Review – Fighting to Be Free by Kirsty Moseley

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When life deals you a bad hand, just keep playing. Tomorrow you might be wearing a smile and holding all four aces. ~Susan Gale

Sometimes life deals you the worst hand. Blow after blow. Letdown after letdown. Heartache after heartache. You’re in a hole of despair so deep that you may never break free unless you fight for that freedom, releasing the chains that bind you. Fighting to Be Free is a tale of guts and glory that grips your heart, sinking itself into your soul, where you can’t help but feel everything.

Fighting to Be Free started out slow but a burn built that beckoned me right into the flames as my heart caught fire, struggling to get free. This story’s slow burn seeped into my soul. Fighting to Be Free fought with me. Hot and cold. Dark and light. Tough and tender. Amplified, my emotions were entangled, engulfing me. The feels flowed me like waves, crashing hard and fast…all over me.

I only had to read the synopsis to know that Fighting to Be Free would entangle my emotions, wrapping this story around my soul…and that it did. The first page packed a punch to the gut where I knew Fighting to Be Free would be a hard-fought tale, one perhaps where hell would happen before happiness. Instantly, I was cast into this story’s clutches…captivated…claimed. I knew this broken boy who was indeed fighting to be free would break me.

Dark-eyed, dark-haired, and muscular 18-year-old Jamie Cole has just been released from juvenile detention after two long years for a crime that is rather…complicated. He has had to grow up fast at a young age, wiser than his teenage years. His focus is to start a new life, build something from nothing.

“This was my second shot, my chance to come out of the darkness and into the light. With every cell in my body I was planning on fighting to be free of this life, even if it killed me.”

Jamie doesn’t need any distractions, especially a young woman.

“I couldn’t take my eyes off of her; I’d never wanted a girl more in my life.”

Beautiful red-haired and blue-eyed Ellie Pearce just dumped one piece of pathetic baggage, her first and only boyfriend of two years that became stifling like a straightjacket. Out on the town with her friends at a dance club, her mission is to let loose and have fun for the first time in her life. Until one young man across the room captured her with just a look, a look that morphs into more.

“His mouth claimed mine in a kiss that was so hot I was surprised we weren’t both on fire.”

The chemistry ignites like an inferno, blazing a ring of fire around the broken boy fighting to be free and the girl who wants to be his lifeline. Jamie was supposed to be Ellie’s one night of fun, one night of throwing caution to the wind. Jamie was not supposed to be the boy making her fall, the boy who would likely break her heart. Jamie and Ellie are kindred spirits. One light, one dark. One soft, one hard. One young man who melted every piece me.

My heart broke for this broken boy—forced to fight and forced to commit crimes—who didn’t think he’s worthy of love and a life to live free from the chains of the past. Jamie hit my heart hard as I felt his heart escape under his hardened exterior, melting and mesmerizing me. I was in awe at this amazing man trying to rise from nothing but slowing becoming everything. This broken but beautiful soul stole my soul.

“I know that I’m not good enough for you—you deserve so much better than me.”

Fighting to Be Free by Kirsty Moseley is a spellbinding and soul-searing story of Fight Club meets The Fast and the Furious, a story that is hard yet soft, tough yet tender, and dark yet light. I fell in LOVE, HARD AND HOPELESSLY, with the heart-hitting Fighting to Be Free. This devastatingly beautiful and brilliant book broke me in the best way. THIS STORY IS EVERYTHING.

Fighting to Be Free flung itself at me, hitting my heart…hijacking it…hijacking me. I felt every word I read as these pages, like a fighter to the mat, pounded into me. The feels…I fought them. They fought me. Those feels flowed as did my tears—fast and furiously—as I hoped for happiness. Intense and intoxicating, I could not help but FEEL Fighting to Be Free, a story that still owns my heart that may never break free.

★★★★★ tough and tender stars

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Jamie Cole has just been released from juvenile detention. Determined to go straight, he tried to cut ties with crime boss, Brett Reye, who has no intention of letting him go. Jamie’s life is already more complicated than it needs to be, yet when he meets a beautiful stranger at a bar, Jamie knows he’s in over his head.

Ellie Pearce has just gotten out of a terrible relationship and isn’t looking for anything serious…until she meets Jamie. Their attraction is overwhelming and intense—Ellie can’t seem to shake her growing feelings for him, even though she’s trying to keep it casual.

But when fate goes horribly wrong and Jamie’s family is faced with ruin, he’s forced to strike a deal with Brett. Despite his struggles, he wants nothing more than a future with Ellie. That’s until Ellie finds out that he’s been hiding more from her than she could ever imagine…