BLOG TOUR: Driven Together by Neil S. Plakcy (Excerpt + Guest Post)

BLOG TOUR

Book Title: Driven Together

Author and Cover Artist: Neil S. Plakcy

Publisher: Samwise Books

Release Date: February 23, 2026

Tense/POV: First person/past tense

Genres: Contemporary MM Sports Romance

Tropes: Slow burn

Themes: Second chance at love, coming out

Heat Rating: 3 out of 5 flames

Length: 81 000 words/301 pages

It is a standalone book and does not end on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited and Paperback

Amazon US  |   Amazon UK

They were each other’s first love—and the one that got away.

Blurb 

When journalist Wally Pulaski reunites with his college sweetheart Jonathan Hirsch, now a Formula 1 driver, old feelings ignite with dangerous speed. Jonathan is fighting for the championship of his life. Wally is assigned to cover the season, reporting every triumph and failure to a global audience that demands objectivity. Falling in love again could cost them everything they’ve built.

As the Formula 1 circus sweeps from Monaco’s glittering streets to historic European circuits and roaring modern tracks, Wally is pulled deeper into a world of precision engineering, split-second decisions, and relentless scrutiny. Behind the glamour lies a sport where careers are made and broken in fractions of a second, where every personal choice is magnified under the spotlight.

Balancing professional integrity with unresolved passion becomes a high-wire act. Media pressure mounts. Rivalries intensify. And the closer Jonathan comes to his dream, the harder it is for either man to pretend their hearts aren’t still in the race.

Driven Together is a second-chance MM romance set against the adrenaline and international spectacle of Formula 1. Combining the emotional depth of Tal Bauer and the sports-romance energy loved by readers of Rachel Reid, it delivers an intimate story of ambition, identity, and the courage to choose love in a world that never slows down.

As the season intensifies and the spotlight grows harsher, Wally and Jonathan must decide what they’re willing to risk for a second chance at the love they never forgot. Because in Formula 1, every fraction of a second matters—and so does every choice of the heart.

Ten years after losing each other, they have one chance to get it right—and this time, the stakes are higher than ever

Excerpt

I looked at him, really looked. Jonathan Hirsch, Monaco Grand Prix finalist, sitting in a dive bar in Monte Carlo at midnight, asking me to take a chance on something that might be wonderful or might be a complete disaster.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“Okay, let’s see where this goes. Barcelona to Spa, five races to figure out if we’re brave enough to make this work.”

Jonathan’s smile was radiant. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

He kissed me across the small table, soft and sweet and tasting like beer and possibility. Around us, the bar continued its late-night rhythm, oblivious to the fact that a Formula 1 driver and a motorsports journalist had just decided to rewrite their carefully planned lives.

When we broke apart, Jonathan was grinning.

“What?” I asked.

“I was just thinking,” he said. “Once, we were too practical to try long distance. Now we’re going to try dating while you cover my races. We’ve either gotten much braver or much stupider.”

“Probably both,” I admitted. “But you know what? I’m okay with that.”

We finished our beers and walked back toward the harbor, where the parties still buzzed. Jonathan tugged me toward the paddock. Behind the glitter, the Monaco Grand Prix was already vanishing, piece by piece. Crews swarmed over the cars with military precision, wiping them down, draining fluids, and sliding them into padded crates as if they were Fabergé eggs instead of machines built for speed.

The air still vibrated with leftover adrenaline. The sharp tang of fuel, the sweet stink of rubber ground into the asphalt, the faint bite of hot brakes cooling in the night mixed with the briny breeze from the harbor, a perfume of glamour and grit all at once. Everywhere I turned, there was motion and sound: the staccato crack of impact wrenches, the slap of gloves on metal, the hollow thud of crates sealing shut. Cables coiled like sleeping snakes at the workers’ feet as garage walls folded into flat panels and tool chests slammed closed, the paddock dissolving from carnival into pure efficiency.

I couldn’t look away. One moment it had been champagne and music and color; now it was stripped to bare bones. Somehow that made it even more impressive. The glamour was temporary, but the precision and the discipline was permanent.

I breathed it in, dizzy with the noise and smells and sheer scale of it all. My first Grand Prix was ending, but even in its aftermath I felt the pulse of something bigger than myself, alive and relentless.

“By morning, you won’t even know we were here,” Jonathan said beside me in his Meridian jacket. “Barcelona’s only a few hundred miles. The trucks will drive overnight, and the setup crew will already be waiting.”

I nodded, picturing cars cocooned in trailers, engineers and mechanics scattering onto buses and budget flights while Jonathan and his teammates slipped onto a private jet with their race engineers.

The Monaco Grand Prix was over, but the season stretched ahead. Twenty-two more races, five more chances to figure out if second chances were worth the risk.

