Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha – Review

Published: July 28, 2020

Publisher: Tor Books

Series: Mercenary Librarians #1

Genre: Dystopian

Pages: 336 (Paperback)

My Rating: 3.5/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

Deal with the Devil is Orphan Black meets the post-apocalyptic Avengers by USA Today and New York Times bestselling author duo Kit Rocha.

Nina is an information broker with a mission–she and her team of mercenary librarians use their knowledge to save the hopeless in a crumbling America.

Knox is the bitter, battle-weary captain of the Silver Devils. His squad of supersoldiers went AWOL to avoid slaughtering innocents, and now he’s fighting to survive.

They’re on a deadly collision course, and the passion that flares between them only makes it more dangerous. They could burn down the world, destroying each other in the process…

Or they could do the impossible: team up.

This is the first book in a near-future science fiction series with elements of romance.

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Alrighty then, let’s talk about the new Mercenary Librarians series! First of all, if you want a book with tons of good looking characters who are all highly skilled at something go ahead and add it to your TBR. All the characters are either super hot super soldiers or stunningly gorgeous genetically altered babes. And they’re all soooo touchingly good at heart.

Despite my sarcasm, this was an incredibly entertaining book if you suspend disbelief and accept that this is like a cheesy tv drama. Also, there’s minimal librarian stuff going on here. I was expecting something like near-future Indiana Jones hunting down hidden information and dodging booby-traps. The only booby traps here are the trio of women hunting down the information. Hahahah…. Wow that was awful. I loved them though – they had an incredible bond of sisterhood and they were tough, smart, and always looked out for one another and their little corner of the community. The guys of the Silver Devils were all equally lovable and I just couldn’t help but to ship them!

Spoiler alert! Your ship dreams might come true because this does have a romantic element to go along with the action. It’s just as corny and touching as you might imagine and yeah, it was fantastic. I do think the romance took away from the plot toward the end because it seemed to become the central focus of the story. I was hoping for more data hunting danger but that was definitely not the focus in the latter half. It starts out that way… but then the two groups get together and become friendly and it turns rather character driven.

All in all, it was a fun book and I’m planning to pick up the sequel whenever it might be released. That being said, dial back those expectations if you’re expecting female Indiana Jones searching for hidden data caches because that’s mostly superficial in this installment. I do hope in the next book that the author really shows off the Mercenary Librarian vibe and balances the romance and action a bit better.