Tag: Dystopian

Kit Rocha-The Devil You Know

It is a known fact that I love Kit Rocha books. The two talented ladies behind the books have written some of the most aggressively feminist books I’ve ever read, really well balanced with strong female characters and strong male characters. The Beyond books, which I often describe as fucking to save the world, is dystopic and post-apocalyptic. The Mercenary Librarian series, which is so far only 2 books, The Devil You Know is the second, takes place in the same world as those books, but in Atlanta, instead of out West, like the Beyond books. You don’t have to have read the Beyond books to know what is going on in this series, but you do need to read the Mercenary Librarians in order.

Our prime couple in this book are Maya and Gray. They have both been modified by Techcorps. Gray has had implants put in his brain and was turned into a super soldier and sniper. That’s why he’s one of the members of the Silver Devils. Maya’s brain has been messed with, and she has perfect recall. PERFECT. RECALL. As in, if she had a lover who was tortured in front of her, she would never be able to forget it. She was used as a data courier by one of the VPs of Techcorps. The VP, Birgitte, put all of her secrets into Maya’s head. Everything is in Maya’s head, including the revolution that Birgitte was fomenting. When Birgitte was “promoted”, Maya escaped Techcorps, faked her death, and met Nina and Dani.

Now, years after that, her little group of friends has swelled from just Nina and Dani to also include the Silver Devils, including Gray. She’s always totally aware of Gray. She likes him, but she’s worried. That’s because for most of her life, Maya has been told that data couriers’ brains will basically break down because of all the stimulation that gets absorbed into their brains. She works really hard at keeping the stimulation low so that she doesn’t waste any of the time that she has left. But Gray. He tempts her so much. She wants him. She likes him.

Gray has his own secrets. One of them is that his implants are failing. His life is counted in months, if not weeks. But he has such strong feelings for Maya. He really wants to get closer to her, but he doesn’t really want to leave her and he really doesn’t want her to fall in love with him and then have to suffer after his death. But there’s just something about her. He has to be around her, protect her, and help her. In fact, he trains her in a new technique that Maya ends up being really good at, and loving a lot.

I really like both of these characters. They are both really strong. They each have their own weaknesses, I mean, they are human. No human is perfect, not even super soldiers. The thing is, neither Gray nor Maya take advantage of the other’s weaknesses. Instead, they prop each other up in those weak places. They each help the other be a better them. They don’t make each other complete, because both Maya and Gray are complete on their own, but what they do is make the other more. It’s like 1+1=2.5, not just 2. They are better together than they are apart. And I think that is beautiful. That is one of the things that I really like about Kit’s books. Yes, the characters have growth to do, and they might not be the healthiest, mentally, but each character is complete in themselves, or is becoming that way. They don’t need to have a partner to complete themselves, and the relationships make each person better, not whole. Does that make sense? It really does in my head.

The romance in this one is a slow burn, but it fits for Maya and Gray. The story, though, that isn’t a slow burn. We do get glimpses into other people’s heads, with their own chapters. I really like that, because it does let us see more of what is going on. I can’t wait for the next book. It’s going to be so good.

OK, that’s it for today. Go check it out! Happy reading!

Addison Cain-Corrupted

So, if you’ve read here for a while, you know that I love omegaverse. You may also know that Addison Cain’s Alpha’s Claim series was the first omegaverse series I read. And Addison has finally come out with the 5th book in the series, Corrupted. She’s been teasing us for so long with it, and finally she took mercy on us. And? The next one is already up for pre-order, and I’ve already hit that button, thank you very much.

We’re in Bernard Dome with Brenya and Jacques. She’s been forcibly pair bonded to him and she’s not really all that happy about it. She hates Jacques, and now she’s stuck with him in her head all the time. He, on the other hand, is thrilled as fuck. He thinks that he’s madly, passionately in love with her, and he has this omega now, and it’s perfect. He also thinks that Brenya is madly in love with him, even though it’s pretty obvious that she’s not. She just barely tolerates him, and the only thing that gets her through is a blank, quiet spot in her soul. She falls into that space when Jacques gets too overwhelming and is able to handle everything.

