Tuesday, September 22, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Beyond Pain by Kit Rocha


Beyond Pain is the third novel in Kit Rocha's "Beyond" series, their 9 book (and several novella) long series of post-apocalyptic erotic romance novels.  Each book in the series has dealt with a new romantic grouping, with occasional check ins on other characters, and this book is no different from the others in that regard (shifting to masochist O'Kane lieutenant Bren and Six, the woman from Sector 3 who had previously been abused by that sector's late leader).  The first two books seemed to escalate in terms of the sex scenes and in terms of telling the overall series story as they went on, so I was curious if Rocha would be able to continue doing that here, especially as our focus shifted away from the leaders of the cast.

And Beyond Pain doesn't escalate the sexual content - it simply shifts it to a new form, as Six and Bren are very different in their backgrounds, interests, and needs from our prior protagonists.  Even more than any of our prior couples, both Bren and Six have had some serious trauma in their pasts that utterly messed them each up, and the book really explores well how that affects their abilities to trust - both each other and themselves in both sexual and non sexual contents.  Oh and there's still some really damn hot sex scenes littered throughout this book, I don't think the series will ever change there.  The ending does follow a bit of a repetitive pattern for the series, but otherwise, yeah this is another great addition to the series that make me want to continue with it at some point.


------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Coming to Sector Four may have been the most confusing thing in life for Six.  After her life in Sector Three ended with her trust in that Sector's leader - the late Trent - being shattered when he began to abuse and use her without her consent, Six has told herself to trust no one, and that promises of caring are never on the level.  But Sector Four, run by the somehow both dictatorial and tolerant Dallas O'Kane, confounds Six - it can't seriously value everyone's wants, desires, and abilities to say no, can it?  And then there's Bren, the O'Kane lieutenant who has taken it upon himself to be her caretaker, who seems to make no overt move towards her after months, and whose gaze turns her body on against her mind's will.

For Bren, Six is less of an enigma, but a mirror: a fellow lost child who suffered in brutality who has to relearn what it means to be a valued human and that they aren't broken.  Bren is a lover of his own pain, a masochist, and in Six he suspects he sees a kindred spirit, but he knows he cannot push her too hard - and he will not, knowing what it is to be broken.  What he will do is reintroduce to her the pleasures of the world, a world that can be pleasurable for everyone, to help her heal....and because he finds her damn attractive in her own right.

Six and Bren's growing passion will only build and build, as the two of them explore what it possible in the real freedom of Sector Four.  But when a figure from Bren's past reemerges, the figure responsible for his own breaking, what will he choose when faced with a choice between a future with Six and revenge on the one responsible for his tragedy......and what will that choice mean for Six?
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In some ways, Six, our main protagonist of this novel (with Bren as our co-protagonist but really the 2nd lead to Six's primary), is similar to the first book's protagonist, Noelle.  Like with Noelle, a large portion of this book has to do with Six discovering new sexual possibilities and which of them fit her own desires, with the male coprotagonist being Six's guide to it all.  But it stems from entirely different places, which makes all the difference - the idea of these sexual activities isn't new to Six (like Noelle) but the idea they could be aimed at providing SIX with pleasure - instead of just the man - is something she can't quite grasp.  Whereas Noelle had to learn to say no, even when her body feels like saying otherwise, Six had to learn that "No" could even mean something.  This all goes beyond sex of course, as Six's history of having her trust shattered and abused has made her inwardly refuse to believe she (or any of the women in Sector Four) can have any real decision making authority or worth to others.

But of course, then there comes Bren.  Bren is the other lieutenant to Dallas other than Jasper, but is very very different from Jasper - Jasper is a gang lieutenant with a heart of gold, who came from a rough childhood that he's long moved past....he does't think of himself of having skeletons in his closet or of being a bad person.  By contrast, Bren does think of himself as a bad person trying to make up for it all, and while he insists that his masochism fetish isn't related to that (as he claims it originated well before he did his past acts) it certainly fits his own self-damning.  The result is that he sees Six as something broken like what he himself broke in the past, and he sees in her something he can hope to help fix, with her healing being perhaps a bit of redemption.  And of course, he finds her damn hot, but his understanding of her brokenness allows him to love her slow when he knows she needs that - putting her needs above his own - and to make it very clear when they're exploring that she can always stop at any point.

This results in some very different sex scenes than in the past novels - whereas Lex and Noelle and their partners were totally into orgies and bodies upon bodies, Six can barely trust herself to trust one person, so their sex scenes are for the most part (one BDSM scene features a second person but he's very much secondary) just the two of them.  Which doesn't mean that Six doesn't have a massive fascination with watching others (and confusion over her desire to watch), so yeah, we get one threesome in this novel anyhow!  And yeah the sex scenes are still tremendous, but of course you should expect that by now.  But honestly Six's journey might be the most clear of any of these novels, and I kind of liked it the most, which is what makes this one stand out.

If there's an issue with this novel, it's that 3 books in things are getting a little repetitive in plot structure - the main protagonists start exploring sexually and romantically for the first 50-60% of the novel, despite the issues they have, which they begin to resolve, and then the male protagonist does something stupid and doesn't tell the other person about it, leading to a separation before final reunion.  It works here - Bren's mistake is specific in terms of what it means to Six and understandable, and the book takes a late act twist and moves it in way that i didn't expect - but it's still getting a bit old, especially if like me you make the mistake of reading several of these books back to back.  I hope we get some changes in how things work in the future......because I will be coming back to these after a break.
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