Title : Brave

Author : Natalie Gayle

Series : Oni Fighters Book 1

Rating : 5 Stars

Blurb :

A moment in time, that’s all it took. Beauty, pain and tragedy.

Xander “Pretty Boy” Todd was a demon in the ring. A professional MMA fighter with a career that had the world a buzz—but now it’s gone. Or is it?

Eden Sommers had her dreams of an international modelling career within her grasp—and lost it. Gone within a few seconds, leaving nothing but pain.

How do you go on, when the one thing that defines you is suddenly ripped away—only to leave scars and a hollow shell in its place? Has the beauty gone forever? Or has it just retreated—to now be hidden, and dormant; guarded by the inner demons?

Can these two wounded souls find the inner strength to fight back the demons together and find the beauty in their lives once again?

To do this, they must first accept—The hardest demons to defeat are the ones inside. They’ll have to be BRAVE.

Review : I already read several “fighter” novels so far and I must admit all of them are compared in my mind to my most favorite one, which is “Real” by Katy Evans.

I like those slightly damaged but very lovable characters. If they are dark – even better -.Which brings me to my most obvious and somehow only negative point.

The cover of the book somehow hints to something dark but … honestly… Xander is as far from dark as can be. So for me it was kind of misleading.

That is about all that is there to say on the negative side.

Further than that (as I will not spoiler anything) – I can only say this novel was a surprise.

I liked that Xander was very unexpected to me – so different and so much more than the cliché MMA fighter. His title fit’s him just fine (AND no – I do not mean the “Pretty Boy”), the way he was described to the reader made me almost pay respect to him while reading.

And “Gem” was …well… I don’t know how to describe her. She was so strong – she just needed someone to hold up a mirror to show her who she was.

It was a great start for a new series and could easy spot some possible supporting characters that I would like to see in the next book. That is me looking at Dane and at “Gem”s best friend. REALLY looking forward to the next book.

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