I think this is my favorite in the series so far! I loved the forced proximity trope, the clear timeline, and this version of an athlete romance where the athlete isn't already a superstar and millionaire. It made me appreciate the hard work Eric put into his training and helped me understand his goal to win to be able to support his family and not worry about money anymore.
Eric was also incredible for his love of languages, and his family. Also, his respect for Isla was fantastic. He never pressured her, and made sure to follow her lead. Consent is sexy, y'all!
Isla is a badass! She loves her job as a physiotherapist and strives to be the best. She wasn't happy working for someone else and being forced to train with boxers, which she didn't enjoy, so she built her own business from from ground up. She's quick-witted, and she doesn't feel the need to apologize for enjoying the things she likes, even if they are not "cool".
This one was a slow burn, but the sexy scenes were amazing when they finally happened. Totally worth the wait!
Overall, a fabulous romance, and kudos to the author for helping destigmatize mental health issues and going to therapy.

i enjoyed the overall romance and the characters involved in this novel. however, there was no feeling of real coherency behind the events of the story. from each subplot to another, nothing felt like it was tying the overall novel together. moreover, the conclusion to eric's problem regarding his career felt too easily solved. all in all, good writing but a weak plot execution.

Brick is just an act!

Physiotherapist Isla Slade said that she would never work with boxers because her father was a former heavyweight champion and the stress that his profession caused the family. But things changed when he came to her asking to help train Brick Kramarov for his next championship fight in Las Vegas.

Brick Kramarov was only boxing to help support his family and his best chance of getting enough money to retire was in his next fight but he wasn’t so sure when his coach asked his daughter to be his new physiotherapist. Brick wasn’t the goon that Isla thought he was but actually Eric Kramarovsky that likes poetry and wanted to become a translator.

The Knockout Rule is a fun romance where Isla isn’t so sure of dating a boxer and Eric just wanting to get through the fight with a win so he can help his family!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A+ once again!
Written as a series, but can easily be read as a stand- alone.
Isla is daughter of world renowned boxer Graham Slade. She has witnessed the worst of the worst fights and now sees her father hiding his Parkinson’s disease as a result from his boxing trauma.
Eric, Aka Brick Smash. as he’s known to the adoring fans is a smart, poetic, brainiac beneath all those muscles.
But when Isla shows up to be his new physio therapist before his big fight- they both fall head over heels for one another- unbeknownst the other.
Isla has sworn off boxers and Eric can’t have anything stand in the way of helping his family financially for this win.
Will love win all or is boxing above all?

The Knockout Rule is part of the Showmen series by Kelly Siskind, but can easily be read as a standalone. There are like three sentences in each book connecting them to the others, so it is easy to jump into the series with any book. Isla is a physical therapist and daughter of a legendary boxer. After seeing what the sport did to her father, she vows not to work with boxers in her therapy practice. That all changes when she agrees to her father's request to train his new client, Brick Kramarov - the hulky, hunky, and apparently dimwitted underdog competing for a heavyweight title in Las Vegas.

I enjoyed this book, but I thought it needed more to drive the plot. The characters were very likable and they have great chemistry. I thought the plot with Preston was dragged out, and then the ending wrapped up too quickly. Some changes to the pacing of the story would have made this work better for me. Overall, I have really enjoyed this series and still recommend it. Content warnings include anxiety/panic attacks and parental abandonment.

Thanks to NetGalley and CD Books for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Well I’m thankful to have the opportunity to read this book, was perfect for February. Good story and I just forgot about life for a few hours so it’s always a good thing when you start a book :) will definitely look forward for more from this author

i wasn't aware this was the fourth book in a series when i picked it up. however, i didn't feel lost at all. kelly siskind's style really surprised me for good. i enjoyed the story, the characters. they were very interesting and quirky, but not in a cringe way. the romance was believable, and i was hoping for the moment they'd finally get together. i'm gonna check out the other books in this series, 'cause it was a very fun read.

I liked this more than I thought I would. I admit I have no knowledge of boxing so I really didn’t know anything going into the book and didn’t know what to expect. I really liked the main characters and their conflicts with each other and all the other characters made sense and never seemed too melodramatic.