Meanwhile, Jules, who was also bonded to Brenya at the same time, is sitting in a cell. He’s just sitting in the same space, not moving, not doing anything. Just sitting. And, as we all know that Jules is Shepherd’s right hand man, I think that Jacques should be very worried about this. But, nope, Jacques is sure that he has everything under control because he has a rabid dog on a leash.

Over on the other side of the world, in Greth Dome, we have Shepherd and Claire. She’s getting healthier and she’s happy, but she doesn’t want to leave the house. Shepherd isn’t going to put up with this, so he’s being his normal autocratic assholeish lovable self. #AlwaysAndForeverTeamShepherd He has plans, lots and lots of plans.

I have ever liked Jacques, and I’ve never made any secret of it. He wants to be what Shepherd is, but he isn’t that smart. I mean, he thinks that he is, he thinks that he’s all that and an extra large bag of chips, but yeah, not so much. This book didn’t make me like him. In fact, I may even dislike him more than I did before. There is only one action that he took in this book that I am happy about. Other than that, he can just go and kick rocks.

I am #TeamJules 1000000%. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for him because he is just so very much together and so steady and stoic. I’m pretty sure that there is a whole lot underneath that we haven’t seen yet. Jules was a good friend and good support to Claire in her early days with Shepherd, and that’s part of my soft spot for him.

Brenya? Yeah, she is pretty fucking awesome. She’s not in a good spot, and she doesn’t handle the world she’s currently living in well, but that’s not a huge surprise. I mean, living in this rarified lap of luxury where pretty much everything goes has to be so weird for Brenya, who is very much by the book rule keeping kind of person. She has figured out how to deal with the world where she grew up. She liked that world. She understood the rules, the edges, and the boundaries. But there are no rules where she is, and the boundaries shift constantly. She can’t cope. But, for all of that, she’s still pretty fucking awesome. She is brilliant, and she manages to make connections that no one else would make.

I am, as always, madly in love with Claire and Shepherd, and I can’t wait to see what is going to happen with them next.

I have so many thoughts, but I’m not putting any of them here, because they would be spoilers. Just know that the book is great, and there is so much going on in it, and I’m still trying to see if I can guess what Shepherd’s plans are. I’m pretty sure that I can’t.

Felicity Brandon-Her Dark Nemesis

This is the 3rd of the Gates of Fortorus books. I don’t know if Felicity is leaving this world alone now that we’ve gotten through Her Dark Nemesis or not. I’m not sure if I want to be really mad at her if she is or to be satisfied with the ending of this one. The ending is a wow, for sure, and frankly, I think that I’m happy with either way that Felicity choose to go. Of course, that didn’t stop me from yelling “Damn you, Felicity!!!” when I got to the end. My husband has now gotten used to me yelling lke that during books and doesn’t even try to get me to explain anymore, which is good, because it’s hard to sometimes. As a reminder, there will likely be spoilers for the previous books. I’ll try to limit them, but because of the way that they are written, it’s hard.

So, Caroline has managed to get out of the Commander’s headquarters. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she beaned him with a decanter and she’s pretty sure that he’s dead. All she knows is that now is her big chance, and she’s not going to miss out on it. So, she grabs some of Harper’s clothes and leaves through the window. Since she’s been with him, she knows roughly how to get out of the grounds, so she heads that way. That’s when she discovers that she’s not the only person out there.

Caroline and her companion manage to get out of the Fortorous grounds and find a farm to hide on, with a sort of friendly farmer, who tells them where they are, and gives them some food. But, then come the guards, and things change. Caroline ends up back in the Commander’s quarters.

Meanwhile, while Caroline is out and about, running free, Harper has been found bloodied and unconscious on the floor of his quarters. His private doctor comes and helps him out, and tells him that he needs to get checked out better, but there’s just one smalll problem. Or more like one huge problem. The President is about to show up and Harper doesn’t want him to know that anyone has escaped, let alone Caroline. It would be a huge problem, altogether, and it would just make the President even more paranoid and crazy, which yeah. Luckily, for Harper at least, they are able to capture Caroline and bring her back.

