Racing for the Sun by Amy Lane

Racing for the Sun by Amy Lane
Stars: 3/5

Length: 260 pages
Blurb
"I'll do anything."

Staff Sergeant Jasper "Ace" Atchison takes one look at Private Sonny Daye and knows that every word on paper about him is pure, unadulterated bullshit. But Sonny is desperate, and although Ace isn't going to take him up on his offer of "anything," that doesn't mean he isn't tempted.

Instead, Ace takes Sonny under his wing, protecting him when they're in the service and making plans with him when they get out. Together, they're going to own a garage and build race cars and make their fortune hurtling faster than light across the desert. Together, they're going to rewrite the past, make Sonny Daye a whole and happy person, and put the ghosts in Ace's heart to rest.

But not even Sonny can build a car fast enough to escape the ghosts of the past. When Sonny's ghosts drive them down and run their plans off the road, Ace finds out exactly what he's made of. Maybe Sonny was the one to promise Ace anything, but there is nothing under the sun Ace won't do to keep Sonny safe from harm.

Overall
Warning: Due to circumstances, I took an eight-month hiatus from reading this book, which may alter my perspective on it.

While there are some elements of this book that are great, my disconnect from the characters kept me from really getting involved in the story.

Review
From the beginning I had troubles really getting into this story. The story itself is fine, the writing is fine, but the characters didn’t grab me by the heartstrings and demand I hear their story. They are good, deep, sweet characters, but for some reason I just didn’t connect. this of course made the book more difficult to get through (although the hiatus was for personal reasons, not because of the book). I think my main struggles are based around the main vehicle of the story (racing, the army), both of which left me lukewarm.

When I picked up the book again, I was a little lost and I probably should have just reread the darn thing, but I was so close to crossing it off my to-do list that I just read it through. I think it was worth it. And in true Amy Lane style, she kept me up way past my bedtime reading.

Even though I didn’t really click with the characters, and even after a hiatus, I still felt invested enough in the characters that I was turning the pages faster and faster, wondering how much sleep I really needed to function.

This story touches upon some serious issues (coming out, family, prostitution, human trafficking [sorta], the army, racing, betting, cultural differences, class differences, and probably a few others I missed). There are also some elements of it that seem a little far-fetched (mainly in the end), but that I’m willing to suspend my disbelief about because it’s fiction.