GUEST POST

Why Second-Chance Romance Hits So Hard (Especially When It Starts in College)

There’s something uniquely powerful about a love that almost worked.

When Wally Pulaski and Jonathan Hirsch meet, they’re college seniors, both standing on the edge of uncertain futures. Wally is figuring out his path as a journalist. Jonathan is chasing a dream that feels impossibly far away: a career in Formula 1 racing.

At that moment in their lives, everything feels heightened. Urgent. Full of possibility.

And so does their relationship.

That’s the heart of second-chance romance—and why readers keep coming back to it. Because second-chance love isn’t just about falling in love. It’s about asking a harder question: What happens when the right person came along at the wrong time?

For a lot of us, that story begins in college.

There’s a particular intensity to relationships at that age—especially for young men. It’s a time when everything feels bigger: first real independence, first real choices, first real sense of identity. Emotions don’t arrive cautiously; they arrive all at once.

Love, in that environment, can feel absolute.

You’re not just dating—you’re discovering who you are, often through another person. The connection can be immediate and overwhelming, the kind that makes you believe you’ve found something permanent.

And sometimes, emotionally, you have. I know several same-sex couples who met in college and are still together today, decades later.

But biologically and psychologically, we’re still in the middle of becoming. The parts of male brains responsible for long-term planning, impulse control, and emotional regulation don’t fully mature until the mid-twenties. That doesn’t make those early relationships less real. If anything, it explains why they feel so intense, so all-encompassing.

You’re experiencing love without the filters you’ll develop later. Without the perspective that comes from time, distance, and a few hard lessons.

Which is exactly why those relationships don’t always survive. Not because the love wasn’t strong enough. But because the people inside it weren’t finished growing.

For Wally and Jonathan, the breaking point isn’t a dramatic betrayal or a falling-out. It’s something quieter—and, in many ways, more painful.

They simply can’t see a future that overlaps.

Wally takes a small-town journalism job, the kind of opportunity that could define the start of his career. Jonathan leaves for Berlin to begin an internship with his wealthy father’s company, a step that could eventually lead him toward the high-speed world he dreams of.

Both paths make sense. Both are right for who they are at that moment.

But they don’t align. And when you’re that young, without the experience—or the confidence—to imagine bending your life around someone else, the practical choice often wins.

That’s where second-chance romance becomes so compelling.

When Wally lands the job of a lifetime covering Formula 1 racing, he’s focused on the future—not the past. Until their eyes meet in the paddock at the Monaco Grand Prix.

It’s no longer the reckless intensity of youth, but something deeper. More grounded. More dangerous, in a way—because now they understand what they stand to lose.

Many queer relationships—especially those that begin in adolescence or early adulthood—are shaped by factors beyond the couple itself. Fear, uncertainty, social pressure, or simply not having the language yet to understand who you are. It’s not uncommon for something meaningful to end not because it failed, but because it couldn’t fully exist at the time.

Which makes the reunion between Wally and Jonathan all the more powerful. They’ve both clawed their way to success, pushing personal relationships aside. And now they return to each other with clarity they didn’t have before. They know themselves better. They know what they want. And perhaps most importantly, they know what it felt like to lose each other.

That knowledge changes everything.

In Driven Together, when Wally and Jonathan reconnect, they’re no longer those uncertain college seniors making separate choices because they have to. They’re adults with established lives—ones that may still pull them in different directions.

The question isn’t just whether they still have feelings for each other.

It’s whether they can finally choose a future that includes both love and ambition—without sacrificing one for the other.

Because that’s the promise of second-chance romance.

Not that love will be easier the second time around.

But that it might be stronger, wiser, and finally ready to last.

If you’re drawn to second-chance romance—the kind where love doesn’t fade, it waits—then you’ll find that at the heart of Driven Together, as Wally and Jonathan face the question they couldn’t answer the first time: can love and ambition finally coexist?

And if you believe love is worth fighting for even after it’s been broken, The Big Race explores a different kind of second chance. After twenty-five years together, Jeffrey and Ray must decide whether trust can be rebuilt—while racing around the world on a reality TV show that forces them to confront everything they’ve lost, and everything they might still save.

About the Author  

Neil S. Plakcy is an award-winning author of sexy, fast-paced MM romances including The Big Race, about which Joyfully Jay wrote “A truly enjoyable read.” He also writes the Ormond Yard series of Victorian MM romances, and the Love on series of sun-kissed South Beach romps. His website is www.mahubooks.com.

Author Links

Facebook  |   Pinterest   |   Twitter   |   Instagram  |  Linkedin    

Substack  |   Threads  |   Tiktok  |  YouTube

Hosted by Gay Book Promotions