Fierce
By: L.G. Kelso
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: Aug. 14, 2014
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:
Tori’s MMA career was taking off, until she beat the wrong man. Her training partner, nursing a bruised ego, snapped—shattering her trust and confidence.
Three years later, Tori’s keeping her fists to herself as she struggles to put herself through college. But when a group of gangbangers hassle her at work, old habits kick in and her fists fly. Max Estrada, a frequent diner customer, steps in and gets them out of hot water, but Tori is still fired… days before tuition is due.
With no other option, she’s forced to take a desk job at her old pounding grounds, where her demons still haunt the cage and the temptation to go glove-to-glove with familiar pro-fighter, Max Estrada, is too much. The sexy Colombian draws her back into the world of MMA and revives her dreams of becoming a professional face-puncher—until Will, her old partner and current Middleweight Champion, struts back into the gym. The secret they share is an unexpected liability to his career, and he’s determined to keep her silent.
With her life on the ropes, Tori will have to face the past for a shot at winning back her future, or carry the weight of a loss even greater than before.
This story sounds amazing. A MMA female fighter is not something you hear of a lot. However, that was the only difference between this story and others. There is of course your damaged H/h combo who are fighting through their demons. Drama that arises and causes a rift between teammates, when it all could have been avoided by talking to each other. Not to mention the game of cat and mouse between the H/h with “Do they like me, or are they just being friendly?” when it’s clear those signals are not that of mere friendship.
I was really hoping for something different with this one. I wanted a story of a female MMA fighter. Maybe one that struggles with the sexism of female fighters, but who is a strong role-model. However, that person was not Tori. I didn’t like that her first response to everything under the sun was to use her fist or elbow on someone. The fact that Tori’s fallback is always violence just because she’s an MMA fighter just didn’t work for me. Tori’s no different than all the underground male fighters I’ve read about in books who go around beating up people who anger them. The only difference being that Tori has a vagina.
I also didn’t feel like the drama bomb was a bomb at all. I’m actually shocked that with the fact she was hospitalized, not one thing was brought to light of the attack. How you can keep something like that hush hush, all because you don’t want to hurt the reputation of the female class of MMA fighters is beyond me. Especially when you know what the douche-bag is capable of. Speaking up doesn’t mean you are any less of a woman or any less of a professional fighter. It proves that the attacker is less of a man because he couldn’t handle his partner getting a better drop on him during practice.
Those were just some of the things that bugged me about this story and that’s not even touching base on the major errors in the book itself. At first I thought I had an ARC copy with all the errors that are in the book. Sometimes I was able to glide right over them with no problem and other times I sat there for a minute trying to figure out what was trying to be said. Needless to say this story could use a trip to a good editor.
This story has a lot of potential but it definitely needs some work with an editor to make it read a little bit smoother. The author is good at telling a story and keeping you reading but the characters just didn’t work for me. :\
“Everyone wants appreciation. Appreciation is good. But you deserve appreciation for you. For how you look every day, whether you get dressed up or not. If you do get dressed up, do it for you. Not for some punk who doesn’t deserve your appreciation.”
Hahaha, too bad the vagina didn’t give her a vulnerable sheen to balance out all the brawn.
HaHAHaHaHaHaHa. I’ve nothing to say to that. LoL 😛
Aww I liked the blurb. It does sound like the story has potential.
I thought so too. 🙁
🙁 Maybe next time!
To be honest, the synopsis for this one doesn’t sound like my cup of tea and that, mixed with bad editing would only lead to disappointment. Aw well. The cover is cool!
It was definitely a disappointing read for me. You always see male MMA fighters so I was interested in getting the female’s perspective. However, this one was no different from the others.
The storytelling sounds good, and the premise of the female ama sounds interesting
Definitely. Let me know if you give it a shot. I’d love to know your thoughts on it.
It did sound like a good one. Sorry it didn’t work out.
You cannot love them all. Who knows, you may read it and love it. Wouldn’t be the first time that I was the odd man out. 😉