There are incels, and then there is this douchebag. I mean the President is basically the Incel King. The only way that he’s getting any play right now is because he can force women into it, literally. I mean, the women just have no choice. I don’t think that there is anyone who is going to orchestrate a takeover like the one described here, but I guarantee that there are men in the world who would be more than happy to do everything that the asshat is doing in this book, without a qualm. Ugh. I really want to use some KGB-esque poisoning methods on him. (Dear FBI, please understand that I’m only talking about the douchebag president in this book and I would never, ever hurt President Biden.)

Caroline still has all the fire and spunk that she has had in the previous two books. I think it’s going to take a lot of work for that to go away. She is still torn between the different parts of herself, and I still understand why. She really is in an unteneable situation, and it’s not something that I can ever even imagine what I’d do in her place. I mean, I’d like to assume that I’d be like Caroline and fiesty, because well, I am fiesty and I have a small issue with authority, but until you are in her shoes, you just can’t know. I just have one question for Felicity though. So many of her heroines are writers. Are we seeing some serious fantasy here? LOL.

Harper. Well. I can’t go into what I’m feeling abaout him right now without getting into serious spoilers. Let’s just say that the things I like about him are still there.

Oh, I don’t even know what I should put here. I know what I want to put where, but that would be more spoilers than I ever put anywhere. Let’s just say that I’m still stunned by the end.

OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!

Top Dark Reads of 2020 pt. 2

OK, we’re back for part 2 of my top dark reads of 2020. Keep in mind, these are in no particular order, and just because something doesn’t get mentioned doesn’t mean that I didn’t think it was dark, it’s just that these are the ones that really stuck with me. (You should see how many GR, Zon, and WordPress tabs I currently have open, lol)

Natalie Bennett-Periculum

Natalie Bennett tends to write dark, twisted, and fucked up, and this one is no different. I don’t know why I didn’t look up the definition of periculum back when I wrote my blog post, but I did today, for shits and giggles. It means danger or risk, and that totally fits for this book. Anyway, this book stars Lana and her friends, as well as Ciaran and his friends. There’s an accident, there’s some strange and terrible things, and there’s lots of darkness and twists, so, yeah, Natalie Bennett. This is the first book of a duet, and the next one comes out in March. I can’t wait for it.

Addison Cain-Swallow It Down

You didn’t think I was going to create a dark list without an Addison Cain book, did you? Yeah, that will likely never happen. Swallow It Down is another near future, post-apocalyptic, dystopian story. Yes, I have a type. LOL. This takes place 6 years after the bombs have dropped, and what’s left of humanity is huddling around each other in small places, trying to survive. Except for Eugenia. She’s trying to get to this one specific place she heard about. She heard it was safe. But then she runs into this huge ship, and well, things change. Even months after reading it, I’m still wondering about certain things.

Kitty Thomas-The Game Maker

Kitty is one of the OGs when it comes to dark romance. And she will fuck your brain over with nary a blink. She has created some of my favorite male characters, and one of the best mindfuck books ever. Go check out Comfort Food. But today we’re talking about The Game Maker. Now, knowing that it is a Kitty Thomas book, and it’s got a title like it does, you might think that there are some mindfucks and twists around the corner, and you would be right. I never knew what was going to happen with this one.

Loxley Savage-Feathers and Fire

Feathers and Fire is a 3 book series. It’s a MFMM, RH, PNR. (My husband laughs at all the acronyms in Romancelandia) The books in the series are Bound for Blood, Cursed to Crave, and Freed By Flames. The story is about Trinity, who has spent her life as a slave. As a child, she had frequent blood draws. As an adult, she’s a sex slave in high demand, mostly because, as a 1/2 succubus, 1/2 phoenix, she can take a lot of abuse and heal quickly. Trinity goes through hell through all 3 books, but she becomes who she is and who she should be by the end of book 3. Books 1 & 2 end in cliffies, but the whole series is out, so you can go read it all back to back. Which is what I did. And I was just like WTF through a lot of it, in a good way. It is dark, it is dirty, gritty, and wow.

