SciFi/Fantasy/Romance Book Review: Beyond Ruin by Kit Rocha: https://t.co/gfSWQY4yIq
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) May 27, 2021
Short Review: 9 out of 10
1/3
Short Review (cont): The 7th "Beyond" post-apoc erotic romance novel features a quarter: self-exiled prince Mad, junkie doctor Dylan, rocker Scarlet, and Jade, whore turned spy & businesswoman, as they ignite their passion while Eden turns on them. A series highlight easily
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) May 27, 2021
2/3
Beyond Ruin is the seventh novel in Kit Rocha's "Beyond" series, their post-apocalyptic erotic romance series which began with Beyond Shame. If you haven't read my other reviews of the series and are starting here, let me give you a quick breakdown of what the series is:
In a future where solar flares wiped out technology and caused a breakdown of society, a city called Eden exists for the wealthy and supposedly puritan around what used to be Nevada and thinks themselves above it all. Surrounding Eden are the eight Sectors, in which people live with whatever law their leaders can impose, which provides for the city in their own various ways - drugs from Sector Five, farming from Sectors Six and Seven, sex from Sector Two. But the series revolves largely around Sector Four, led by bootlegger Dallas O'Kane and his O'Kane gang, who preaches the right people to freely live their lives, loving and fighting for others, and a whole lot of passion(ate sex), with each novel featuring at least one member of his gang and at least one other person falling together into a passionate romance, before their own issues and outside circumstances threaten to force them all apart and require them to figure a way to make up to each other and make it work. Oh yeah and each novel features a LOT of sex scenes - and quite frequently orgy scenes - along the way because this is an erotic romance series, and they are really damn hot.
Beyond Ruin takes a new leap for the series in that it not only features a quartet (five of the six previous book featured a pairing at its center, with only book 4 Beyond Jealousy dealing with a trio) but also in how it manages to split the focus nearly evenly among the main quartet in such a way that the usual book arc doesn't apply. And it throws in major new developments in the series' overall plot arc, which turns things on their head. The result is a hot as hell erotic romance book featuring a M-M-F-F grouping, with characters struggling to reconcile their wants, their pains, and their hopes for themselves and others, in passion and otherwise, that comes together incredibly incredibly well. Oh and did I mention how insanely sexy it all is? Good lord. Yeah this is a series highlight.
Adrian Maddox fled Sector One, the Sector where his grandfather made his name as supreme religious prophet, where he is worshipped as a saint, for the life of the O'Kanes in Sector Four, where he can be just another foot soldier, fighting for Dallas' cause, and providing love to those who are temporarily wounded. But Mad has always seen more in Dylan, the high doctor who loves him, than anyone else, and also has recently taken a passionate longing for two other women in his orbit: Jade and Scarlet, although he could never let himself commit to anything.
Meanwhile Dylan shares Mad's interest in Jade, but could never feel himself to be worthy of anyone else after what he did for Eden, and so he remains content with Mad and his drugs.
Jade is a trusted and secretly powerful member of the O'Kane gang, thanks to the resources she kept when she was able to escape her life as a whore and spy for Sector Two's ambitious leader (thanks to Lex). But Jade has always felt removed from everyone else, unable to trust almost anyone with even her real name, and unsure if she's giving pleasure because of her own training or because of her own desires. And so she has stayed comfortably with Scarlet as a lover, despite her interest in Dylan and in Mad, despite Mad's infuriating seeming refusal not to see her as a victim.
Jade is a trusted and secretly powerful member of the O'Kane gang, thanks to the resources she kept when she was able to escape her life as a whore and spy for Sector Two's ambitious leader (thanks to Lex). But Jade has always felt removed from everyone else, unable to trust almost anyone with even her real name, and unsure if she's giving pleasure because of her own training or because of her own desires. And so she has stayed comfortably with Scarlet as a lover, despite her interest in Dylan and in Mad, despite Mad's infuriating seeming refusal not to see her as a victim.
And Scarlet, hard rocker from Three who survived its initial bombing to scrounge out a life for herself is happy with Jade...even if she looks at Mad and wishes he would make a move as well, even if she isn't sure she'd be willing to give up control to anyone else.
But when Eden finally makes its move, and unleashes hell on the Sectors, the world Mad, Dylan, Jade, and Scarlet know is torn apart, forcing them to fight for what they truly believe in, and for the people they have been too afraid to believe in, more than they ever wanted. And the conflict will push the four of them together into a passionate embrace and love into a flame that will burn hotter than any of them could have imagined in their wildest dreams.
But when the devastated sectors and the threat of Eden intrude on their newfound relationship, will their flame be able to survive it all? Or will it fall apart, taking them each with it?
