So Quarry and Liv have known each other a long time. You get a glimpse into their friendship in the 2nd book Fighting Shadows. Aly leaves us with a major teaser that helped make this book so worth the wait. Quarry has been through so much as a young boy and teenager and feels that he doesn't deserve to be happy. He just fights, he is good at it, he has made his way up through the belts and he is turning pro. He was with a woman he thought was the love of his life but in your early 20's do you really know, maybe you do, but Quarry didn't.
His friendship with Liv dies when they are 16 and 17 after he tortures the poor girl having her scared to be around him. He wants to show her that he is evil and doesn't need to be around her. And he succeeds. I was so torn up when I read this scene. He was a jerk and knew exactly what he was doing.
Liv stays with her parents and stops attending any boxing matches or visiting Quarry or his brothers until she reads that he has gone completely deaf and runs to be with him through this.
My favorite part---the hugging from the back---I do this with my husband. He will be standing at the sink, stove, or at the edge of the living room looking in and I just wrap my arms around him and place my head on the center of his back. This part of their relationship I took in. Its intimidate and calming.
I am thankful they both get their heads out of their butts and move on from being scared to fail the other. Their HEA was well worth all the emotional craziness that went on in my stomach while reading.
All these books got to me, I loved them, I will re read them, and I look forward to Aly's next book.
*This is a series of interconnected standalones. Book one, Fighting Silence, is currently 99c.*
I was born a fighter. Abandoned by my parents, I spent my life forging my own path—one guided by my fists and paved with pain.
Untouchable in the ring, I destroyed everyone who faced me, but that’s where my victories ended. Outside the ropes, I repeatedly failed the few people who loved me. Including my best friend, Liv James—the one person I’d die to protect.
Even though I didn’t deserve her, Liv never stopped believing in me. Never gave up. Never let go. After all, she understood what I’d lost, because she’d lost it too.
Liv was everything to me, but she was never truly mine.
That was going to change.
I lost my first love, but I refused to lose my soulmate.
Now, I’m on the ropes during the toughest battles of my life.
Fighting to be the man she deserves.
Fighting the solitude of our pasts.
Fighting for her.
I was born a fighter. Abandoned by my parents, I spent my life forging my own path—one guided by my fists and paved with pain.
Untouchable in the ring, I destroyed everyone who faced me, but that’s where my victories ended. Outside the ropes, I repeatedly failed the few people who loved me. Including my best friend, Liv James—the one person I’d die to protect.
Even though I didn’t deserve her, Liv never stopped believing in me. Never gave up. Never let go. After all, she understood what I’d lost, because she’d lost it too.
Liv was everything to me, but she was never truly mine.
That was going to change.
I lost my first love, but I refused to lose my soulmate.
Now, I’m on the ropes during the toughest battles of my life.
Fighting to be the man she deserves.
Fighting the solitude of our pasts.
Fighting for her.