Alright, there we are. My Top Dark Reads of 2020. Go check them all out!

Top Dark Reads of 2020 pt 1

Happy New Year’s Eve! It’s 7.5 hours until 2020 ends where I’m at, and I’m wondering what other things it can shove into those last few hours. Hopefully nothing, but you know what this year has been like. But, let’s forget about that for a while and focus on the 810 books I’ve read this year. Today’s post is the first part of the darkest reads I’ve read this year. Some of them I put on my blog, some were just pleasure reads, so let’s get started, shall we? Now, remember, these are in no particular order.

Felicity Brandon-Her Dark Protector

This is the first book in Felicity’s Gates of Fortorus series. (my post) The second book has just come out, and it will be on the blog in the next couple of days. This is a dark, dystopian, near future story. It is really gritty, dark, and dirty. It’s the story of Caroline, an author who was taken into Fortorus, along with thousands of other British women. They are mistreated and tortured, and it’s just not good. But the book was great. Definitely go check this one out.

Emma Jaye-Pied Piper

This is an MM book. It’s part of the Grim and Sinister Delights book, which is a multi-author PNR series. It isn’t a shared world so much as it’s a shared theme series, around fairy tales. In this book, we have a male siren and a wolf shifter. Domino is the siren, and as a male siren, his family wants to fuck him, get bred by him, and then kill him so that they can get the magic from his bits and pieces. As you might guess, Domino isn’t down with that, so he’s run. Jude is a bounty hunter who is on the search for Domino. When they meet, everything starts to get cloudy. There are some really intense scenes in this book, and I honestly didn’t know what was going to happen sometimes.

Raven Dark & Olivia Alexander-Devil’s Outlaw MC

So far, this is only a 2 book series, and the ends are cliffies. I know that book 3 is in the works, but apparently, Spider is an asshole with his authors too. I follow Raven so that I know when things drop. The first book is Evil’s Price, and the second is Evil’s Pawn. The premise of the series is that Emma, who is escaping from a religious cult, has ended up working as a waitress at a strip club owned by the Devil’s Outlaw MC. She ends up stealing from the club, and Spider, as the Sgt-at-arms, is tasked with dealing with her. Let’s just say that Spider’s way of dealing with her issn’t all that nice. When I say that he is an asshole, I’m being generous. I hate him. I also am oddly fascinated by him. When the 2nd book came out, I literally put the book I was reading on hold until I read Pawn. And I read it until late into the night.

Adara Wolf-False Feathers

False Feathers is part of the Grim and Sinister Delights books. This one is based on the Goose Girl. It starts with Aiden, whose mother has arranged a marriage for him. Not just a marriage, but one to a fae prince. She sends him off with a servant, and well, bad things happen. Adara Wolf writes a lot of dark, dub/non con MM, and her books are always intense and always stay with me. This one was no different.

OK, that’s all for this one. Check in tomorrow for part 2 of my Top Dark Reads of 2020!

Felicity Brandon-Her Dark Protector

OK, you might have noticed that I like dark, dystopian stories. There’s just something about the dark, grittiness of it all. One of my favorite stories in that genre is The Handmaid’s Tale. Spoiler, it’s also one of the scariest stories I’ve ever read, hands down. So, when I read the blurb for Felicity’s Her Dark Protector, I was really fucking excited. It sounded really awesome. And I was not wrong. And it does give me the same kind of feel that Handmaid does. It’s not that Felicity copied it or anything, but it’s the same vibe, and I think that’s great.

So, we are in near future England. In September, 2024, something called the Edict was passed. The Edict basically turned all the female citizens of the UK into non-citizens. And even more, it basically turned them into property. Women lost all their credentials, jobs, everything. Women have been pulled away from their families, husbands, children. Some women have even been killed. It’s not good. Not good at all. Many, many women have ended up in Fortorus, which means for the brave. But what it really should mean is hell. Because that is what it is. This is the story of Caroline, who is one of the women who was taken to Fortorus.

