Why Formula 1 romances have us racing to the bookstores

When Nova Scotian writer Amy James first attended the Formula One (F1) Canadian Grand Prix in 2019, she brought a book with her, thinking she would be bored for most of the race. 

By the time they waved the checkered flag, the book had never left her bag, but James left the track a fan for life.

Now, six years later, a love for motorsport has inspired her romance novel Crash Test — one of the many books currently on the market that centre around the whizzing world of race cars.

Crash Test is a second-chance romance set in the highly intense atmosphere of professional racing. The story centres around Jacob Nichols, who is involved in a massive crash. No one but Travis, the driver currently leading the championship, knows they've been secretly dating for a year. As the races trudge on and tensions grow, their love is tested both on and off the track.

James' novel is right at home in a popular new subgenre of F1 romance books published in the past year. Along with titles like Simone Soltani's Cross the Line and Madge Maril's Slipstream, these stories imagine the winding road of an athlete's love life. As an author and a fan, James says she hopes to see more motorsport love stories pop up in bookstores.

"Authors are really having fun playing with the traditional romance tropes, but just in the F1 world. I have a feeling that's going to continue to grow as the world's obsession with F1 grows," said James.

The phenomenon of sports in romance fiction is not new. According to BookNet Canada's sales data, sports romance was one of the top selling subcategories of romance novels in 2024, accounting for five per cent of total sales in Canadian Romance. 

However, the majority of sports romances depict sports like hockey or football,