Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha [Review]

Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha
Deal with the Devil (Mercenary Librarians #1) by Kit Rocha
Format: ebook
Source: provided through NetGalley
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Date read: July 4, 2020

Mercenary Librarians
1. Deal with the Devil - Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle
2. The Devil You Know
3. Dance with the Devil

Kit Rocha
| Website | Amazon |

Synopsis (Goodreads):
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.
Thoughts on Deal with the Devil: This is one of those books I didn't know I needed until I picked it up. I mean, obviously I thought I'd enjoy it (because have you read Kit Rocha's other books???), but I wasn't expecting it to crawl under my skin and settle in the way it did. It worked for me on a lot of levels and OMG THAT ENDING!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll start with Nina and Knox. Nina who is so cheerfully optimistic (although that might be the wrong word) despite everything she's endured. She genuinely wants to change things for the better and she finds a way to make it happen (along with her librarian sisters) no matter what roadblocks are thrown in her path.

Knox is...a little less optimistic. He's battle-worn and recent losses have ground him down to the point where he makes a few questionable decisions to save the people who look to him for leadership. But Nina rekindles the spark of decency in him (not that he was ever morally corrupt or anything. Yeah. It's complicated. Sometimes good people have to do bad things to protect those who matter most.) and THINGS HAPPEN.

Seriously. This book. It was very good. Very VERY good. A crumbling, post-apocalyptic world where living the good life comes at a high price and those who choose to fight are battling uphill while trying to protect those who can't protect themselves. And because it's something I genuinely adore about KR books, the core ideas of found family and forgiveness and accepting those around you as they are hit all my happy buttons. Nina's librarian sisters might not be her sisters by blood (or however you want to put it), but they are hers all the same. Just like Knox's team are his brothers.

And somehow, this big, blood-thirsty group makes it work. Eventually. You know, after a few battles and threats and other bloody things. (And OMG THAT ENDING!)

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