Caroline was a novelist before E-day. Now she’s just one of the women who live in Gamma block of Forotorus. They are supervised by a man named Mitchell, who is just disgusting. He calls them whores and treats them terribly. The women sleep on filthy mattresses, don’t have enough clothing, don’t have enough food, aren’t able to shower, aren’t warm enough, have to stand outside daily in all kinds of weather, and get physically disciplined. And oh, the women also have to deal with whatever Mitchell wants to do to them, and it ain’t pretty. All in all, the women aren’t really living, they are existing, and just barely at that.

Fern, who is another woman in Gamma, has become Caroline’s friend. One morning, Mitchell decides that Fern is the victim of the day. He drags her away to his office. Then later, when the women are all standing in parade outside, waiting for the Commander General to show up, not that he ever does, Fern gets dragged outside, and then put up on the whipping pole, where she gets whipped 6 times. This isn’t, you know, a consensual kind of whipping. It’s a “I hate you and am going to do everything I can to hurt and damage you” kind of whipping. And that’s what happened. Then they leave her hanging there. Eventually, she gets brought back into the building where they live, but Fern has to spend the rest of the day working, with wide open wounds on her back. After dark, Caroline volunteers to go to another building, all the way across the compound, to hopefully get some first aid cream that can help Fern. The worry is that she’ll get caught, and that will be epically bad.

And of course, you can guess what happens. Because it would probably be a really short book if Caroline doesn’t get caught out of bounds. She does, and things happen.

Caroline is such a fascinating character, and I think that she is a very realistic one. She is very much fighting with herself over what she thinks she should do, what she can do, and what she will do. I think that’s a position we would all be in, and we can’t say what we would do in her situation. I mean, there’s just no way to predict what anyone is going to do at any point. I would like to say that I would smash the shit out of Mitchell when he came to take Fern if I were Caroline, but, you know, I can’t say I would, especially since I would be so outmanned, outgunned, and outplanned, boom. (Sorry, I’ve watched Hamilton like 3 times this week.) But, as much as Caroline wants to protect her friends and get her own back, self-preservation is a thing to. It’s your brain’s instinct to protect yourself, which means you actually have to fight against your own instincts in order to put yourself at risk. And, in Caroline’s place, fighting Mitchell would end up doing nothing, really, because Fern would still get dragged away and hurt, and may even have gotten hurt worse. And Caroline would’ve gotten hurt, just as badly.

So, is Caroline doing the right thing by standing by and taking care of Fern when she gets back, or should she be fighting, or what? What even is the right thing here? This is what makes the story for me, that struggle that takes place within Caroline. Don’t get me wrong, all the external struggle that happens is great, and there’s some seriously sexy stuff that happens, but it’s all that internal struggle that Caroline has that really drives it for me. And honestly? I don’t think that is an answer as to what the right thing to do is. I sure as hell don’t know one.

I’m really looking forward to the next one. I have so many questions that I want answers to.

Nothing below the pic today. Go check this one out! Happy reading!

Addison Cain-Swallow it Down

Surprise! Addison, the tease, has dropped a new book for us. Swallow it Down is a holy fuck of a book, and it will leave you trying to figure out exactly what you just read and then scratching your head trying to make sense of what you just read. Don’t worry if you are left feeling slightly used up at the end of this book, I think most of us are. I know that I was. I’m still not sure if the ending is a HEA, HFN, or just the end. And I love that.

This is post-apocalyptic and dystopian. Basically bombs dropped all over the place, and now, 6 years later, civilization has completely broken down. There are pockets of people living in various places, but you really don’t want to just fall into those places, because they ain’t too great.

Against this backdrop, we have Eugenia. She has managed to somehow survive the last 6 years. She’s killed people in order to stay safe, when she couldn’t manage to sneak away, talk herself out of trouble, or escape. She’s willing to do a lot of things in order to stay free and find a good place to be. She’s heard of a place to be safe and she’s taking no chances. She’s even managed to pick up a traveling companion named John. He may be a whiny little twat, but there is some safety in numbers. He did push her to take a shortcut, and now they are stuck on it. It’s hot, there’s no water to drink, and they are surrounded by a lake full of poison. And suddenly, there’s a flash of light off in the distance. There’s a boat, a very, very large boat, in the distance. And what’s more, it has electricity.

