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Lauren Asher

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Read Time

5 min read

Our age bandAdult
Reader rating
4.2 · 36,984 Amazon ratings, as of Nov 2026
reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
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Throttled (Deluxe Edition) (Dirty Air, 1) by Lauren Asher front cover

Our review

Throttled

Throttled Review: F1 Romance Readers Praise, Others Find Slow

by Lauren Asher

Throttled, Lauren Asher's first Dirty Air novel, pairs F1 champion Noah Slade with Maya Alatorre, his teammate's sister, in a forbidden romance. Two book bloggers praise the racing detail; they split on whether the leads and pacing work.

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Our age band: Adultan abusive father in the hero's background · on-page sex scenes

LuvemBooks Verdict

Best for

Formula 1 fans who want a sports romance with detailed race days and circuit settings, and who don't mind a cocky-alpha hero, according to one reviewer.

Worth it if

Worth reading if you want the F1 calendar, race-day rituals and city-hopping setting to carry you, and you're happy to take Noah and Maya as a familiar cocky-hero, feisty-heroine pairing.

Skip if

Skip it if you tire of a cocky, hyper-confident hero or need tighter pacing: the Ana's Attic blogger found the book slow and long, with cheesy dialogue, and only warmed to it on audio.

Overall the book works for F1 fans but splits on the romance. The book blogger behind Write Watch Work gave the series five stars and said Throttled "ticked every box", while the blogger behind Ana's Attic gave 3.5 stars, enjoying the racing but finding the leads familiar and the book slow. Kathryn's Inbox liked the setting but found the romantic tension underbuilt. All three are individual book bloggers rather than publications.

Sources: Write Watch Work, Ana's Attic, Kathryn's Inbox
4.2from 36,984 Amazon ratings, as of Nov 2026— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score

Ask LuvemBooks

Was this helpful?

Throttled is the first Dirty Air book, pairing F1 champion Noah Slade with Maya Alatorre, his new teammate's sister, in a forbidden romance set across the racing calendar. The Formula 1 setting is the strongest draw, but the two bloggers we hold split on the couple: one loved them, the other found Noah familiar, the dialogue cheesy and the book slow.
Is it worth reading?
It depends on how you take the leads. The Write Watch Work blogger rated the series five stars, said the book ticked every box, and enjoyed the cocky-alpha, feisty-heroine pairing enough to laugh and tear up. Ana's Attic gave it 3.5 stars, enjoying the racing but finding Noah a cookie-cutter cocky racer and Maya lukewarm. Both were already F1 fans, and neither is a publication, so this is two readers' reactions rather than critical consensus.
Similar books
The sources compare it to no other books, so these picks rest on shared ground rather than a reviewer's say-so. The closest are other Lauren Asher titles, such as Collided and Terms and Conditions. For sports romance outside her catalogue, The Graham Effect by Elle Kennedy and Play Along by Liz Tomforde are the nearest fits on our shelf.
Who should read this?
It suits F1 fans who want a sports romance, since the racing detail is the most consistently praised element, according to one reviewer. One source found that detail mostly accurate, with a few facts bent for drama. It is a weaker fit for readers who tire of an alpha who thinks with his dick, as the Ana's Attic blogger put it.
What age is it for?
This is a romance written for adults. No source we hold gives an age rating. The Ana's Attic blogger rated its heat 3.5, which points to on-page sexual content, so it suits adult readers.
About Lauren Asher
Lauren Asher is a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Sunday Times, Globe and Mail, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of contemporary romance. She is known for series including Dreamland Billionaires, Dirty Air, and Lakefront Billionaires. She is represented by literary agent Kimberly Brower.
What are the main themes?
The central hook is forbidden attraction: Maya sneaks around with her brother's rival and has to hide it from Santi. Around it sit sibling closeness, which Ana's Attic found a little creepy, and Noah's playboy persona and his abusive father, which she read as a familiar template. Fame and the traveling F1 circuit give the romance its backdrop.
What format or edition is this?
This review covers the Deluxe Edition from Bloom Books, listed at 2024 on bookseller pages. It is the same story as the standard text. No other source describes the edition's artwork, paper or binding, and we have not seen it, so we cannot assess the physical production. An audiobook, narrated by Ramona Master and Aiden Snow, is also available.
Summarize this book

Summarize this book

Maya Alatorre is 23, just out of college, and the sister of his new teammate, Santi. She joins her brother for the whole Formula 1 season to film a travel vlog, which keeps putting her in Noah's path at press tours, pre-race rituals, sponsor events and galas. The two start sneaking around, hiding it from Santi. It is the first of four interconnected standalones from Bloom Books, and this review covers the Deluxe Edition.

Follow up

Do I need to read the series in order?
What role does Maya's vlogging play?

Synthesized from verified book data & published reviews · How we review

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What would you like to know about Throttled?

Answers come from our editorial notes on this book. If we haven't covered something, we'll say so.

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Our Review

We review the evidence: published critics, reader verdicts and BookTube reviews, gathered and weighed with AI assistance and edited by LuvemBooks, rather than one reader's first-hand take.

Readers who come for Formula 1 detail get a book that takes its racing seriously, and one reviewer agrees on that point. Throttled pairs F1 rivals' families in a forbidden-attraction, brother's-rival romance, which one reviewer rated five stars and another 3.5.
Throttled (Deluxe Edition) (Dirty Air, 1) by Lauren Asher front cover
Throttled (Deluxe Edition) (Dirty Air, 1) by Lauren Asher front cover

What is Throttled about?

