Review: Strike by Amity Cross

Book Title: Strike
Author: Amity Cross
Release Date: July 12, 2017
SOURCE: ARC
Links:
goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32278110-strike
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0723BWVTS/ref=series_dp_rw_ca_10

Synopsis:
Callie Winslow is on the verge of realizing her wildest dreams. When her cake shop on one of Melbourne’s most vibrant shopping strips opens to the public, she’ll be on her way to the top of the food chain…literally. But one night, days before the launch, everything goes up in flames.
As fire engulfs her shop, Callie is trapped inside with no way out, until a handsome mystery man bursts through the inferno and carries her to safety. Problem is, he vanishes soon after without telling her his name.
Haunted by the stranger who saved her life, Callie pulls out all the stops in her attempts at finding him, but she isn’t quite prepared for the man she finally meets.

Mark “Storm” Ryder is a shell of his former self. Accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he was banned for life from professional MMA and sent home with his reputation in tatters. Left with nothing to his name, he fights at the illegal cage fighting league known as The Underground to make ends meet. Plagued by the stigma of his downfall, he’s closed himself off to everything and everyone, believing it’s for the best.
Then one night, he hears a cry for help and rushes headfirst into danger without a second thought. When he pulls a beautiful woman from a burning building, he knows he can’t stick around and face her inevitable judgement, so he disappears, but little does he know, the mystery woman won’t let him vanish as easily as that.

Brought together by fate and flames, Callie knows if she wants to crack open Storm’s heart and show him he deserves to be loved, she’ll need to strike while the iron’s hot or risk him disappearing forever.

From Amity Cross comes Strike, the sizzling tenth instalment of the Internationally Best Selling MMA fighter romance series, The Beat and The Pulse.

REVIEW

Strike delivers yet another steamy love story between an MMA fighter and the woman who is his perfect match.  One of my favorite things about the books in this series is that I know I'll be getting a story that is full of heat - but also has a lot of heart.  

Callie and Storm's story is full of emotion and a little rocky - but proves that fighting for love is worth it. 

Storm is a man who knows he's made mistakes, he punishes himself daily for his past just as he knows others judge him based on what they think they know.  But Storm allows everyone to believe things that aren't true, he perpetuates a bad image of himself because he believes he deserves such treatment.  So when he does something good and nice, such as saving Callie from her burning building, he doesn't want it out there in the world to be analyzed; if only the woman wasn't so intent on discovering who saved her. 

Callie has worked long and hard to get to where she is today, she's so close to realizing her dream when a fire breaks out in her building, almost killing her and pushing her dreams further away.  But Callie's focused on the stranger who saved her - crazy as it sounds she felt something between them for those few minutes as he rescued then left her. 

What comes after these two meet up is a roller coaster of emotions as Storm tries to push away Callie not feeling deserving of her and her goodness and Callie tries to break through his walls and help him see what she sees in him.  But when the past comes out to haunt them both - can they survive the pain and anger to see the truth between them? This is one love story where it's not only our MMA figure who's doing the fighting. 

Strike sucked me back into the world of the Beat and the Pulse, grabbed my attention, and held me captive as I watched things work out between these two amazing people.  With interactions between some old but well loved characters of the series, there was the usual level of caring and familial bonds present. There was a lot more going on that just two people finding love with each other and Amity Cross brought it all together in a well balanced story.