Title: Knock Out
Author: Jiffy Kate & SmartyPants Romance
Series: Fighting for Love #4
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Contemporary romance, Sports romance
Pace: Medium
Format: eBook, Novel
Year: 2022

It’s really not that uncommon for a fighter and trainer to end up in a relationship, and I really like how this dynamic was built upon in Knock Out. Don’t get me wrong, it could be an incredibly difficult and serious breach of etiquette, but both Ozzi and Willow navigate this dynamic with finesse and kindness. Plus, I love how they build their relationship up from their points of vulnerability and getting to know one another to the final moments when they realise how much they truly care for one another.

Knock Out finishes out the Fighting for Love series, but I’m kind of disappointed that it’s the last. There’s one more Viking brother to fall in love! It’s supposed to set Viggo up for another series, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it. And I’m seriously disappointed. Viggo has more hang ups than his other four brothers, and I really, really want his story. Plus, everything that involves a family that is this heavily enmeshed in MMA is going to draw me in… I mean, not only is it a wonderfully familiar world, I also have fallen stupidly in love with these brothers and the life that they end up building in Green Valley.

I really liked Ozzi, but honestly, his commitment to running away was truly ridiculous. No human is stagnant, and yet I’ve met people like this. Those who think that a certain way of living is there to define them until their last breath. I’m really not sure why people stick to such preconceived notions of who and what they are, but I completely understand that it happens. And this rigidity and (quite frankly) stupidity made Ozzi that more realistic and interesting. It just takes him a little longer than I would like to realise that people change as they grow, and that’s actually okay.

I might have liked Ozzi trying to figure out who he is and what he wants from life, Willow is trying to learn how to trust. Her battle and willingness to change was definitely the more intense and interesting of the two internal stories of growth. Then, she decides to fight for her sister, her skills and just her life in general. I love that this entire story really centres around the fact that Willow is learning how to thrive, not survive her life. And that she is doing it whilst learning how to become a single mother and taking on a pretty intense responsibility that a lot of people would balk at.

As much as I loved this story, I desperately wanted more MMA. That may have been partly because when I read this, I hadn’t actually trained for three weeks, and that always makes me a little twitchy. Some of the facts in this aren’t quite true to the MMA world that I know (but I’m also based in Australia). But the grit, the determination, the emotional release that comes with training… all of these things are wonderfully familiar and left me smiling after I turned that final page.

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Image source: Amazon