The Knockout Rule by Kelly Siskind is currently scheduled for release on February 24 2021. Growing up with an adoring father for a boxing legend isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. It looks more like hospital visits, bloody noses, and cracked ribs. Isla Slade now works as a physiotherapist, helping athletes heal their bodies. Except for boxers. She has no interest in reliving the stress of her teen years. Dating someone in the boxing world? She’d rather snort wasabi powder. Until she meets Preston Church. Preston manages heavyweight boxing darling Brick Kramarov. A brute who’s built tougher than his name, with a cocky attitude to boot. She wants nothing to do with either man, but her father begs her to help them prepare for a huge fight. She doesn’t expect Preston to recite romantic poems and slowly break her resolve. His fascinating mind gets under her skin, even if his star athlete reminds her how much she hates boxing. Too bad it’s Brick coaching Preston how to woo Isla, falling for her from the sidelines. Once she finds out, she’ll have to decide if she can risk loving another man who puts it all on the line for the knockout.

The Knockout Rule has a lot less of the date coaching than the teaser implies, but it is used to good effect. I really liked Isla as a character, and her relationships with her father and best friend were well done, adding depth to the story. Eric (aka Brick) is similarly layered and complex as a character, and I honestly enjoyed getting to know them and the secondary characters. I thought the conflicts were very real, as were the fears, anxiety, and mental health complexities that challenged Isla and Eric. I do not know anything about boxing, but I do have to say that it felt like the characters were in Vegas forever before the fight. Do they really hang out that long before a fight? I just thought that some of that could have been condensed and spent more of the story in the heat of the conflict with details or character feelings, actions, and growth at that point. That being said, I really did enjoy the read and how even though there were secrets- Isla and Eric seemed to be honest with each other about their feelings and where they stand pretty quickly. It was a solid read, and I came to care about the characters and their families.

The Knockout Rule is a good contemporary romance, with some twists but plenty of feels.

A nice take on the athlete/trainer romance that tackles the real world consequences of dangerous sports and the aspersions we cast on professional athletes.

In this story we follow Isla, a smart and strong physiotherapist who is the daughter of a famous former boxer. She went through major stress dealing with her father's career, so much so she developed panic attacks. Clearly dating a boxer is off limits for her, until she meets Preston, <i>The Brick</i>. He has a very arrogant persona, but he is much more than that, as Isla finds out.
As always, I deeply conected to the characters. Kelly Siskind has a way to carve out very realistic characters in such a way we feel like they are real people we could get to meet, so we have no choice but to care for them. The vibe was a bit different than the previous ones in the series, but I enjoyed the discussion on boxing and the consequences it has to the athlet's health and to their family's relationships.
Yet again, I loved a Kelly Siskind book! Hopefully we will have more installments in this companion-series.

If anyone out there is surprised to find me reading a book about boxing, I would plead "Kelly Siskind made me do it," which is a reasonable defense in any court of public opinion, obviously. She writes such touching love stories with careful plotting and natural characters. This one features not only boxing but poetry and linguistics, family and duty, anxiety and obstinance. These seemingly disparate ingredients come together to tell the story of Isla, who grew up shouldering the burden of a father in boxing with all the accompanying major injuries and scary moments in the ring. So she has one rule: no boxers in her professional life as a physiotherapist that might trigger a panic attack. Unfortunately, when her father unloads a major secret, boxing is about to reenter her life, both professional and personal, in a major way. A romantic way, one might even suspect based on the genre of this book.

I think fans of sports romance will definitely fall head-over-heels for this one. I personally enjoyed the author's original poems sprinkled throughout, often summing up Isla's swirling feelings. I'm always here for Siskind's devotion to consent and healthy boundaries when necessary, healthy communication at all times. My only complaint is from a personal standpoint. Tender, whirlwind romances with swift exchange of loving declarations are a bit too saccharine for my tastes. So while I enjoyed the book, it wasn't my favorite in the series (a high bar, to be fair). It's still a worthy installment that left me wishing the characters all the best. I recommend it to romance readers looking for something tranquil (outside the ring, that is) and full of heart.

