lexi keeps having outbursts that she can’t control and when a rival team owner discovers what she can do, he tries to destroy Dean’s race team for good. The only way Lexi can save the people she loves is to use her powers, but that might lead to her being exposed and loosing her freedom for good.

Lexi is a spunky girl that you can’t help but love. She is sweet, smart, witty and just a fun character. She is totally tomboyish and loves to work on cars. But she also has a very girly side that she likes to show off once in a while. She has been stuck in a crappy situation for most of her life but she preferred to stay there because she was comfortable and knew what she was dealing with. Whenever things would change her powers would become unstable and the outcome from that was rarely good. Throughout the book she grows so much and it made it easy to connect with her. She is one of those people you want to cheer for and see succeed. She doesn’t give up easily and even though she has a lot of insecurities she tries to overcome them. I adored everything about Lexi and I’m so glad I got to experience her story!

Just thinking about Colton makes me swoon! He is sexy, confident, sweet, and just an all around good guy. I love how down to earth he is even though he is a famous race car driver. He was completely approachable and that just made it so much easier to connect with him. He makes stupid mistakes like a normal teenage boy does and he can be a total jerk when he feels like it, which just made him feel more realistic! His relationship with Lexi was awesome and developed perfectly. The way they would flirt and act totally reminded me of how I was when I was a teenager. If you can’t tell I am a huge Colton fan and I think most girls will find him very swoon worthy.

Magnetic Shift is an adorable romance that I tore through. I had heard really good things about this book, so I decided one night before bed to read a few chapters. Next thing I knew it’s one in the morning and I’m finished with the whole book. It is one of those stories that sucks you in and doesn’t let go until the very end. It has a gripping plot, phenomenal writing, sweet romance, and the perfect amount of drama. I’m not personally a NASCAR fan, but I think this will appeal to both fans of the sport and those like me that don’t really follow it at all. For the most part this read like a contemporary romance, but it did contain a hint of magical realism. Overall, I loved this story and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great romance!

Notable Scene:

The sleeves of his black, green, and yellow one-piece fire suit were tied low at his waist, showing off the white short-sleeved cotton t-shirt printed with the large winged Guardian Auto Insurance logo stretched tightly across his chest. I swallowed as I flicked my gaze up to his face. Sandy blond hair peeked out the back of the matching black ball cap pulled low over his eyes.

Oh, good God almighty.

I’d never swooned before—hell, I hardly knew what the word meant—but this guy’s grin made me light-headed and woozy, and my heart raced at two hundred miles per hour. I picked up my jaw, cleared my embarrassing reaction from my throat, and, hoping it wasn’t too late, tried not to look stupid.

FTC Advisory: Spencer Hill Press provided me with a copy of Magnetic Shift. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. show less

Grades 9+:
Lexi Adams has a knack for mechanics, an abusive stepfather, and dead parents. When Lexi is struck by lightning, she gains the ability to manipulate metal, thereby allowing her to accentuate her already impressive mechanical skills. When NASCAR team owner Dean catches wind of Lexi’s skill and her stepfather’s abuse, he takes her under their team’s wing. Lexi must keep her abilities a secret, as she is frightened she would be locked up and tested like a lab animal. The NASCAR show more team’s driver, Colton, is intrigued by Lexi—and so is arch enemy Carl, owner of a competing team. Once Carl realizes Lexi’s supernatural abilities, he attempts to blackmail Lexi with near-deadly consequences.
VERDICT: The entire narrative would be strengthened without the supernatural (and much unexplained) plot device, as Lucy Brand’s story excels at describing the fast-paced, fuel-laced NASCAR life.
NOTE: I reviewed this book for School Library Journal. show less

I would like to thank Spencer Hill Press & NetGalley for a copy of this e-ARC to review. Though I received this ebook for free, that has no impact upon the honesty of my review.

Goodreads Teaser: "The ability to magnetize and manipulate metal with the flick of her wrist makes seventeen-year-old Lexi Adams a crack mechanic, but it’s a disaster in the making when her stepdad trades her skills to NASCAR team owner Dean Grant for an entire season’s worth of sponsorship ads.

Now Lexi has no show more other choice but to suck it up and hope she can keep her magnetic impulses under control—that is, until she runs into NASCAR’s hot new rookie, Colton Tayler.

When Carl Stacy, the ruthless team owner of the defending Cup Champion, discovers Lexi’s secret and plots to use it to ruin Dean’s race team for good, Lexi must either expose her ability to save Colton, risking Dean’s career and her own freedom in the process, or watch the only guy she’s ever fallen for race to his death."

This is a sweet love story and a coming of age/self-discovery story all in one. Lexi's lout of a stepfather trade's her to a NASCAR team for an entire season in exchange for what turns out to be a truly ridiculous sponsor ad, yet Lexi is still going through with the deal. It's gotta be better than facing her stepdad again, even if she's going to be struggling every day to keep her secret skills hidden and under wraps.

I mostly liked Lexi. Aside from her extra talent she's pretty much a normal girl, or would be if she'd ever stop bemoaning the state of her life. She considers her talent, and by extension herself, to be a freak of nature. And spends a bit too much time lamenting the fact that she's been stuck with this curse. That bit aside she really is pretty normal. She falls for Colton, but of course feels she can't have him because she'd have to trust him with her secret. But she takes her time falling for him, or at least that's what she thinks. On the outside it's pretty easy to see that she's been falling for him since day one. Which would explain all their fights, which, for the most part, she instigates.

Colton is a nice enough guy, but comes across as being a bit one dimensional for me. He's got his racing career, his intense loyalty to Dean - the owner of the team he races for, and his feelings for Lexi. I did like him, but he fell for Lexi a tad to quickly for me. OK, he fell too hard, too fast; especially given the way Lexi kept treating him, swing from hot to cold in the blink of an eye. Granted the story is told from Lexi's point of view, but the reasons for his attraction to her were never really demonstrated or even explained. Yet even with that pretty glaring omission I still enjoyed him, and the sweetness of their budding relationship.

Dean is also a worthy character, though I can't say why without giving away to much. But he's a good guy and a great role model. This story wouldn't work without him. As far as adults go, he's a keeper.

So you've got a bunch of pretty entertaining characters, a storyline that moves along at a decent clip (only a few shorts lulls when the story could have picked up the pace a bit), and an interesting conflict to be resolved. The question of if it will be resolved, and how, hang over the story and help propel it ever forward. Other than a rather odd pause near the end this story's pacing was pretty solid, with the arc of the tale being relatively smooth, and the characters demonstrating emotional growth along the way. So I'm going to have to say that yes, I enjoyed this book. It didn't run quite as I anticipated, but that's not a bad thing. In fact, it may be a good thing, and may just have helped me to enjoy the story even more than I otherwise would have. show less