Wednesday, February 3, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Beyond Innocence by Kit Rocha

 



Beyond Innocence is the sixth book in Kit Rocha's Beyond series, their series of post apocalyptic erotic romance novels.  Each book is a stand alone romance between a couple or grouping of characters that get involved with Dallas O'Kane's gang that controls one of the slums in this world.  But each book also continues to build a series wide plotline of a found family of people coming together to make a life of love, sex, and happiness in a harsh world, with multiple romances along the way.  In short, you could in theory start with any book in the series, but you're gonna miss a lot if you don't read the earlier books first.  

Beyond Innocence is both like and unlike other books in the series - like in books 3, you have a couple of a guy and a girl where the girl is basically unknowing about the idea that sex can be had between equal consenting partners to give pleasure to both parties in a relationship.  Unlike in prior books however, neither of the main couple are members of the O'Kane gang to start, here we follow a pair of outsiders drawn into the gang's orbit, each trying to figure out their place in a world that is growing more complicated, where each of their pasts are impossible to go back to.  It works pretty well as usual, with one tremendous orgy scene that might be one of the longest in the series.  

--------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
Lili's life has never been under her own control.  Her father, the former leader of Sector Five, gave her as a trophy wife to his sociopathic second in command, who murdered the rest of her family.  She spent her marriage constantly high on drugs, until she finally had enough and escaped to Sector Four, where she spilled her husband's misdeeds to Dallas O'Kane.  Now her husband is dead, and the O'Kanes are letting her hang around Sector Four....but her supply of pills is running out, and what is there for her in Sector Four, this place where the women and men seem consumed with passion...passion that surely can't be real, right? 

But then Lili meets Jared.  Jared got rich being a well known whore to the puritans in Eden and Dallas and his former colleague Ace have been after him for years to join the O'Kanes.  And finally, to ensure Ace's safety, Jared agrees to help Dallas by spying in Eden, a dangerous task, where being caught will result in torture....or worse.  And so, Jared thinks nothing of the idea of trying to help Lili find her footing - he's never found a permanent love of his own and he knows that he's teetering on the edge of disaster, and likely won't be around much longer to enjoy himself. 

But to both Jared and Lili's surprise,  they find something in each other: Lili finds a pleasure in passion and sex that she could never have imagined and Jared finds something in her own pleasure.  And soon the two of them will find something permanent for each other in Sector Four...if it will last long enough for them to enjoy it....
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Beyond Innocence in a way seems like a combination of the first and third books in this series:  Like Book 3, which focuses upon Six and Bren, we have a girl in Lili who doesn't understand how sex is really about both parties in Sector Four, with pleasure for both the guy and the girl being equally important (or between both guys or both girls when that's the case).  Like Book 1, which focused upon Noelle and Jasper, we have a girl who is naive and innocent of all the possibilities of intimacy, and all the varieties of pleasure that can come from it.  And in Jared, like many other male protagonists in the series, we have an experienced guy to help guide Lili through it all.  

Lili's difference through from Noelle and Six is that well, Lili truly is innocent of the ideas of sex, with her ex-husband having no interest in using her in that way.*  She may not understand the idea of consensual sex for the benefits of all parties just like Six, but unlike Six - that's because she honestly doesn't understand the concepts of sex, not because she's used to sex of the non-consensual variety.  She's lived a sheltered life in a horrifying place under a horrifying man, with no friends or loves or any pleasures other than what she was allowed, and so the idea of freedom, the idea of choosing ones own desires and pleasures is something that is difficult for her to get through.  And so Jared, whose very job for years was providing pleasure to the rich in Eden for money, is a perfect person to guide her, as he knows how to guide the naive to pleasure....but with Lili there's nothing cynical about it, she really is innocent and needing help, unlike his former clients.  

And so, through some tremendous sex, Lili develops quite a bit.  Despite her innocence, she already was a girl who was willing to leave a shitty situation on her own two feet, and willing to walk into the unknown and shoot a man in her way.  And so while Jared finds himself trying to shelter Lili from the dangers he's walking into - dangers he's walking into because he truly loves Ace and wants Ace and his found family to keep surviving even if he himself hasn't bought in to the O'Kane legacy fully - Lili isn't willing to take that.  And so of course when the two have their falling out moments, it comes with Lili showing her steel and saving the day as much as if not more than any other prior Beyond Heroine (Lex is the only one who comes close six books in) and it is a triumphant moment that forces Jared to rethink things.  

Through this all the book continues the series-long arc of the O'Kanes trying to deal with their growing power drawing attention to them from all corners, particularly from the bigwigs in Eden who have the true power, and the dangerous soldiers of The Base who might be secretly planning a revolution.  And that plus Jared and Lili forms a really strong plot for the romance to be built around, which is as enjoyable to me at this point as the romance.  Which is not to say the romance is secondary at all in the story - it's still the primary attraction and well: one of the latter sex scenes, featuring Lili, Jared, and a couple other O'Kanes from prior books in a full on orgy is perhaps the best the series has ever pulled off.  

So yeah these books are still tremendously fun and sexy and even more so highly recommended for anyone looking for some explicit fun. 

*I know it doesn't really work for what this series is, but I kind of wished the series could've used a different protagonist and made Lili an ace protagonist, to show how someone could live in Sector Four as a respected ally of the O'Kanes without diving into their ways of sex and pleasure.  But well, you don't read this series for characters avoiding sex deliberately so that's not Lili.  

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