Fighting Absolution by Kate McCarthy : Review of a moving story and excerpt.

Fighting Absolution by Kate McCarthy

Release Date: September 10, 2019

Synopsis

Fighting Absolution, an all-new standalone contemporary romance by USA Today Bestselling author Kate McCarthy.

At fifteen, Jamie Murphy finds herself broken and alone, convinced she doesn’t need anyone.

Until she does.

Bear is the boy behind the fence, the one who was there for her when no one else was.

Until he’s not.

Left with nothing, Jamie joins the army hoping it will give her purpose. The last thing she expects is the best friend from her past to reappear in the dusty plains of a war-torn country. No longer the boy she once knew, Bear is now a man: big, bearded, and SAS—one of the army’s elite.

Soon Jamie finds herself not only fighting against her enemies, but her feelings for a man who left her once before. Can she risk losing him all over again?

Fighting Absolution is a friends to lovers romance and features characters from Fighting Redemption, but is written as a standalone.

Review

4 emotional stars

Writing this review without spoilers will be tricky as the synopsis brushes a big element of the book under the rug!

And not speaking of it feels like not doing this book justice but so is the review’s law….

Anyway let’s focus on the characters and all the emotions I felt while reading this book!

 ” Jamie’s the type that if you told her not to do something, she would not only do it twice, she’d take pictures too, all while giving you the middle finger.”

This is the best quote to describe Jamie!

Jamie has lost her dad in an awful accident and has been placed in a foster home.

She carries so much guilt and grief.

Throughout the whole story she will fight for absolution. She will fight to save lives. She will join the army in the hope of discovering who she is, what her path is.

With no family left, she thinks no one needs her and that’s just sad.

When Jamie met Bear for the first time, she was a teenager grieving the loss of her father. She existed under a dark cloud. Feisty and rebuking at first, Bear was not discouraged by her attitude. He saw right through it. Day after day he became her anchor and she became his.

Years later they will meet again in the army.

They will fight at first and they will both experience an awful loss.

Bear is ..like a huge bear but all marshmallow inside.

He is huge, muscled, an SAS fighter. He is the one to crack jokes and poke others till they leave their bad mood behind. His coping mechanism faced with the horror of war is humor.

And Bear’s big weakness are kids!

“Bear: I want kids. Lots of ’em. I haven’t told anyone this before either, but I want to be a dad. So bad. I want to find a girl and fall in love. I want to know what it feels like to look at someone knowing I could never live without them. I want to get married. I want to watch her walk down the aisle towards me, my heart busting from my chest at the knowledge she was mine. I want to feel my babies growing inside her belly, and watch them grow with her by my side. I want to fill that house by the beach with all their little personalities. Take them camping. Teach them about the Earth.”

Their friendship was a wonderful one. The one you find when you went at war together. When you both experienced grief. When you both are trying to patch the holes in your heart left by too many deaths. It’s one friendship that will have you go through hell and back if it means saving the other.

I loved seeing their feeling evolve. I cried for their losses. I laughed at their banter and Bear’s antics. And my heart bled for the reason I can’t talk about without spoiling this review.

If you want an emotional story with a brave Little Warrior becoming a wonderful and courageous woman thanks to her best big grizzly of a friend, just read it!

Download your copy today or read FREE in Kindle Unlimited!

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2YkqAtT

Amazon Worldwide: mybook.to/FightingAbsolution

Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2NZNUco

Excerpt:

After an early night, I wake in the morning with my body sagging into the ground. “What the hell?”

I roll and flail, my air mattress squeaking like a little bitch.

Bear laughs and I turn. He’s watching me, thoroughly amused. “I’m not here for your entertainment,” I hiss, my back aching from an uncomfortable sleep.

“Someone needs her coffee.”

“Did you poke a hole in my mattress?”

“No, but there’s something poking a hole in my—”

“For the love of god!” I rise up, the knife from beneath my pillow in hand. “I’m gonna stab yours just for that.”

“No!” He laughs, half-rising from his own bed, warding me off with his massive paws. “That damn thing is probably why you woke up on the ground.”

I lunge across the tent, my knife jabbing straight into his inflatable mattress. It tears a long, deep gash in the corner. Air hisses out in a wheezy rush. “What in the actual fuck?” he shouts, falling back with a stunned laugh. “You’re such a bitch!”

The knife drops from my hand, and I double over, gasping with laughter while the airbed deflates around him, sinking him slowly to the ground.

“Now neither of us have a bed!”

“Oh well.” I tuck my knife away. “We can start on those bottles of red tonight until we can’t feel a damn thing, and then it won’t matter.”

I unzip the tent and step out, my jaw cracking from a yawn that stretches my face. “Bring me coffee!” he orders from inside the tent.

I turn my head, sneaking a glance his way. He’s standing over his duffel bag, clad in nothing but a tight pair of bright blue cotton boxer-briefs. It’s almost a physical punch. I linger a moment before I look away, back to the ocean, trying to dispel the image, but my mind won’t let it go. The wide, muscled shoulders, his tattooed arms, the thick washboard abs, his body scarred from combat and a lifetime of hard and heavy training.

I shiver with a sense of longing and have to remind myself that it’s just Bear as I start on the coffee. The same Bear who laughed his ass off when I tripped on the edge of the jetty in Broome and fell in the water. The one who snores like a freight train after one too many beers. The one slowly turning into a mountain man because he hasn’t shaved since we left. The very same Bear who tips his head back each night in his camp chair and makes me scratch his head with my nails while he sits there and whimpers like a little girl.

About Kate:

Kate is the USA Today Bestselling Author of The End Game and Goodreads Nominee for Best Contemporary Romance Fighting Redemption, and the Give Me series.

When she’s not plotting or writing, she works as a financial officer.

Kate has two mini me’s (both bookworms to her delight), three Dachshunds named Petie, Maximus and Thor, and a fish named Cash (who unfortunately suffers resting bitch face). She lives in Brisbane, Australia and decided to miraculously stop ageing at 30.

Connect with Kate:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KateMcCarthyAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KMacinOz

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorkatemccarthy/

Website: https://katemccarthy.net/