The Clinch

De: Nicole Disney

Narrado por: Keira Grace

Eden Bauer grew up in a rough part of New York with an unsafe home life and took refuge in the neighborhood Tae Kwon Do dojang. When the master of the dojang offered to train Eden as a live-in student, he started her on a journey that would eventually lead her to become the UFC featherweight champion of the world.

Eden loves competing and coaching the underprivileged kids of her community, but just as she’s getting comfortable with her champion title, a new martial artist from a legendary family comes roaring onto the scene with a dynasty on her shoulders. Brooklyn Shaw is a loud, cocky, aggressive Brazilian jiujitsu genius who’s also unfortunately pretty dreamy.

Brooklyn and Eden’s rivalry attracts worldwide attention, but as they spend time together, Eden sees past Brooklyn’s showmanship to who she really is. They ought to be perfect for one another, but can either really fall in love with the person standing in the way of her dreams?

©2021 Nicole Disney (P)2022 Bold Strokes Books Inc

Fantastic

A boxing fan from way back, I have never liked MMA fighting. It always looked like street brawling to me as opposed to the art of boxing. This story changed my opinion and gave me hours of pleasurable listening. Great storytelling and equally good narration.

Winner

I was attentive to every detail. Loved the realism of the competition, the training. I loved the authors understanding of the sport of mixed martial arts, what it takes to be Champion. In this case the Champion was a woman. The context was so realistic it could have been a real sports announcer describing the fights. The push and pull between the main characters as they navigated their attraction and feelings was plausible within their context. I loved how the author delt with judgement and prejudice, the struggle of Brook to come into her own and all she could be on many levels. Outstanding.

Definitely going on my favorites list !!!

Definitely going on my favorites list!!!… Has everything I like in a story including passion and edge!.. And, the narrator was a perfect match!

A New Favorite!

This book! ….I haven’t been this invested in a story in a long while. This book has everything, heart, excitement, passion.
The author skillfully described the fight scenes in such a way, it felt like watching it. I was on the edge of my seat every time!
The tension between the characters was palpable …and the sexy parts…steamy!
I loved everything about this book, the emotion, the action, the suspense *chef’s kiss*
Superb narration and beautifully executed story, it had my emotions all over the place.
I’ve never listened to a book twice, but I will definitely be repeating this one a few times…it’s just so good!!

the fight scenes were fantastic

I knew it was going to be good but I was surprised by how into the fight scenes I got cus it seemed like the hardest scenes to adapt into a book but they were great

The Clinch

This one was exciting from the get-go! It starts with Brooklyn and Eden preparing to face each other in a UFC title
match. There's trash talk, anger, frustration... you can feel the tension between the two, and it's heavy! The fight was crazy!Then, you start to see the relationship develop afterward, and it's so interesting to see each of their softer sides outside of their MMA personas (plus they're hot together 🔥🔥). There's a lot that happens in the story that it goes by fast - I didn't realise how quickly I breezed through it! A good sports romance.

What a great book!

I read “The Clinch” by Nicole Disney in print a few months ago and enjoyed it so much that I just picked up the audio version too. I don’t even like mixed martial arts and fighting sports, but I absolutely loved this book.

The author’s bio says that she has worked as a martial arts instructor and her love of the sport is really apparent here.

The fight and training scenes are written so methodically that it makes you feel like you are in the ring with them. Those sections flow like a choreography. The writing also has such a high level of intensity - whether it’s the description of the training, the fight scenes, or even the steamy ones.

The narrator Kiera Grace also does a great job - you can just feel the emotion and excitement during all of the intense and adrenaline packed scenes.

“The Clinch” is surprisingly a page turner, with great characters, sharp banter, important social commentary, and a very exciting and emotional ending.

It’s such a good book!

The Gay Gods have blessed me

I LOVED this book when I first read it like a year ago. It is, hands down, one of the best books I’ve had the privilege to read in the lesfic genre. When I saw it was out on audio, I died and went to Gay Heaven.

The MMA setting is so well written that it’s almost palpable. Reading this novel is a fully immersive experience. Eden and Brooklyn are very well-drawn characters who are both “alpha” in their own complimentary ways. It’s such a pleasure watching them literally go toe-to-toe. They have amazingly intense chemistry, and the way their relationship develops from disdainful competitors to two people who deeply respect each other’s abilities and hearts is wonderful to read. Brooklyn’s coming out story is also very well-handled.

Keira Grace does an excellent job bringing this story to life. I think she was an ideal choice for this book. There are many re-listens in my future on this one!

Beautifully read and Exciting

Absolutely loved it the fight scenes were nail-biting and the characters were likeable and well written. Would love to see more sports romances with descriptive game highlights as well as being romance centric.

Yes!

This was an awesome story. I don't follow UFC closely but I used to be pretty hard into practicing MMA when I was less old and rickety than I am now, so this was a really awesome book for me.
I really appreciated the resolution.
In most singular POV books, I complain that I wish it was told from multiple POVs, but not in this one. I think it was done exactly like it needed to be.
I like the narrator as well, I've listened to quite a few books she's worked on and always liked her well enough, but I actually thought she was the perfect choice for this novel. She sort of has a sports reporter tone to her voice occasionally, and it just fits perfectly with this narrative.
This is the first book she's done that I've listened to in which she has so many male characters to voice, and she really does a fantastic job with them, I can easily tell them apart.