Eugenia knows better, but John drops his stuff and decides to jump into the water and swim for the boat. She waits to see what is happening, and decides that she’d rather go out fighting than not, so she swims out to the boat. Where she is promptly grabbed and sent to Level 15.

I like Eugenia. I think she is snarky, smart, funny, clever, and witty. She manages to keep a lot of men liking her even if she isn’t giving them all what they want. She also manages to stand up to the Captain, which is an interesting choice on her part. As much as I do like, I also think that she is naive. I get it, I mean, she wants to believe that there is some good left in the world, I don’t blame her. Before the bomb dropped, she had a pretty cushy life, and she still has the filters that nice life gave her, even after 6 years of living hard after the bomb. I don’t think that it’s a failing in her, but I don’t think she ever really had to face some hard choices before, so it’s easier for her to believe that there are good places to be out in the world. I think that if she had had some roughness in her life before the bomb dropping, she might be a little less naive.

Aaron, the Captain. Hmmm… I don’t know that he’s good or evil I think that he just is. If I were to create him as a D&D character, I would give him a chaotic neutral alignment. I understand his choices. I can even agree with *some* of them. But, that said, I wouldn’t go about certain things the way that he does. I know that a leader has to make hard choices and that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one and all, but there are just some choices and actions that are heinous for anyone to have to make. And I think that Aaron would make those choices, quite easily. Honestly, I can’t tell you if I like him or hate him. I think it varies from moment to moment. Maybe even from word to word. I think, among other things, that he may be a pure sociopath. Or, at the very least, have sociopathic tendencies.

Like I said, this was a holy fuck book. I loved every word of it, and I literally ignored my family the entire time I was reading it. My poor kitty kept trying to get me to pet him, and I made him leave me alone, which should tell you how involved in this book I was. I think that this is going to be one that I read and reread often. And I think that I will come up with a different conclusion every single time I read it.

OK, that’s all for this one. No spoilers today. Go to your favorite bookseller and check it out! Happy reading!

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Kit Rocha-Deal With the Devil

I love post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. One of my absolute favorite series is Kit Rocha’s Beyond series. (The first one, Beyond Shame, is available for free on Amazon) I recommend it to people often, and generally describe it as fucking to save the world. And it is that, and there is a whooooole lot of fucking. But it is so much more than that. The series is subversive, funny, sad, intense, dark, light-filled, and a helluva good story. The ladies who make up Kit Rocha have done a fantastic job with worldbuilding, creating something that is gritty and realistic without being over the top or so dark and dirty that you don’t want to experience the world. It feels very real, and the characters in it become friends and family. In fact, Jas, from the first book, is one of my 3 core book boyfriends.

Anyway, when I heard that there was a new series in the works, the Mercenary Librarians (best series title ever, right?) I was all like sign me up! I knew that it wouldn’t be in the Sectors like te Beyond books or the spinoff Gideon’s Riders books, but it would take place in the same world, just a different location. So, I started counting down the days until Deal With the Devil came out, and I was not disappointed one little bit, not that I expected to be.

So, for those who are unfamiliar with the world in general, it takes place in the middle of the 21st century. The world has basically fallen into complete hell. There were Energy Wars, and all manner of unrest. Then, finally, about 40 years before the books take place, there were massive solar flares that did huge amounts of damage. Now, the world is very local. People don’t do a lot of traveling, instead they live in safe-ish towns and cities, and the empty spaces in between are the homes of raiders and who knows what else. It’s very much a case of safety in numbers, and also very much might makes right. Those in power can be ruthless, corrupt, crooked, and do some terrible things. This series takes place in Atlanta and at the moment, there is very little crossover with the Sectors, which are in the west. Atlanta is ruled by the TechCorps HQ and their Protectorate. And of course, they are pretty absolute about their rules, and Atlanta is pretty much a company town.