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Typically the Beyond books have followed a pretty strict formula, if a really effective one. Guy and Girl (or in book 4, guy and another guy and girl) fall together in passionate love after a long time of doubting the other, it's tremendous for a while and then other circumstances make Guy (or one of the guys) doubt and do something stupid to cause a breakup - until he can come back on his knees passionately begging for forgiveness. The thing that causes the temporary breakup in the last two books haven't necessarily been the guy making a dumb mistake, but the formula still remains the same of: Couple gets together, one member driven by circumstances threatens to break it up, before he makes it up to her.
Beyond Ruin follows this formula the least of any of the books so far, because not only do we have a quartet here instead of a duo or trio, but all four members of the quartet are equally broken with their own issues, as we've seen to a smaller extent in the prior books. And so yeah we do wind up with a similar formula to a certain extent - we do wind up with series events pushing our foursome together, where they discover each other in incredibly passionate moments of sex and conversation only for those same events to threaten their newfound connections. But the way it all comes back together isn't any one person having to seek forgiveness, because what drives each of them apart isn't the actions of one of them....but the actions and brokenness of each other. It's Jade's need to do good for the people she left behind at all costs and to show she is something more than the programming of her training; it's Mad's need to be a hero even if he publicly refutes it and fear of power for what it made his grandfather; it's Dylan's trauma over helping inflicting pain and inability to open up without pushing others away; and it's Scarlet's own trauma over what happened to her family in the Sector Three bombing and her need to be in control as a result, and her fear of it all happening again. It is all of their own personal traumas that push each other away, that they need to realize before they can reconnect.
This works incredibly well really, which makes a book that easily could have gotten derailed by plot - and there is a LOT of series-long plot arcs going on now that we're in the endgame of the story (with the book even starting to setup the spinoff series with asides at this point) - but instead pushes an incredibly well done erotic romance featuring four equal people, even if their needs for each other isn't always fully equal at any given time. Oh and yes, the sex is as hot as fucking ever. So this is definitely a damn highpoint in the series, and I'd love to see more of this quartet in future novels/novellas from Rocha.
But when Eden finally makes its move, and unleashes hell on the Sectors, the world Mad, Dylan, Jade, and Scarlet know is torn apart, forcing them to fight for what they truly believe in, and for the people they have been too afraid to believe in, more than they ever wanted. And the conflict will push the four of them together into a passionate embrace and love into a flame that will burn hotter than any of them could have imagined in their wildest dreams.
But when the devastated sectors and the threat of Eden intrude on their newfound relationship, will their flame be able to survive it all? Or will it fall apart, taking them each with it?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Typically the Beyond books have followed a pretty strict formula, if a really effective one. Guy and Girl (or in book 4, guy and another guy and girl) fall together in passionate love after a long time of doubting the other, it's tremendous for a while and then other circumstances make Guy (or one of the guys) doubt and do something stupid to cause a breakup - until he can come back on his knees passionately begging for forgiveness. The thing that causes the temporary breakup in the last two books haven't necessarily been the guy making a dumb mistake, but the formula still remains the same of: Couple gets together, one member driven by circumstances threatens to break it up, before he makes it up to her.
Beyond Ruin follows this formula the least of any of the books so far, because not only do we have a quartet here instead of a duo or trio, but all four members of the quartet are equally broken with their own issues, as we've seen to a smaller extent in the prior books. And so yeah we do wind up with a similar formula to a certain extent - we do wind up with series events pushing our foursome together, where they discover each other in incredibly passionate moments of sex and conversation only for those same events to threaten their newfound connections. But the way it all comes back together isn't any one person having to seek forgiveness, because what drives each of them apart isn't the actions of one of them....but the actions and brokenness of each other. It's Jade's need to do good for the people she left behind at all costs and to show she is something more than the programming of her training; it's Mad's need to be a hero even if he publicly refutes it and fear of power for what it made his grandfather; it's Dylan's trauma over helping inflicting pain and inability to open up without pushing others away; and it's Scarlet's own trauma over what happened to her family in the Sector Three bombing and her need to be in control as a result, and her fear of it all happening again. It is all of their own personal traumas that push each other away, that they need to realize before they can reconnect.
This works incredibly well really, which makes a book that easily could have gotten derailed by plot - and there is a LOT of series-long plot arcs going on now that we're in the endgame of the story (with the book even starting to setup the spinoff series with asides at this point) - but instead pushes an incredibly well done erotic romance featuring four equal people, even if their needs for each other isn't always fully equal at any given time. Oh and yes, the sex is as hot as fucking ever. So this is definitely a damn highpoint in the series, and I'd love to see more of this quartet in future novels/novellas from Rocha.
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