I have been a big fan of Sarah Castille's Redemption series since book one with Torment and Makayla. The way she balances the gritty and hard edged MMA fighters with the softer yet equally strong heroines is incredible. This book is the story of Jack "Rampage" Caldwell and Penny Worthington.

In Fighting Attraction, Castille did a fantastic job describing Penny's masochistic tendencies and Rampage's cravings as a Sadist. They both are ashamed of their particular wants and desires but find that with one another (through consensual play and rough sex) they can be free and themselves for the first time in their lives without feeling shame.

Castille does a phenomenal job highlighting Rampage's aggressive and dominant "fighter" personality with his sweet and southern gentlemanly ways. In addition it was interesting watching him work through his insecurities while trying to balance his needs to inflict pain for release and his innate Southern way of thinking that "a true gentlemen does not put his hands on a woman." Likewise, Penny's need for pain (through cutting) are as a result of her own diminished self-worth attributed to painful experiences from her past. Can they both find a balance that works for them both? Or are they too different to really be compatible.

I absolutely loved this book and the amount of love and devotion they both had for each other. They were willing to change who they were for the other, but through love and acceptance realized they didn't have to. This book had heat, humor and heart and was a fantastic addition the series. I look forward to the next book in the series and seeing the Redemption crew in the future!

I would like to thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for an advanced copy of this book for an honest review.

This book was so good that I could not put it down! I would have finished it sooner but work and life had to be taken care of. I can't wait to go read the rest of this author's books.

Review featured at www.books-n-kisses.com

4.25 Hearts Holy Smokes! This story is sweet, dark, sexy and intense. Penny and Jack both have a secret that they keep hidden from everyone including those closest to them. Both are into pain. Giving and receiving it. They seem perfect for each other but are they really?

This is really really dark and yet Sarah Castille manages to lighten it up. Penny has suffered since she was young at the hands of men she thought loved her and when she starts to feel she is not lovable or worthwhile she starts cutting to feel the pain. Her emotional pain is palpable and you hurt for her. Jack needs to give pain. He wants to inflict as much as he can to get out the stresses in his life. But are these the same kind of pain that they should be together?

The out of the bedroom/club scenes between Jack and Penny are so cute. He is so different in the real world and while overly protective and possessive he wants to care for the one woman who understands him. I loved the playfulness they have together. I love all the guys of Redemption to be honest. I just want to climb into the book and hang out with these guys and girls. While the couple is the main focus the others take care of their own.

Any fan of this series, of romance, of erotica/BDSM will love this story. But understand the darkness isn’t the bedroom/club scenes it is the inner turmoil and scenes of emotional to physical pain that pulls at the readers heart.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

****Review to be posted on release date!

This book was adequately titled! It was a friends-to-lovers romantic story about Jackson Caldwell and Penny Worthington, a legal assistant. Jackson was a celebrity of sorts and Penny struggled with some interpersonal problems that she shared with him under very intimate circumstances. It turned out that Jackson also had some issues of his own and the two spent the entire story in a weird relationship limbo. Jackson fought his attraction to Penny every step of the way, all while "claiming" her, but not really declaring a relationship status, yet still needing to keep all other men away from her. It's this back-and-forth scenario that made this book feel like it was dragging on for far too long.

There were elements of this story that I really liked: the technical fighting descriptions and techniques, the erotic scenes, and catching up with the gang featured in books one and two of this series. But Penny's low self-image drove me batty! She was a sweet girl but she needed a few scoops of self esteem on her plate and it was hard for me to take her seriously, overall. Jackson also made me a bit crazy with his indecisive ways. I thought his character was so inconsistent at times: assertive in the ring and at the club, but melodramatic with Penny and dwelling hard on situations he couldn't fix when it came to his family. The ending was wrapped up nice and tidy and I would've liked more closure from Jack's family, especially considering how much time the author spent mentioning that some of his emotional baggage was linked to his family.

