“A champion is someone who gets up when they can’t. – J Dempsey”
For a debut author this book was a solid read that I really enjoyed. While the premise has been done before, what I personally loved about this book was the chemistry between Cormac and Emily. I personally lived and felt their story and it is a great achievement for a first time author to be able to suck you in with ease.Cormac O’Connell is the personification of a loveable rogue; he works hard on a construction site by day, fights whenever he can at the gym to release that excess anger and is in the arms of a different woman every night. He is living the dream or so he thought. Cormac has potential in the ring, he could be so much more than he allows himself to be but he just does not have that drive or determination to make more of himself as a boxer. He is happy with the day to day he has going at the moment...but all that changes when he meets Emily.
Emily was the complete opposite; hiding from her family she lived her life being discrete. She didn’t want to be seen or heard, she did whatever she had to do to survive. Emily has been running for a few years and with University and work taking up all of her time she was finally beginning to make friends and opening up a little to trust the few people that she came into contact with. She was extremely wary, forever with that deep seated fear that her step-father would find her.
“...courage isn’t the absence of fear, but the will to carry on regardless.”
Emily’s path would cross with O’Connell at the café where she worked, the owner of the gym was a regular patron and Cormac would find any way he could to see the girl that he had been admiring from a far, oh yes, Emily had been in Cormac’s sights for a while.
“Meeting you was like seeing the sun for the first time, after a lifetime of living in the dark.”
You can imagine Emily’s reticence to get involved with anybody, let alone a boxer, but one thing I admired about Cormac was his tenacity. He never gave up. Their chemistry was electric but they both had walls that needed to be broken down in the first instance and with them becoming “friends” I knew that it wouldn’t be long before that Irish charm worked it’s magic.
I loved the build-up, I loved the fact that they took time to get to know one another and I loved Cormac’s perseverance. These two, despite being polar opposites were an extremely good fit and could be just what one another needed. Cormac could give Emily that friendship and love that she had always been devoid of, not to mention the security in having someone that had the means to defend and protect her if the time ever arose. Emily gave Cormac something to live for, to fight for and gave him that push and determination to be a better person, to make something of himself and at last “The Hurricane” was born.
“Right now, I’m dirt poor, but one day, I’m not gonna be. I will fight to make something better of myself, to be someone better. Someone you can be proud of...but you’re mine, and when the time is right, when you’re ready, I’m coming for you.”
This book is not just romance, with both of them having back stories that come to the forefront, this book had lots of twists and turns too. I loved that we also got to see Cormac’s fight to the top and how much he changed once he had found “The One.” The boxing community is extremely tight knit and the way Cormac and his friends and fellow boxers came together once Emily came into the fold at times bought tears to my eyes. This book really centres round the importance of friendships and how they can make such a difference. Every character had their part to play and really brought something to the table within this story.
“May green be the grass you walk on. May blue be the skies that love you. May pure be the joys that surround you. May true be the hearts that love you.”
I cannot wait to read more in this series and if you are a fan of Real by Katy Evans then I would say that this book would be right up your street. I did feel towards the end when the plot was really coming to a head that it was maybe a little rushed and it could do with a proof read, hence the four stars but on the whole this did not detract from my enjoyment at all.
Buy Links:
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1HjyfZz
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1CNZQM5
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