Review: “Beyond Ruin,” Kit Rocha

Pros: Wonderful depiction of group love; great plot progression
Cons: …
Rating: 5 out of 5

In the latest installment of Kit Rocha’s post-apocalyptic erotic romance series, Beyond Ruin (Beyond, 7), we concentrate on four characters. Jade was raised as a courtesan and spy in Sector Two. With Lex’s help she escaped, and she’s become a part of the O’Kanes. Now Sector Two has been bombed by Eden, and she’s determined to rescue as many of Sector Two’s girls as she can. Adrian Maddox is the “prince” of Sector One–the grandson of their Prophet, and the cousin of their leader. He escaped his responsibilities to come to Sector Four and the O’Kanes some time ago. Dylan is a doctor who used to work in Eden. He’s rather broken after being forced to help torture prisoners, and even now that he’s escaped to the sectors he gets high to escape his emotions and memories. Scarlet is a musician and street rat and Jade’s girlfriend. She doesn’t believe she has anything in common with the other three comparatively highly-placed people in our tale, but she’s strong and fierce and not afraid to go after what she wants. All of these four people have feelings for each other except perhaps Scarlet/Dylan. So far Scarlet isn’t very impressed with the good doctor. As our characters work to help the remaining people of Sector Two, Dallas plans for revolution against Eden itself. But Eden has its own events going down.

The connections between all four of the characters are wonderful. Even Scarlet and Dylan become close as the group gradually comes to accept that they all love one another. There are some gorgeous (and very explicit) sex scenes with all four characters in one bed, including m/f, f/f, and m/m sexual material. I did find that some of the descriptions in the foursome get a little confusing as to who did what or who moved where. They were a bit harder to picture than other Kit Rocha sex scenes.

I liked getting to see more of the religion of Sector One and how Mad fits into it. We also discover that not all of the Sector Two girls want out of their “calling”. And Eden isn’t the monolithic entity it seemed.

The plot progression is really taking shape. Someone poisons Mad. Dylan and Jade find themselves scouring Sector Two for survivors. Dylan is putting together a hidden hospital. Jade is finding new homes for the courtesans-in-training of Sector Two, and it looks like she’ll get roped into doing a lot more. Ashwin–Cruz’s highly dangerous contact inside Eden–finally comes looking for that favor he’s owed, and events inside Eden take some unusual turns.

This is a wonderful installment in the series, and I’m looking forward to more!