This story is great for a reader looking for a high angst reading journey and who wouldn't mind a few misunderstandings that briefly turn sour, but then are easily remedied. Overall, this was an okay read, but the story had bits of everything mashed together with multiple areas glossed over.

Can I just say HOT! OMG I could not put this book down. The tension between Rampage (Jack) and Penny is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Not everyone is what they show the world, some have secret lives.
Rampage is well loved and everyone sees him as a bug teddy bear. That is unless he is in the cage fighting. However, he has a side that no one knows about, it is dark and he hates it. He is a dom and only wants the most submissive to play with.
Penny shows the world a bubble gum and pop look. What she really wants is some pain. She is a prim British woman that seems to choose the wrong kind of man every time. Now she wants Jack and just might get him when he finds out her secret.
Can Jack overcome his hate for this dominance and so he can help and love Penny? Can Penny leave behind her dislike for herself?
* This book was received from the publisher for a honest review.

I love this series and the characters. Their bonds and friendships really are the glue in their intertwined lives as well as the series. I'm quite surprised at how polar and layered both the MCs are in this book. I have to admit that this stretched boundaries that I feared would tip over to being too much for me, but it worked and was, to my knowledge, accurately portrayed. Loved seeing this crew again and I am hoping for Doctor Death to find his girl bc he's been beaten around too much in this series lol

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Sarah Castille is a master of her craft. She could write the phone book and I would read it. I’ve been a fan of the Redemption series since the beginning and I was gleefully anticipating reading Rampage’s book. Even the hard core BDSM theme of the book (sadism and masochism) wasn’t enough to put me off because I knew Ms. Castille would write a story worthy of a Redemption fighter.
She did not disappoint. Rampage was HOT! Normally the easygoing “nice guy” whom everyone loves, he hides a dark side. Rampage is a sadist. He enjoys giving pain. He gets off on it. He needs the release it gives him, so he allows himself to give in to those desires at Club Sin, where he is known as Master Jack. Having just moved up to the pro level of MMA fighting, Rampage knows that this is one secret he can’t reveal. His dominance and sadism have already cost him his fiancée, the career he should have had, and his family. He won’t let it destroy the newfound success he has found as Rampage.
Unfortunately that becomes a possibility when Penny Worthington stumbles upon him at Club Sin. There to serve papers to the club’s owner on behalf of her lawyer boss, Penny is shocked to her core when she observes Master Jack doing a scene with one of the club submissives. Gone is the caring, fun-loving gossip that she knows from working out at Redemption. In his place is a strong, powerful, cold as ice sadist in complete control of everything. And Penny immediately wants in.
Not only has Penny hid her longtime attraction to Rampage (knowing someone like him would never look twice at an awkward, chunky British law clerk), but she has her own secret. Penny is a masochist. She wants someone to control her pleasure, she longs for the release a little bit of pain can give her. She’s never met anyone who made her understand her needs. Until Jack. Suddenly she’s not worthless or broken or a freak. She’s a woman with kinky desires who needs what a man like Master Jack can give her.
Never in a million years did I think I would enjoy a romance about sadism. I’ve read other books with BDSM elements, but the hardcore stuff usually turns me off. While there is nothing in me that understands the attraction or need to give or receive pain, I completely believed it with Jack and Penny. Sarah Castille wrote those elements of the story so well, and in a way that even the most vanilla lover could appreciate. Jack and Penny made me laugh, they made me cringe, and they turned me on. I loved all of the scenes with the other couples and how the friendships between the Redemption guys and their girls play a huge part in this series.
I have to say it: this book is a story of redemption for Jack and Penny. They both learn from each other, and use their budding relationship to overcome some nasty business in their pasts. If you haven’t read anything by Sarah Castille, you are missing out. If she can make me fall in love with a guy who likes to hurt his woman, she can do anything. Once again, she delivered a book that I couldn’t put down.
I give Fighting Attraction 5 stars.