This is the 4th book in The Showmen series, and it comes out next week on 2/24. I was lucky enough to get an ARC from @netgalley.

Isla is a PT who does not work on boxers because her dad is a former heavyweight champion. After finding out her dad is diagnosed with Parkinson’s, she agrees to go to Las Vegas to help her dad and be Brick’s PT. Surprise, surprise Isla gets to know Brick (who is really Eric and loves linguistics) and falls in love.

I liked Isla and Eric’s story, and I think you will too. It was a quick, cute read. However, one thing that I didn’t like about this book was that it is set in Chicago/Las Vegas, and Isla is American. However, some of the terminology used in the book was not clearly not the American terms - for example, we would call Isla a physical therapist or a PT not a physiotherapist. It was fine, but I annoyed me. If you’re gonna set your book in the US, you should use the American words OR make Isla and her dad Canadian, I’m totally on board for that.

I really enjoyed the end of this book, but I struggled to keep reading for parts in the middle and ended up putting the book down for a few days. However, I'm glad I picked this back up because the end really packs a punch (pardon the boxing expression!). I loved Eric's character; I found him to be a complex character but still containing all the perfect physical characteristics that make that classic sexy romance love interest. I also really appreciated the way Isla's panic disorder was treated, and the frank discussions of her therapy sessions. I would have loved more Heather, she was such a fun character to meet and I would read a whole book about her! The romance itself was a bit of where I faltered towards the middle, it felt like a VERY slow burn that was taking just a bit too long to bloom, I felt like the dates with Preston dragged just one date too far. But in all, this was an enjoyable and light romance read for fans of slow-burn steaminess!

Isla grew up with a boxer father and now has one rule as a dating adult: no dating boxers. That is, until she meets Brick.
Brick is a boxer who no longer loves boxing but needs to win an upcoming fight to support his family.

I was so pleasantly surprised with this book. I loved the slow build and how sweet Brick was. I loved the realistic friendships and how, sometimes, when it rains, it pours.
I was also SO happy to see a female lead who is take charge and just considered awesome instead of bossy. And who did not yield what she wanted for a significant other.

This is the first book I’ve read from this author, but it won’t be the last.

Thanks so much to Netgalley for this ARC!

The cover, description, and title REALLY pulled me into this book. It is everything I would want to buy in a book when I spot one on the shelves at my local bookstore.

And wow was I ever happy with this book! Being one of the first books I read this year, the rest seriously have a big act to follow! The characters in this book are so original and quirky, its a great slow burn that isn't your oh-so typical romcom.

Loved! Can't wait to read more by this author!

I really enjoyed this book. There was an amazing mixture of comedy, heat, romance and drama to keep me hooked the entire book. Kelly Siskind did an amazing job and I have become a huge fan. Her books will be automatic reads when I'm looking for something light with a good mix of emotion. I would definitely recommend this book to other romance readers who enjoy some terrible jokes mixed in. Eric is 100% my kind of book boyfriend.

The Knockout Rule is yet another fabulous romance from Siskind, Isla and Eric 'Brick' are such likeable characters that you cheer for them through the whole story!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so much more than I expected. I enjoyed the Cyrano quality to it early on, but was glad that was resolved (and without a huge blowup between Isla and Eric) early on. It was refreshing to see two characters behave like the adults that they are. For that reason I wish Isla had been able to be completely honest about why she didn't want to get involved with a boxer rather than having to keep her father's secret then he really could have understood the full consequences of remaining a boxer. I think one of my absolute favorite parts of the novel was Eric's conversation with his sister when she basically told him what an idiot he had been - it's such an authentic moment between two siblings. That being said, I thought the medical money problems of Eric's family was the only part that didn't completely ring true for me - how did no one have medical insurance?

Nothing better than a story to show us that some rules are made to be broken. Isla is a physiotherapist who agrees to help a boxer that her father trains as a favor to her father. Which should be no big deal as she works with athletes all the time for her job, except she hates boxing. She has a rule that she doesn't treat or date boxers. After meeting Eric, the boxer she will be working with that changes as she starts to feel differently about him.