In this setting, we have Nina and her partners, Maya and Dani. They are a team and each has her own specialty. They are all modified and trained so that they can be the very best they can at their specialty, and they are that. Nina is an information broker. If you want information on something or you need something moved or found, Nina is your goto lady. She will get what you need and get it to where you need. And heaven help anyone who gets in her way. If they are lucky, she will only hurt them, a lot. If they aren’t, she will kill them, and do it quick. The 3 ladies are the cornerstone of their neighborhood. They help take care of people, including doing things like printing out books for people to read, digitizing books that they can find so that they can print them out for people, providing freeze-drying services so that people can store the food that they grow, instead of having to buy from the company store. (And yes, I have Tennesse Ernie Ford and 16 Tons running through my head while I’m writing about the company store) All the ladies ask is for a percentage of the food or a fee to cover the paper costs. Nina, Maya, and Dani are also working on renovating their basement so that there is a warm, safe place for winter for the people who don’t have one. They aren’t really idealists, but they are very much leaders, especially Nina.

Then we have the Silver Devils, Knox, Rafe, Connall, and Gray. The Silver Devils were the best team that the Protectorate had to offer. Then Knox started going off the rails. He made decisions that didn’t quite match the goals of his superiors. So, they locked the men up in see-through cells, and let Mason, their medic die. You see, these guys all have bio-engineered implants that make them stronger, smarter, whatever. But the implants need periodic adjustment, otherwise they start to fail, and when the implants fail, the person gets sick and eventually dies. That’s what happened to Mason. It’s not a quick process, and it could be called torture. That experience made the Silver Devils leave. But they are now in trouble because their biohacker has been kidnapped and their implants are all starting to fail. The kidnapper has told them what the ransom is. It’s Nina. The Silver Devils are to bring Nina to a certain location, and they will be able to get their biohacker back. Now all they have to do is to come up with a hook with which to catch Nina. And what do you bait a hook meant to catch an information broker with? A lost library.

So, Nina is pretty awesome. She’s everything I expect from a Kit Rocha heroine. She’s ballsy, strong, vulnerable, loyal, loving, and a leader. I like her better than I like Knox. It’ not that I don’t like him, it’s just that I identify with her more. There’s just something about her that is really powerful. I’m not going to say that she’s like Lex, or Six, or Jyoti or any of the O’Kane women, (I just chose those 3 because of their positions in the Beyond series), that would be a disservice to all of them. What I will say is that all the women are cut from the same cloth or at least the same kind of cloth. I’m pretty sure that there would be a lot of respect in between Lex and Nina. In fact, I really hope in some future book that they manage to get together. That would be totally epic.

We don’t get to learn as much about Maya and Dani as we do Nina, because she is the focus of this book. But, we do get in their heads a little bit. I really like how Kit Rocha doesn’t always just give us POV chapters of the main characters. That lets us meet the supporting cast and become friends with them before we get their book. I think that Dani is really going to be fun. And probably murdery. But fun.

So, let’s talk about Knox. He is not a bad man. He has done some bad things. There’s a difference. He is a desperate man. I also think that he’s afraid. Things are way out of his control, and he doesn’t know what he can do, and his team is starting to fall apart, including him, and the stress isn’t making things better. It will be interesting in later books to see if there is a difference between Knox in this book and him in those books. I like him. I like how he is willing to go to extremes to make sure that his men are going to be OK. I don’t necessarily agree with the extremes he’s willing to go to, but I respect the actions. He does have a journey to go through in this book, and it’s one that really opens his eyes.

Now that I’ve read DWTD, I’m now counting down the days until the next one. And when I binge read the Sectors again, and it will happen soon, since it always is coming soon, DWTD will go right after.

OK, that’s all I have to say today. You should definitely go check this one out! Happy reading!

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Alison Aimes-Stolen

We have another new to me author today, with Alison Aimes and Stolen. This is a futuristic story that has some aliens in it too. It’s a nice combo, and one that I really appreciated.

Here’s our story. We start out with a young DaKar who is living with his father, step-mother, and younger half brother. He half Martian and half elithe, which is the ruling Earther families. Because of that, his step-mother hates him, especially since he’s his father’s heir. One day, the family is throwing a huge ball, and DaKar is staring over the rails at everyone, and there is a beautiful girl that he somehow feels very connected to, and when their eyes meet, all he can think is “Minel”.