It's been a while since I read the other books in the series, so I had to refresh my memory on what this series was about (it's very similar to a series from another author, so I confused some key players initially). Once I was all caught up, I remembered why I enjoyed the previous books in the series and was looking forward to reading this one.

The book certainly didn't disappoint. It was both dark and light and I found myself drawn into the mysteriousness of Jack and Penny.

Jack (aka Rampage) comes from a wealthy family but was disowned and left broken-hearted years ago. He was just a couple weeks away from being married when his sadistic tendencies were made known to everyone in his family and his finance dumped him and married his brother instead. His family disowned him and he lost the chance to run the family's well-known bourbon business. He escaped from Tennessee and has been making a new life for himself as Rampage, a popular MMA fighter, while secretly becoming Master Jack (a dom at a local club) a couple times a week.

Penny Worthington moved to the U.S. from the U.K. a couple years ago and has been working as a paralegal since then (she was just short of graduating from law school before moving). She was pretty much abused both physically and emotionally her whole life, first by her father, then her ex. Penny hides a dark secret and it's hidden well beneath her prim suits and pearls though. I was honestly shocked and didn't see it coming.

Jack & Penny are friends since they both workout/train at the same gym and there's been an underlying attraction for a while, but they've both avoided it. Jack doesn't think that Penny can give him the pain he needs her to suffer for him to find release. And Penny doesn't think that she's worthy of someone like Jack.

One day Penny shows up at Club Sin to serve papers since their landlord is trying to get them evicted. She discovers Master Jack whipping a sub in one of the playrooms and is immediately intrigued, although she doesn't think she could take that much pain. There's a lot of back-and-forth banter after this encounter between the two. They both want each other, but neither thinks they can be what each other needs. This honestly continues on throughout the book and becomes a bit annoying since it's repetitive, even after they've hooked up. Once they do finally figure things out though, it's really sweet.

They broke up and made up very quickly though, much to my surprise. I figured Jack & Penny would sulk for a while, but Jack was a pretty smart guy and came to his senses in record time compared to most heroes in books. I was a bit surprised that Penny grew a backbone and didn't try to hurt herself after their breakup. I thought she was pretty weak for most of the book, but she did shocked me with her reactions afterwards. I admired Jack's willingness to fight for her, even if he ended up bruised in the process.

I was happy to see that Penny finally saw the good in herself and applied her skills to help salvage Jack's career. It was pretty impressive if I can say so (I work in marketing, so I found her whole spin clever). I wish we had more of how their relationship evolved after they got back together again though since we only got one glimpse into how they managed to satisfy their needs. But overall, an enjoyable book that I didn't want to put down.

I loved the premise of the book and for about the first half, I actually enjoyed the story line an the characters. The writing style was decent enough and since that is usually something that I find distracting if it isn't done well, I charged forward. However, the second half of a book took a very swift nosedive. I enjoyed the chemistry and set up between the two main characters but then the entire story turned into the following drama:

"I can't be what he needs me to be, I'm broken."
"She deserves better and so much more than I can give her."
*Oh wait, we are thrown together due to unforeseen circumstances and cannot resist the temptation and chemistry we share.*
"You are my everything, I can't deny what is between us. I want to try for you."
"You are mine. I will try for you. I love you."
Within a paragraph of sexy time ending...
"I can't be what he needs me to be, I'm broken."
"She deserves better and so much more than I can give her."

Every. Single. Chapter. If not multiple times within a chapter. It was so forced and repetitive that I skimmed the last half of the book to finish it off.

I wanted to take a few days before I wrote this review to be able to fully express my thoughts on this book.

First off, I liked the storyline of it and thoroughly enjoyed all the characters involved. The pace was easy, the romance blossomed, and the premise nice.

What I had a lot of trouble with was the undercurrent needed between the hero and heroine. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read the book, but there were times I actually cringed while reading, and others that I had to fight myself not to put it down. This topic is a tough one for any author to write on, but in this case the pairing might not have been the best choice.

Overall, I did end up liking the story and enjoyed seeing the previous characters make appearances. I wish the fighting crew would get a bit more mature but it was a great new addition to this series.