Throttled is the first book in Lauren Asher's Dirty Air series, published by Bloom Books; this review covers the Deluxe Edition. According to one reviewer, it is a romance between a man and a woman, built on a forbidden, brother's-rival setup.
Maya Alatorre is the sister of his new teammate, Santi.
Maya is 23 and just out of college. She joins her brother for the whole Formula 1 season to film a travel vlog, which puts her in Noah's orbit at press tours, pre-race rituals, sponsor events and black-tie galas.
The brothers are rivals and the two start sneaking around, which means hiding it from Santi.
The book is the first of four interconnected standalones. One reviewer says the series can be read in any order, though she recommends starting here.

What did the book bloggers find?

The two bloggers we hold land far apart. The book blogger behind Write Watch Work rated the series five stars and called Throttled a book that "ticked every box."
She praised the world-building of the F1 calendar, with its city descriptions, race-day detail and pre-race rituals, and found Maya's vlogging entertaining enough that she'd watch the videos if Maya were real.
The blogger behind Ana's Attic rated it 3.5 stars, with 3.5 for heat and 5 for narration. She enjoyed the racing and found the descriptions of Formula 1 detailed and mostly accurate.
By her account a few details were wrong or bent for drama.
Her complaints were about the people. She found Noah a cookie-cutter cocky racer, was lukewarm on Maya, thought the dialogue cheesy, and found the book slow and long.
She also found Maya's closeness to her brother a little creepy.
Both were already Formula 1 fans, which colours how they read the racing material. Neither is a publication, so these are two readers' reactions rather than critical consensus.

How does Throttled handle the racing and the romance?

The racing side draws the most consistent praise. The Write Watch Work blogger said the descriptions of the circuit's cities make you wish you were there, and that the balance of dialogue, action and description carried her through the series in four days.
The Ana's Attic blogger agreed the race scenes were a high point and said she felt the excitement of race day. Her reading of the sport's accuracy is the more cautious one: mostly right, with some details altered.
The romance divides readers more. One blogger loved the cocky-alpha, feisty-heroine pairing and said it made her laugh and tear up.
The other found Noah's cockiness and his abusive father a familiar template, and noted that his eyes are described as blue a few dozen times.
The Ana's Attic blogger also said the audiobook, narrated by Ramona Master and Aiden Snow, made both leads more likable and the book move faster for her. She switched to it at about the 60 percent mark.

Is Throttled worth reading? Our take

Weighing these reviews, the tension is plain: the Formula 1 setting is the draw, and whether the central couple wins you over decides the rest. One reader found the leads a delight; the other found them familiar and slow-moving, though she warmed to them on audio.
That points the book towards readers who love F1 and want a sports romance with a forbidden, brother's-rival hook, and who are happy with a cocky-hero template. It points away from readers who tire of an alpha who thinks with his dick, as the Ana's Attic blogger put it, or who want tighter pacing.
Both bloggers came to it as F1 fans, so readers with no interest in the sport have no reception signal here either way. Neither source compared it to other books, so its place on the shelf beyond the series is not drawn out here.
If the length worries you, the audio route that helped one reviewer is an option.

Throttled Deluxe Edition: what to know before buying

The Deluxe Edition is the same story from Bloom Books, listed at 2024 on bookseller pages. No source we hold describes the physical edition's artwork, paper or binding, and we have not seen it, so we can't assess that first-hand.
If you are choosing between this and another edition, the text is the story Maya and Noah are in. Goodreads shows an average of 3.75 out of 5 across roughly 260,000 ratings on the listing a seller relays, which fits the mixed-to-warm picture above.

Sources & Further Reading

The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.

  1. Cited in this review
  2. 1
    Nicole Wallace Joins Josh Heuston in ‘Throttled’ Film Adaptation

    hollywoodreporter.com

  3. Further reading
  4. 2
    Throttled (Deluxe Edition) (Dirty Air) | Brookline Booksmith

    brooklinebooksmith.com

  5. 3
    Throttled (Deluxe Edition) (Dirty Air) | Wakefield Books

    wakefieldbooks.com

  6. 4
    Review: Throttled by Lauren Asher - Write Watch Work

    writewatchwork.com

  7. 5
    Throttled by Lauren Asher Review • Ana's Attic Book Blog

    anasattic.com

  8. 6
    Throttled (Deluxe Edition) (Dirty Air, 1) by Asher, Lauren | Paperback | 2024-05-07 | Bloom Books | 9781464227615 | Biblio

    biblio.com

  9. 7
    Throttled (Deluxe Edition) (Dirty Air) | KD's Books

    kdsbooksls.com

  10. 8
    Throttled (Deluxe Edition) (Dirty Air) | Queen Takes Book - Columbia, MD Independent Bookstore

    queentakesbook.com

  11. 9
    Dirty Air Series by Lauren Asher

    romance.io

  12. 10
    Throttled (Deluxe Edition) (Dirty Air, 1) - Asher, Lauren: 9781464227615 - AbeBooks

    abebooks.com

  13. 11
    Kathryn's Inbox

    Kathryn's Inbox

Age & Reading Level

Our age band

Adult

Our age band groups books for browsing; it isn't an age a review gave.

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Heat level

Steamy · rated 3-4/5 spice by readers

From how readers and romance sites describe it, not our own reading.

Content to know about

an abusive father in the hero's background
on-page sex scenes
sibling-rivalry secrecy

Best for: Adults 18+ — on-page romance with a moderate heat level per one reviewer

Skip if you tire of a cocky, hyper-confident alpha hero or want a tightly paced romance.

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Related News

Throttled Film Adds Mia McKenna-Bruce and Rome Flynn to Cast

Amazon MGM's Throttled, based on Lauren Asher's F1 romance, has added Mia McKenna-Bruce and Rome Flynn to a cast led by Nicole Wallace and Josh Heuston.

Nov 4, 2026

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