Love Bytes is happy to welcome to their blog author Neil S. Plakcy who is joining us today.
Neil answered some great questions for our readers in the interview below, make sure to check it out 🙂
Welcome Neil 🙂
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Tell us a little about yourself.
I was the kind of kid who always had a book with him—still am that kind of a guy, though it’s much easier now that I can read e-books on my phone! Much of my inspiration comes from walking my two golden retrievers, Brody and Griffin. While they dally around sniffing and peeing, I’m thinking through problems in what I’m writing.
What would people be most surprised to know about you?
My MBA is in operations management, and my first job out of business school was as a junior construction manager, building a shopping mall in Albany, New York in the middle of winter. I walked around the site slouched in my parka with my branded hard-hat on my head, hoping no one would ask me any questions.
Do you have a favorite quote (either from your own books or one’s you’ve read)?
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” — E.L. Doctorow
How long have you been writing and what made you fall in love with writing?
In 10th grade English class, Mr. Haider asked us to rewrite John Knowles’ A Separate Piece from Finny’s point of view. That assignment unleashed emotions that showed me writing was what I wanted to do.
Did you always want to be a writer?
I did, but I knew back in the 1970s I would need another way to make a living. That led to careers in construction, computer game development, technical writing and 20 years as a college professor.
What’s your favorite part of writing?
I love editing. I really enjoy looking at sentences and making them better, deepening insight into character, and struggling to provide fresh descriptions. It’s the most rewarding part.
What does your writing process look like?
My husband has Parkinson’s and doesn’t sleep at night, so he sleeps on the sofa in the living room all day. I sit at the adjacent kitchen table and write, accompanied by a huge tumbler of raspberry mocha. Sometimes I look up from the computer and discover that it’s three o’clock and I forgot to feed the dogs, who are usually sleeping beside him.
Why did you choose to write LGBT romance/fiction?
I vividly remember being at the Barnes & Noble in South Miami (long since destroyed) and finding my very first gay romance on the shelf. I grabbed it and read it and then went looking for more. At the time I was under-utilized at a tech writing job, stuck in a small office in a warehouse by myself after the pickers and packers had gone home. I had a computer and email access, and I started writing my first romance there, emailing chapters to myself each night (they had disabled external devices, so no floppy disks.)
Do you write any other genre?
My primary books are the golden retriever mysteries, a cozy series where a guy and his dog solve crimes in their small town. I’m an armchair traveler and love to write adventures, including in a series where a pair of married male bodyguards travel the world protecting LGBT people. I also write historical MM romance set in Victorian England, and Japanese style healing fiction, where dogs lead people who need help to a café in Brooklyn where the coffee allows them to learn from their past and move on.
Describe a scene in your writing that has made you laugh or cry?
My very first book was based on my MFA thesis, Invasion of the Blatnicks. There’s a scene in the mall while it’s under construction when they are doing an escalator test, A whole parade of people are on it as it begins moving, including staffers, Steve’s family, and a troop of Miccosukee dancers in full regalia. Then something goes wrong and the escalator reverses rapidly, tumbling everyone together. It’s slapstick, but I love it.
Give the readers a brief summary of your latest book or WIP. What genre does it fall in?
Ten years after losing each other, journalist Wally Pulaski reunites with his college love—now a rising Formula 1 star. Covering the season means reporting on every triumph and failure. Falling for Jonathan again could cost them everything… but their hearts never left the race.
Give us a little insight into your main characters. Who are they?
Wally comes from a middle-class background and is struggling to build a journalism career. Jonathan’s wealthy family have financed his attempt at Formula 1 stardom. They are fiercely in love but fighting against media and race pressure to accomplish their goals—and make their love work.
Will we be seeing these characters again? Is this book part of a series?
Honestly, I’m going to let the readers decide. I know where I’d like to take Wally and Jonathan next, and that will either be a short epilogue or a full-length novel.
Which actor would you like to see playing the lead character from your most recent book?
I’m obsessed with Heated Rivalry, and I’d love to see Connor Storie and Hudson Williams as Jonathan and Wally. Both stories are about strong men who are very much in love but fighting against outside pressure, against a fast-paced sports background.
What genre/s do you enjoy reading in your free time?
I’ve been reading a lot of gay hockey romance, as well as a subgenre I’m calling Jane Austen with dragons. The English major in me coming out!
THANK YOU
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.
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited and Paperback
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.
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.
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.
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