Release Day Review: Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha

Deal with the Devil
(Mercenary Librarians #1)
Kit Rocha
Release: July 28, 2020
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Orphan Black meets the post-apocalyptic Avengers in the vein of Ilona Andrews’ Hidden Legacy series by USA Today and New York Times bestselling author duo Kit Rocha

The United States went belly up 45 years ago when our power grid was wiped out. Too few live in well-protected isolation while the rest of us scrape by on the margins. The only thing that matters is survival. By any means. At any cost.

Nina is an information broker with a mission: to bring hope to the darkest corners of Atlanta. She and her team of mercenary librarians use their knowledge to help those in need. But altruism doesn’t pay the bills—raiding vaults and collecting sensitive data is where the real money is.

Knox is a bitter, battle-weary supersoldier who leads the Silver Devils, an elite strike squad that chose to go AWOL rather than slaughter innocents. Before the Devils leave town for good, they need a biochem hacker to stabilize the experimental implants that grant their superhuman abilities.

The problem? Their hacker’s been kidnapped. And the ransom for her return is Nina. Knox has the perfect bait for a perfect trap: a lost Library of Congress server. The data could set Nina and her team up for years...

If they live that long.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Review:
You know that moment when you first start reading a book and know immediately that it's going to be your jam? That was me with Deal with the Devil. I was immediately entranced with the world and enamored with the characters. I didn't want to put it down for a second and once I finished it I wanted to start at the first again because it was that good. I've been trying to write this review for a bit and I'm having a hard time getting my thoughts out in a way that's not me screaming "GO READ THIS BOOK NOW!". So I'm going to do something different with this review. I'm going to tell you the five reasons why you should read this book.

1. This book is the found family trope on steroids. For each of our main characters, Knox and Nina, their teams are their family and they are protective of them. Watching the two teams come together and interact was fun and made me laugh out loud on several occasions. I would liken them to the post-apocalyptic version of The Brady Bunch with the two families becoming an integrated unit. I loved the banter between the groups and I can't wait to see what I think are going to be romances in the coming books come together.

2. I am a sucker for badassery and this book has it in spades. Knox and his crew are super soldiers who went AWOL and Nina's girls aren't anything close to damsels in distress. I quickly fell in love with all the characters in this book! I loved how competent and confident Nina, Maya, and Dani are! I loved learning bits and pieces of everyone's backstory and I am hungry for more. I want to know why Conall is the tech genius and how Rafe became so charming and I just want to know more about Gray period. I also want to know about Maya and Dani's abilities and I want to see them all get happily ever afters.

3. I feel like this probably doesn't need to be said but MERCENARY LIBRARIANS. This book is about mercenary librarians who are cataloguing and sharing all the knowledge they get the hands on with their community and the world. It was amazing! But it also read like a post-apocalyptic Indiana Jones and I never knew I needed that in my life. This point should be number one and should be the only reason you need to go get your hands on a copy of this book. It made my Evelyn Carnahan and Rick O'Connell loving heart so happy!

4. The worldbuilding in this was amazing! It was super soldier sci-fi at its best! It was gritty and foreign yet familiar all at the same time. It also gave me the same vibes as the worlds in Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels and Hidden Legacy series and it deserves the comparison. It was glorious! I read one review that said that Kit Rocha's dystopian erotic romances take place in the same world and I'm tempted to try picking them up again just to read more books set in it.

Another thing I appreciated about the world building was the quiet queerness of this book. One of the members of Knox's crew is into guys and it was treated as normal in this world. Nina comes across as either bisexual or pansexual (it's not obviously stated) and I'm here for it. I need more books like this in my life where queerness is an accepted and integral part to the world without focusing on having to come out or deal with homophobia.

5. The romance! Not only this book a high octane adventure, it is a road trip romance and I loved every second of it! It was hot and sweet with an edge of infuriating. I was rooting for Knox and Nina to come together but I also wanted to slap Knox upside the head more than once. I won't say much about why because spoilers but I was kept on the edge of my seat with all the will they or won't they? This book also has what looks like the start of a couple other romances and I am here for each and every one of them. 

There are more than five reasons why you should read this story. I could go on and on about the plot and the curveballs it threw and how it kept me guessing and made me gasp when we first meet the big bad but those five are the ones I'm going to stick with for now. Overall, I can't recommend this book enough! It had everything I loved rolled into one story that you'd think that Kit Rocha downloaded all my book crack preferences straight from my brain. I loved this book so much that it has easily made it onto my favorite books of the year list so far. I need the sequel in my life yesterday so the year wait till August 2021 might kill me. I'm just going to have to make sure to reread this a few more times before then to make the wait more bearable, I guess.

ARC provided by the Publisher via Netgalley

    

  5 / 5 Stars

Book #33: Soldier Street- Read a Romantic Suspense Where the H/H is in an Action Pose on the Cover

Recommended for fans of:
Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews
Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews
Blood of the Wicked by Karina Cooper
Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik