Author: Ember Leigh Series: The Breaking Series, #4
Audience: +18
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: June 18th 2019
My Rating: 3.5 Cups
Source: InkSlinger PR
Blurb (from Goodreads):
He’s on a war path to fame.
And Levi Swain doesn’t care who knows it. The more people that know him, the better. As the hottest MMA rising star, opportunities are materializing out of thin air. When a wealthy sponsor approaches him, looking to have Levi cause a tabloid-worthy scandal, Levi only knows how to say yes. He didn’t come to war to lose.
Except he never counted on meeting Riley. The glam-shy bombshell who won’t touch fame with a ten-foot selfie stick. Levi planned on her ending up another notch on the bedpost, where every girl ends up. Instead, Riley is everything he wasn’t looking for. The artistic dark angel who can knock him out faster than a middleweight champion with just one glance.
Out here in Hollywood? He can have fame, or he can have true love.
But he can’t have both.
*Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book from InkSlinger PR in exchange for an honest review. This does not influence my rating or the content of my review in any way.
**Disclaimer: This book contains mature content. As a result, my review may contain references to content intended for mature audiences only.
It's been a while since I read a sports romance, so I was very excited when I got the opportunity to dive back into the genre, because I truly enjoy it. It was also my first Ember Leigh book, so I was even more excited.
This was an interesting story, let me tell you. There was everything: romance, drama, humor, adrenaline, anything you could wish for.
The first thing that struck me while reading this book is that I didn't feel like I needed to read the other 3 books in the series in order to follow the events in this one. Having never read Leigh's books before, I was a bit afraid that I would be lost, so I was relieved and very happy when that didn't happen.
Levi and Riley have a lot of chemistry from the very beginning, though at times I felt like it was a bit too over the top. Levi was funny with his horrible dad jokes, but there were moments when I couldn't quite understand his motivation for wanting certain things to happen. Then as the story goes on I found out more about him and I started to understand him better. I wish he could have been more open about certain aspects of his past a bit earlier, because I feel like I could have liked him a bit more than I did. The Levi I met in the beginning of the book wasn't my favorite type of hero, but once I got to know him better I started liking him more.
Riley was a sweetheart. She's a struggling artist that just needs a lucky break. I liked how the author wrote her, because I could understand her and somewhat identify with her. I especially loved how she laughed at most of Levi's horrible jokes, because I too found them somewhat funny, so I didn't feel any guilt when I was giggling because of them. Like with Levi, in the beginning I didn't truly know why she was holding herself back from Levi. Once we find out the full story of what she went through in the past it was easy to understand why she was trying to resist Levi's charms. I really loved how her artistry was depicted in this book, it was like I could almost see her photographs because the author did such a great job describing each and every one of them.
The book was really pretty fast paced and I read it really easily. Although I wasn't lost with not having read the previous books, I do wish I had read them before reading this one. I liked the writing style of the author, so I do want to try out more of her work.