Fast forward a few years, and DaKar, who is now a Warlord with his mother’s family, has come back to Earth because his father has died, and he’s got to fight with his idiot brother and evil step-mother to get his rightful inheritance. The elithe want to have very little to do with him because he’s a heathen half-breed, but they still want him around, because juicy gossip. He knows that he’s going to have to fight with everyone to get his estate, but his plan is to get it, sell it off, and then go back home to Phobos. At one of the first balls he goes to, he is out in the garden, being really, really, really friendly with another woman when he happens to look up at a balcony and see a beautiful blonde. The two of them connect, and he starts talking dirty to her, but the woman he’s with thinks he’s talking to her. Nope, not so much.

Lady Aurora has been going around to all the big balls and stealing bits of jewelry. It’ss not that she’s a thief, really. She’s just desperate. You see, she has spent the last year living with her horrible, terrible, disgusting, evil stepfather, and she wants nothing more than to escape. But he keeps a very tight grip on her. Very tight. She doesn’t have any money that she can spend and he keeps all her jewelry for her, so she has to steal and pawn things so that she can try to get the money she needs to escape. One night, as she’s trying to make a clean escape, some ladies come into where she is, so she has to sneak out on the balcony so that she can hide. Then she sees a golden skinned man with a woman in the garden, and their eyes meet.

Turns out that they are having a Martian meeting heat, and they have the start of a soul bond going on, but DaKar isn’t interested, and he tells her that he can control it. Aurora is still just drawn to him, and is aware of him, no matter where he is. And no matter how much DaKar wants to hide it, he’s just as drawn to her too.

I thought that Aurora was really brave. She knows that her stepfather is an evil son of a bitch, and she’s scared, but she’s still taking steps to do what she can to get the fuck away from him. She might not be going about it the right way, because it can be hard to tell real from fake, and she has to seek them to a pawnshop, which means she’s not getting anywhere near what they are worth, and frankly, I think her fence is cheating her, a lot. But, with what few freedoms she has and the space she can get, this is what she can do. So, there’s that. I also think that she’s incredibly fierce. She stands up to people, when she can, and she fights back, when she can. Sometimes she has to stand quiet, but only when she has no other choice. I really like her.

DaKar is a good man who has been through a lot and has been hurt a lot. It takes him a minute to get through all that, but no matter what, his heart is in the right place. He wants to take care of all the little people on the estate, and even goes out of his way to hire people his stepmother and brother had fired. No matter what, his plan is to make sure those people are taken care of. He has a deep streak of honor and courage, and he’s generally pretty smart. Sometimes he’s an idiot, but we all are at some point.

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Ugh, there are so many fucking assholes in this book. Soooooo many.

OK, that’s all for today. Go check it out! Happy reading!

Leann Ryans-Used

Used is Leann’s latest Omegaverse book. It’s slightly different to her other books. Mostly, because this one has a lot less consensual stuff going on than her other books. Elise goes through a whole lot of stuff in this one.

So, here’s how the way that this world works. Omegas are a commodity. When they come of age, they are supposed to go to a center so that they can be “matched”. For matched, read they are basically placed on a galactic auction site, where all the alphas basically try to buy them. The whole process is supposed to be good for the omegas, and they are supposed to be treated well once they are in the center, but that’s not how it happens. There are terrible doctors who don’t want to be nice to her, and nurses who enable them. But, there is one woman there who befriends Elise and tries to make everything better for her. Her friend helps her with makeup and hair, and promises that she’ll find the best match for Elise.

Fast forward a couple weeks, and Elise has been matched to Tiral. On her trip to his planet so that they can mate, pirates take out the ship she’s on. The pirates want to get to Tiral or his father, because they want them to make some changes. But, nope, they aren’t there. They have Elise.

I like Elise. I think that she is a little naive sometimes, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, really. At the same time that she’s naive, she also has a real understanding of her world and how it works when it comes to certain things.

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I like Leir, a lot. I like that he’s thinking about all the people and wants to make things better.

OK, that’s all for today. Go check it out! Happy reading!

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