Raunchy and questionable and entertaining. ~ Leigh, Guilty Pleasures
Description:
Fighters take the ultimate prize for victory…
Underage KC snuck into the underground fight club called The Cage. But it was no ordinary fight club. The participants didn’t battle for titles or a useless belt to collect dust. The men and women brawled for only one thing. To be the victor and take the spoils of war they’d earned with their blood, sweat and tears. Not for money or jewels. They fought for the right to take the loser in any way—and any hole—of their choosing.
But KC was discovered by one of the bouncers and taken to a room with no way out. To the office of the owner, Creed, who held more than just her fate in his hands…
He’d seen hundreds of warriors find their way to his door with visions of grandeur and conquest. But it took a girl not yet a woman to remind him why he worked so tirelessly day in and day out. Her eyes. They would haunt him long after he threw her out of his arena and told her never to return.
Years later, they meet again, and KC is ready to take her place amongst his fighters. Creed wants nothing to do with the woman she’s become, but their fate has an interesting way of setting things right.
Review copy provided for an honest review
I’m sort of at a loss for words on how I felt about this story. I had one opinion until about 80%, but then the last portion of the book changed my mind a bit. It was raunchy and questionable and entertaining and held all of the elements of an erotic story that I enjoy. I’m just not sure it came together to be entirely my kink.
Her Creed focuses on KC. As a teenager she sneaks in to watch a cage fighting match where the winner literally takes all. She briefly meets Creed and that one interaction changes her life. She trains to become a cage fighter and focuses her energy on the day she can come back to prove herself worth to Creed.
But why?
We never understand her desire to impress him. We never understand his attraction to a seventeen year old that just happened to stumble into his arena. We never understand the infatuation that grows for both of them from a brief and chance encounter that is over practically before it even starts. Frankly, we never understand anything about either of them. Except they are fighting a desire they each feel for the other. But how do they love someone they know nothing about?
The sex was hot, albeit questionably consensual, but that was the main takeaway I was getting from this story. There wasn’t much of a romance. The story served only as a vehicle to describe the fighting, the domination, and the rewards the victor of the match got to take.
And then I hit the end of the book and got somewhat of a backstory on KC.
THIS was what I needed earlier in the story! As the reader, I spend the majority of the book reading about two dimensional characters that I didn’t really care one way or the other about. It wasn’t until the end that I was able to see the humanity in them or understand their motivations. This is the information that I wanted to find out as I got to know KC. We never really get to know Creed.
Had this part of KC’s story been moved to the beginning, I would have really enjoyed this book for what it was: a knock down, dirty, fight club romp. But the fact that it took so long to allow me to understand the characters or care about them at all, left me disappointed.
I am certainly looking forward to reading any other books in this seedy, raunchy (and I say that as a good thing) series, strictly for the shock factor. I just have to hope that I care about the characters more than I was made to care about these two.
3.5 stars
Thanks Leigh for the review