Review: “Beyond Surrender,” Kit Rocha

Pros: Such a sweet, hot romance
Cons: …
Rating: 5 out of 5

Kit Rocha’s Beyond Surrender (Beyond, Book 9) concludes the war that has broken out in her post-apocalyptic erotic romance Beyond series. Nessa is every O’Kane’s younger sister–she grew up around the gang, and she’s also the key to their wealth with her skill at distilling liquor. As she is a sort of younger sister, none of the regular gang members are about to put the moves on her. But she likes sex, and she wishes for the kind of partnership some of the other gang members have found. Unfortunately, any smart men interested in her probably just want the money she could make for them. And frankly, she isn’t too fond of the not-so-smart men. She recently met Ryder, the head of Sector Five who was raised to be a weapon, to win a war against Eden that’s already begun. And oh, does Ryder look delicious (although she really needs to teach him how to appreciate fine liquor). Luckily he has more than enough wealth of his own and has no need of hers, and he’s just as interested in her as she is in him. The question is whether the two of them can carve out happiness in the middle of a war.

The war hits its climax in this volume. Noah uses his skills to kill Eden’s electricity. There’s an interesting subplot as he goes up against Penelope, Eden’s top hacker, who’s loyal to Councilman Markovic but believes him to be dead. The sectors plan to use Markovic in some propaganda of their own with the goal of getting as many of Eden’s citizens as possible to either join on their side or even just sit the whole thing out. It’s time for the sectors to strike at Eden, before Eden can mess up the sectors too much more. This becomes particularly clear when Eden finds a new way to strike at Sector Four, leaving quite a few people dead and injured.

I like that there are so many interesting characters we’ve come to care about that it’s possible to introduce painful losses into the story without robbing us of the romance-genre expected Happily Ever After (which might be tempered a little in this post-apocalyptic, dystopian setting, but is still basically intact).

Ryder and Nessa are probably the simplest pairing in the series so far, and the most straightforward. The situation of the war itself, and how they were both raised, puts enough obstacles in their way. Nessa is more than a little raw and crude herself, so there’s plenty of straightforward sex and sex talk. The sex in this one is straighter than in the others–straight m/f, no kink, no orgies.

I don’t know if this is meant to be the last book in the Beyond series. It is the last book in the full-series bundle I bought, which probably indicates that it is. However, I noticed recently that Kit Rocha has started a spin-off series about Gideon’s Riders, so I look forward to that!