Monday, June 21, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy/Romance Review Book Review: Beyond Surrender by Kit Rocha

 




Beyond Surrender is the ninth and final book in Kit Rocha's erotic romance "Beyond" series.  It's a series that I've really enjoyed* as it featured couples and groups of guys and women falling in love, exploring each others' passions, desires, and oh yes their bodies in increasingly sexy ways, all the while telling a series-long plot of them all fighting for the freedom to do just that.  Its characters have generally been tremendous, and of course yes the sex scenes are really really fun, but the last two books turned more plot heavy than the prior ones, with the romance scenes suffering a little as a result (although Book 7 made up for it with amazing sex scenes).  So I was curious to see how the series' concluding volume would work out.   

*For a basic summary of the series, see my review of Book 7, Beyond Ruin, here*

And the answer is mixed.  On one hand, the series concludes finally with a romance featuring a character who I've been waiting to see featured since book 1 - the young liquor (whiskey) expert Nessa, prone to gossip and complaining everyone treats her too much like a kid sister to give her anything themselves.  On the other hand, the romance and sex between her and Ryder isn't really as memorable as some of the earlier romances in the series, which might disappoint some series regulars.  But it works really well, and Nessa and Ryder are great characters and the series' action conclusion - with not everyone making it out in one piece but it all winding up in a satisfying conclusion.  

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------------
Until the war, Nessa was the O'Kanes' secret weapon, the teenage girl (now 19 or 20) responsible for making O'Kane liquor the premium product that has bankrolled Dallas O'Kane's rising empire.  Making Whiskey has been in her blood, thanks to teaching passed down from her grandpa who took her from Texas to Sector Four at Dallas O'Kane's call.  But while Nessa has seen her fellow O'Kanes fall in love and into passionate happiness, she's always felt frustrated by being overprotected as the kid sister, and wishes she could find someone unafraid to share that passion with her.  Of course, with her latest crush being on Ryder, the new revolutionary leader of Sector Five, it seems unlikely to ever happen.

But Ryder is not what Nessa expects.  Oh he's a super spy raised by a conspiracy minded master planner to fight a war against Eden, the war they're now all fighting, who has thought about practically nothing his whole life but the mission - whether that be infiltration Sector Five or then turning its resources against Eden itself.  But he also knows what it's like to be raised special apart from everyone else, losing one's parents early, and what it's like to be lonely despite one's gifts.  And though he isn't an O'Kane, there is a passion there, a passion that Nessa brings out in him.  

Of course there's still a war going on, and with Ryder desperate to be on the front lines, there's no guarantee it'll last for long - and he's too honest to promise otherwise.  But in the end, it isn't just Ryder's life on the line, but everyone in the Sectors and in Eden, and passionate love may not be enough to triumph overall in the end.....
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The Beyond series is an erotic romance series - meaning you're in this series not just for a standard romance, but for the characters exploring each others bodies, and well....fucking.  The series' highlights tend to be tremendous sex scenes in which our protagonists, often with the help of others in full blown out orgies, figure out what really gets their partner and themselves off and well....do so repeatedly.  I for example have a number of those scenes, plus other non-sex-scene romantic scenes, that I revisit from time to time when I want something joyous to read.  And when the couples/groupings in each book fall apart due to their own problems and problems caused by the outside, they generally get back together with some more passionate sex that is highly enjoyable to end their volumes with.

Beyond Surrender doesn't have much of that.  We have our main couple discovering each other and that's it - no help from anyone else, not particularly kinky or explorative with how they're having sex, etc.  This is not to say the few sex scenes aren't very fun, just that they're not as memorable in their content as in some of the prior books - even book 8, which I had a similar complaint of, featured Hawk and Jeni getting help from Gia in a really memorable exploration of pain and pleasure.  

Here's the thing though - the rest of Beyond Surrender works so well that it doesn't really matter too much.  The book takes place along the backdrop of the end of the war with Eden, in which a desperate Eden is more dangerous than ever, and spoiler: not every named character comes out alive, including one character who is an absolute heartbreak to lose.  And that's a tough context for the two characters we see here: Ryder, who has built his whole life around planning for and then winning this war, and has never given a thought to anything else, and Nessa, the girl who has spent her whole life brewing liquor in peacetime as her grandpa taught her, and has been the reason the O'Kanes have gotten rich, but whose talents aren't really that useful in wartime.  

It's a couple that could be considered opposites, but Rocha makes it so easy to love them and to believe in their connection even as Rocha throws in a few tricks to get them together (locked together in an elevator with the power off?  Oh yeah).  It helps that, unlike book 8's couple, we've known Nessa since book 1, and I've really wanted to get to know her personally and to see her finally get the pleasure she'd complain of being left out of, thanks to being the golden child among the O'Kanes, in prior books.  Rocha makes it so easy to care for the two of them, and Rider's singlemindedness and needing to find something to actually live for beyond that makes him a perfect foil for her, the girl who can't really stick to anything for very long other than her family business.  So while the sex isn't the most memorable, the characters absolutely are, and I loved them both so much....and it made them the perfect way to end the series.  

And well, this is the end of the series, although the book continues to setup the spinoff series Gideon's Riders by introducing new characters for that series and further featuring the Ashwin/Dora couple that's the first one in that book.  Which I'll be checking out eventually, since my library has those!  But they're not advertised as "erotic romance" as much as more classical romance (with occasional sex scenes) in those books, which is what I will truly miss in this series, which got so so good along the way.  

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