The erotica novel Fighting Attraction by Sarah Castille is the 4th instalment in the Redemption series and focuses on Penny and Rampage's story. Penny Worthington, a prim-and-proper British legal assistant, has had multiple failed relationships and can't seem to get it right. Her growing desire for bad boy and MMA fighter Jackson Caldwell, a.k.a. Rampage, is all she can think about. Rampage, a regular Joe from Tennessee, feels he's not good enough for proper Penny, and is hiding a dirty little secret of his own. Torn between wanting to protect her and secretly dominate her into his submissive, Rampage must decide what's best for Penny.

As always Sarah Castille does not disappoint. Great storyline and hot love scenes! You can read this book as a stand-alone and don't need to read the prior three to follow the story as each novel focuses on a different set of characters within the same club. I rate this novel 4.5 out of 5 on the hot scale. (I highly recommend Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club, another great series by Sarah Castille if you enjoy her writing.)

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for providing a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review. https://moesbookblog.wordpress.com/

Reviewed: February 12, 2017. Novel Publish Date: April 4, 2017.

Well..everything is set nicely as far as the world they live in is considered.

The heroine seeks darkness,the hero has friend zoned her despite the obvious attraction.

So,you know..

A truly WOW romance. Hot and well-written. So love a good Sarah Castille romance.

love it. love the entire series

Jack doesn't want to want Penny. He thinks that she's a good girl, boy was he wrong. They're perfect for each other. Penny has been told her whole life that she's worthless. Jack has a hard time trying to show her just how worthy she really is.

Sarah Castille has done it again. I swear I went from not hearing about her at all to scrambling to read all her books in a rush. I honestly feel like I’ll never get enough because her books are beyond awesome!!!

We’re back at Redemption with Jack aka Rampage and Penny’s story. Rampage is everyone’s friend at Rampage but he has a dark secret, a secret even he’s ashamed of. When he was younger he fell in love with a girl who broke his heart and his family apart by revealing his secret to them. Now Rampage works on being the best fighter he can be and keeping his dark urges to himself. See Rampage is a sadist who takes out his aggression and sexual urges by “beating” on women at a BDSM club. When Rampage starts seeing Penny in a non-friend way he thinks he has to stay away because she’s too clean for him. Funny enough she thinks the same thing about Rampage. Penny has been through a lot and needs pain to get through the bad days. If you can guess where their story goes Penny finds out about Jack’s secret and Jack finds out about Penny’s and they realize they’re perfect for each other. Of course, there are complications like every love story and Jack is a real douche canoe sometimes, but no one is perfect.

I loved Fighting Attraction. The story is dark, edgy and fan needing hot. I couldn’t ask for a better story. While there are aspects of BDSM, erotic yumminess and really yummy men with abs there is also a story behind Fighting Attraction. There are amazing characters who grow throughout the story and I grew to adore.

Penny is an adorably curvy British woman who has escaped one abusive relationships after another. She kind of believes there is something broken about her until she sees Jack’s true dark side. I loved how realistic their dynamic was. I won’t give anything away but I love that she wasn’t able to take everything he gave her physically because honestly he’s a very powerful man. It would be almost insane to think she’d be able to take it. Penny is seriously relatable as well. I can’t count how many times I have done what she does where she tries to please everyone around her but herself. Where when she fails, she thinks she’s worthless. Honestly her flaws as much as everything else made me love her character.

Jack is yummy is all ways. Sometimes I just wanted to shake him, because after intimate times he was such a butt it’s like “get your stuff together and take care of your woman!!” but I digress because in the end he got it. I also love how protective he got. Little by little he was making sure everyone knew Penny was his without realizing he was doing it and sometimes without telling Penny. It was funny to see them go head to head.

On the side note I was super happy to read about Ray again. I loved him in the previous book and I found his super funny in this one. He was like a scary teddy bear.

