Watch the Indy 500 with a Side of Romance

Our car experts choose every product we feature. We may earn money from the links on this page. 'Overtaken,' by Elisabeth Oliver, combines technical accuracy with a sweet love story in an IndyCar setting. Jake Galstad|Getty ImagesI've been burned before by motorsports-themed novels with technical details so inaccurate I can't even enjoy the read, so when my friend Pat asked if I'd like a copy of her friend's new IndyCar romance about a mechanic who falls for her team's new driver, I had some reservations. As it turned out, Kate Shoup (pen name: Elisabeth Oliver) had read some of the same disappointing titles and, as a lifelong racing fan, feels that getting the details right is a crucial part of her writing process. I'm pleased to report that you can add reading Overtaken into your weekend's Indy 500 plans with no fear of stumbling across some painful scene like the driver's love interest suddenly being tasked with talking them across the finish line on the radio or impossible on-track passes made by last-minute technical changes that could never happen in a real series. Overtaken is Shoup's first work of fiction, so she chose the Oliver pen name to set her new adventures in romance apart from the many nonfiction books she's written on topics ranging from quantum mechanics to the history of the Gold Rush. She's an avid researcher, which comes across in the accurate world-building of the racing environment in Overtaken. See all results for used cars for sale near 10330 Overtaken revolves around main character Cam Wexford, a promising go-karter turned IndyCar gearbox mechanic whose season gets turned topsy-turvy when Loïc Chalumeau, a handsome F1 driver, leaves the European circuit to take a crack at the Indy 500. Chalumeau is, as you'd expect, super handsome. He's also supportive of women in racing, and good at crossword puzzles. Floaty heart eyes ensue. But besides navigating the sudden complications of emotional and physical attraction to her team driver, Wexford has another problem. She harbors a family secret, one that could ruin her hard-won career if Chalumeau finds out. It's a basic setup, but Shoup sets a lively scene with plenty of racing action, hilarious side characters, and a pleasant slow burn on the romance itself.I was curious how Shoup chose IndyCar as the setting for her story, so we met up at a real-life track, during the Long Beach Grand Prix, and shouted at each other about car-themed romance over the sound of roaring engines. See all results for used cars for sale near 10330 On the topic of love, Shoup's been starry-eyed for racing ever since she was a kid. "Indy was a natural setting," she told me while we sat in the Firestone tire hospitality suite. "I'm from Indianapolis, and so I already had a pretty deep love for the 500. My dad took me for the first time. Later, in college in Colorado, I actually put off a breakup because my boyfriend at the time was the only person I knew who had a TV and I wanted to watch the race!" Tough on the college boyfriend, but Shoup eventually found a love story of her own, and that too is IndyCar themed. She met her husband, an engineer for the McLaren team, when they were neighbors, and has been immersed in racing culture ever since. Living and working so close to the races gave her easy access to fact-check technical scenes and test out new chapters on a real Indy audience. "I had [driver] Sébastien Bourdais read an early draft and he gave me wonderful feedback," Shoup told me, adding that she was pleasantly surprised to find romance fans among both the women and men of motorsports. "Romance sounds so silly, and sometimes they are silly, but really, what is more important than love? Than human relationships?" The romance in Overtaken is the main relationship, but there's plenty going on besides the smooching scenes. Shoup's character deals with questions about her qualifications that will be familiar to anyone who has been a minority figure in a cliquey job, and I found myself rooting as much for her developing confidence as for her developing crush on Chalumeau. At the end of the interview, I asked Shoup what the most challenging part of writing Overtaken was. She laughed and said, "The sex scenes! There are some really terrible euphemisms in romance writing, and I didn't want to do that. I didn't want it to be boring, but I didn't want it to be too spicy and cause a problem with the IndyCar series. Plus everyone I knew was reading it, I didn't want to run into them in the paddock and have them be all, 'Oh, we know what you like.' " And what Shoup likes is technically accurate racing background and a sweet story about finding the person who can get you to the winner's circle. And that's not a euphemism. You can find Overtaken at your favorite bookseller in both print and digital editions. Like a sleeper agent activated late in the game, Elana Scherr didn’t know her calling at a young age. Like many girls, she planned to be a vet-astronau

Watch the Indy 500 with a Side of Romance

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