A full-throttle read! I can't wait to see what happens next!”—Jeaniene Frost, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Night Huntress seriesBooklist , *STARRED* reviewDeal With the Devil ] is a solid sci-fi debut with unforgettable characters.” —Bookpage , *STARRED* reviewNew York Times and USA Today bestselling authorNew York Times and USA Today bestselling authorNew York Times bestselling authorNew York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely seriesPolaris Rising New York Times bestselling authorKirkus Reviews Publishers Weekly Library Journal Deal with the Devil ] has identified a pressing need: information may want to be free, but it also wants to kill us.” —The New Scientist
2020-03-15
In the near future, a wave of solar flares has rendered the world’s power grids useless. People have found a way to survive, though: by supporting a mysterious scientific conglomerate, by selling important information, or by acting as hired muscle. Despite his biomedical enhancements, Capt. Garrett Knox of the Silver Devils, a squad of supersoldiers, is in a race against time to rescue one of his team members. The ransom: a mercenary librarian named Nina. After doing some reconnaissance, Knox suspects that Nina is not a typical human, and his team’s plan to snatch her off the street is quickly ruled out. Instead, Knox hopes to lure Nina and her squad of information brokers into a trap. Knox insists he knows the location of the rumored Rogue Library of Congress, a motherlode of confidential documents and records that were saved by federal employees when the original Library of Congress was shut down. Nina can’t resist a score like that and agrees to assist Knox in locating the RLOC bunkers hidden across a decimated America. Nina and Knox feel a lot like superheroes with their enhanced abilities and altruistic feelings toward ending corruption through the freedom of information. Readers may be craving an action-packed good-triumphs-over-evil story right now, and this book delivers a hopeful ending in the midst of a bleak setting. Rocha’s trademark trope of found family is very much present, and the chemistry and tension between the romantic leads has never been better plotted or paced. The primary shortcoming is the constant repetition of background information, which creates frequent hiccups in an otherwise thrilling page-turner.
A risky and frisky adventure.
02/10/2020
Rocha, the pseudonym for writing duo Donna Herren and Bree Bridges (the Beyond series), matches the relentless action of this postapocalyptic thriller (and Mercenary Librarian series launch) with simmering sexual tension. It’s the latter half of the 21st century, solar flares and energy wars have all but destroyed human civilization, and Nina and her team of librarians work as “information brokers” with deadly combat skills. When Capt. Garrett Knox, leader of the Silver Devils, a gang of rogue soldiers who’ve broken off from their former employers, TechCorps, to avoid the slaughter of innocents, approaches Nina with a job for the librarians, they team up to recover the Library of Congress archives from seven underground bunkers scattered across the U.S. As they race to unearth the archives before TechCorps finds them, sparks fly between Nina and Knox, but hidden agendas and looming danger stand in the way of their happiness. Rocha capably deploys found family and forbidden love tropes while keeping readers on their toes with unpredictable action beats. This postapocalyptic tale of espionage and romance will have readers eager to know what happens next. Agent: Sarah Younger, Nancy Yost Literary. (May)
12/01/2019
In postapocalyptic Atlanta, many are scrounging for their lives. This includes Nina, who not only leads a small team that finds artifacts to make money, but discovers lost information and digitized works to help her community. When Captain Garrett Knox offers her a lead on a bunker containing backup of the Library of Congress servers, it seems too good to be true. Especially since Knox is the leader of the Silver Devils, an elite squad of super soldiers who cut loose from the Protectorate. Yet the temptation is too great to resist, so Nina, Knox, and their teams join to hunt the bunker through treacherous outlaw territory. The treachery is not just outside, however. The Silver Devils are trying to recover their kidnapped biochem hacker—and the ransom is Nina. VERDICT Rocha (coauthor, Ivan ) slide into traditional publishing with a high-action, high-stakes sf romance. Intriguing characters, tragic backgrounds, and a few twists comprise a strong launch to this new series.—Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton
Lidia Dornet narrates a sci-fi romance set in a postapocalyptic America. Two mercenary groups team up to track down missing Library of Congress material, but they face unexpected challenges and treachery. Dornet is at her best when voicing the two leads, Nina and Knox. Despite having similar backgrounds, they approach life very differently: Nina is optimistic almost to the point of naïveté, while Knox is jaded and rapidly becoming bitter. The chemistry between the two is crackling and immediate, and Dornet nails it. Less successful are her portrayals of the remaining five characters, who are not always easily distinguished from one another. Listeners should be aware of several scenes with extended graphic violence. K.M.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Lidia Dornet narrates a sci-fi romance set in a postapocalyptic America. Two mercenary groups team up to track down missing Library of Congress material, but they face unexpected challenges and treachery. Dornet is at her best when voicing the two leads, Nina and Knox. Despite having similar backgrounds, they approach life very differently: Nina is optimistic almost to the point of naïveté, while Knox is jaded and rapidly becoming bitter. The chemistry between the two is crackling and immediate, and Dornet nails it. Less successful are her portrayals of the remaining five characters, who are not always easily distinguished from one another. Listeners should be aware of several scenes with extended graphic violence. K.M.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