If whoever is reading this hasn’t guessed I really enjoyed this book a whole bunch. I thought everything was perfect and the characters and story were phenomenal.

Rampage and Penny's story was quite unique. I have to say I've never read anything like it. Some parts were kind of tough to get through because they both kind of have different demons to deal with. They both have a dark side that they hide, but fate has put them together to share the burden they've been carrying. They both kind of mend each other and accept one another through their vices.

I'm in love with pretty much every word Ms Castille writes, and this story is no exception. I have read the previous books in the series, and fell in love with each of the men... Rampage is no different. My only "huh?" moment is this: in the earlier books in the series Rampage was written to be kind of a loveable joke. Brutish, I think at one point he was described as smelly, missing teeth and having bad breath. This was addressed somewhat when it was explained he lost weight and the ugly smiley-face tshirt, but suddenly he's an affluent, cultured, gentlemanly dom? We went from smelly to worldly? His evolution over the last 3 or so books has improved somewhat, but this is still a heckuva leap. So, if you can somehow mentally untangle him from his past persona, I think you'd have a better starting point for falling in love with him.
That said, it was hella hot and steamy, dangerous and alluring and I did end up finding him sexy despite my preconceived notions of him Penny was hilarious and plucky, the perfect match for him. Loved it.

Summary

Rampage is the most infamous of the fighters at Redemption and his career as a MMA fighter is sky rocketing. He is a heavy weight fighter and trainer, and he is a friend to everyone even the little kids that want his autograph. But he is hiding something about himself. He came from the south, but he also is a master at a BDSM club and needs pain to get pleasure. He vows to never share his secret with anyone especially young and classy Penny. Who is innocent with a hint of wild but he knows he could never do that to her, cause her pain. Penny, on the outside seems to be a classy British gal but she has a wild side and unfortunately she ends up finding all the bad men of the crowd. Her father, past boyfriends and flings. But her heart is set on Rampage. And when delivering a notice to the club from her work, she is shocked to see her friend as a Master doing a whipping session and her mind starts thinking. Penny has a horrible past, and she needs pain to deal with the trauma. But while she explores with Jack the erotic possibiities, she wonders if she will be enough for him and what he needs....
Plot and Story Line

Now this book was quite the explosive romance and can I just say how fantastically pleased I am to see Castille back at this series. I fell in love with the first three books. Now in the first three books, she introduced some bondage play but it was much lighter than this book. So I was a bit overwhelmed at times with some of the scenes of this book but boy were they scorching HOT!!! Be forewarned, who needs the heater or the fire on when you have this book in your hands. hehe Even though the heat of the book was a bit too much for me at times I still fell in love with the actual romance and the way Penny handles our boy Jack. They both hide part of themselves and Penny is strong willed and I like how she is willing to explore other possibilities so she can see where their romantic relationship can go. Its not conventional but it works for both of them. And it changes too, I liked seeing the growth and the way these two help each other in various ways. Both characters are impressionable but Penny....she has balls of steel. Man some of the lengths she goes to in order to prove herself....yeah I couldn't do that and I was so impressed with her and her tenacity. I'll admit I wasn't sure what I thought of her in previous books but this author changed my mind.
The Cover

HOT!!! I love it so very much. It might be one of my favorites of the series and from this author. Of course Sourcebooks always does a great job but I just love the cover model, I just want to pet him.
Overall View

Fighting Attraction is a scorching, hot romance that leaves you fully sated.....a tale of redemption, healing and a love story you will remember!!

ARC received for review

Sleep...who needs sleep. Started in at almost 10pm and thought I'll just get started and read a couple chapters. Yep, you guessed it almost 1am and I was done with the book.

Loved Jack/Rampage and Penny. They are so perfect together even though it seemed to take a while for them to get together. They were hot no matter where they were. I've only read one sadist before (Soren and Nora by Tiffany Reisz), and this one was just as well done. Penny did a great job saving him.

The Redemption guys are so overprotective of all the girls. It was great seeing all the peeps again. Can't wait to see who's next.