Wow! This story bristles with energy, wit, and inventiveness and under it all a deep appreciation for the best in people. Perhaps the "angels of our better nature" is too strong of a phrase but I kept coming back to that as the characters in Rocha's tech/corporate hellscape keep reaching for what makes them human, what allows them to connect, what inspires them to do better and to make others better. It was exactly the book I needed right now in the midst of COVID-19 and I tore through it.

Society has fractured under the Flares which has ripped away the technological ease under which people lived and forced communities under the control of corporations who coldly manipulate the traumatized people through genetics, implants, and bioengineering. Nina is a refugee from one of those institutes and has been left to build her own family out of great loss. I loved her team. The women who are smart and strong and have each other's backs. Bechdel test passed in the first chapter! Maya and Dani have their own pain and their own agendas and I really appreciated that although Nina is front and center, we still see so much of their stories through their own viewpoint.

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

I'm going to admit that the Mercenary Librarians series title is what really pulled me in. And while this was okay, there was a lot more romance (that was kind of instaloveish) then I thought there'd be. And while I loved Nina's pov, Knox's was a bit flat.

I really wanted more of the Atlanta community and more of Nina's crew being Mercenary Librarians then anything else.

What I liked:

1) Found families. Okay, they're mercenaries but still...families by choice. And so much loyalty, devotion, and understanding. And much razzing and teasing too, of course. The relationships between the characters were fantastic and the highlight of the story.

2) Lots of action. I mean LOTS. It was dizzying at times but it helped move the story along and kept things from being quiet. There's not a lot of introspection but it's not that kind of story.

3) Interesting world-building. It was confusing sometimes but also intriguing, and given our current state of politics in the US, scarily possible. The plausibility added to the story and gave it depth.

4) The use of humor. I smiled and laughed more than I anticipated. I liked that the characters, though intense, still had humor and could find the humor in their lives.

What I didn't like:

1) While the world-building was plausible, other parts were not.

2) Too much headhopping. I like multiple POVs but this was too much.

3) Last, and likely to get tomatoes thrown at me, too much sex for me. I wasn't surprised by the amount of sex, I expected it given who the authors are, it's just more than I like it in a book. But as I said I expected,m and knew going in, that it would be more than I like to read. I just skimmed those scenes and kept going. As with pretty much anything in a story, for some readers it will be hust right and for some it won't be enough.

Will I read more in the series? Probably, though I may wait and see if my library gets them in. Not a must read.

Deal with the Devil is an unusual book. I was drawn in by the premise -- bad ass librarians save and share knowledge in a post apocolyptic United States. The novel is a bit hard to classify as there are elements of fantasy, dystopian and romance all rolled into one. If you have a romance reader who wants some action and violence mixed in with a cautious love affair, this would be a great fit. Lots of action, great story and spicy romance made this an enjoyable read. Fans of Ilona Andrews and Patricia Briggs might really enjoy this one.

Fabulous dystopian adventure with some badass women and the men who fall in love with them. I love the world the authors created and I can’t wait to read more in this series.

The heroes of the near future, of worlds starved for knowledge and restricted by authoritarian regimes, are genetically-engineered soldiers and six-shooter-toting horseback riders. They know how to cross unforgiving deserts teeming with poisonous snakes and vicious bandits, how to calculate the most brutally efficient combination of moves to neatly dispatch their enemies before they’ve even landed the first blow. And they’ll do it all with their most treasured tool in their hands or on their backs: a book.

Because they’re librarians. Every single one of them. Because the only people who are going to save our future are the ones who still know what the truth is, and who are willing to bring it to the people who need it most.

In an intriguing bit of synergy, 2020 is shaping up to be the year of the librarian. Sarah Gailey’s Upright Women Wanted stows away with the Librarians, a cabal of female and nonbinary folks who cross through a future that has reverted to its Wild West roots, on a mission to deliver the State’s Approved Materials to those in need of knowledge and entertainment. In a similarly dystopian reality, but with a more explicitly science fiction bent, Kit Rocha’s Mercenary Librarians make a Deal with the Devil in order to recover a time capsule filled with lost files from the Rogue Library of Congress.

Despite their different settings, both futures are extrapolations of our present, in which some national or global event cuts off the common person’s connections to the outside world, narrowing their scope and creating conditions under which ideals and empathy are sacrificed for the sake of self-preservation. Chafing beneath the State’s sinister simplification, or TechCorps’ economic stranglehold, survivors can see no further than making it to the next day. The existence of people who don’t conform to the idea of mainstream (cisgender, heterosexual, binary) identity are written out of reality, excised from the narrative. The truth—the fact that these are real, flesh-and-blood figures with voices of their own—is no longer regarded as an objective reality. The truth becomes a luxury that people can no longer afford to uphold or seek out. It is in danger of being erased entirely, a lost relic of the past.

Except for those who know how to read between the lines.

Like Esther, who tries to lie her way into the Honorable Brigade of Morally Upright Women, doing Rewarding Work Supporting a Bright Future for the Nation’s Children. Initially it’s because she thinks she can hide all of the parts of herself that make her a danger to the State, believing that she can pluck out every impulse that makes her special, like tearing pages from a censored book. But instead of losing herself in some form of State-approved sisterhood, some literary nunnery, Esther discovers the real reasons behind why the Librarians put themselves through danger, and the significance of what they deliver via their mobile library. Her Wild West apprenticeship uncovers a truth that is greater even than the temptation of safety.

Like Nina, who recreates the “third place” that libraries have always occupied between the home and the office: a community space, where children can delight in weekly movie nights and adults can trade freeze-dried foods for other resources. Even in the shadow of an omnipotent corporation that sets the lower classes fighting amongst themselves for scraps, Nina and her fellow Mercenary Librarians enact the most radical form of protest: They give away knowledge freely, printing books and sharing digital files instead of hoarding or demanding money that people don’t have. They re-expand people’s worlds.

In some ways, Nina and Esther are simply the latest members of a long-running club, their stories new entries into an established canon. After all, SFF has long loved and revered a good librarian: a champion of the written word, an ersatz historian or archivist bringing order to Hellmouths and doomed planets. Whether they’re traveling through L-space or sorting through every potential manuscript ever dreamt of, a librarian embodies the best of the genre’s readers: delightfully bookish, and not only fiercely protective of intellectual freedom, but passionate about preserving access to information and ideas. More than once, the fate of humanity has hinged on a librarian’s vast and wise perspective of whether people have learned all they can, or if they have more learning left to do.

However, the timing of these particular librarians’ arrival is no accident. Like any good librarian, the universe has delivered these books to us when we need them the most…

…When more people visited the local library than the movie theater in 2019, yet there are still ongoing debates over whether these spaces are relevant enough to deserve continued funding.

…When book banning bills would imprison librarians for handing out queer stories or books about sexual assault.

…When librarians in high-traffic drug-use communities act as first responders in the opioid crisis, saving the lives of those who overdose inside their walls.

…When young, queer, people of color are challenging outdated stereotypes of what makes a “real” librarian and arguing that librarians can no longer be neutral figures—not when objective facts and knowledge are being overshadowed by hateful and damaging biases.

In 2014, photographer Kyle Cassidy took portraits of attendees at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting in order to show that the stewards of books are as unique as the texts that they protect and pass on. In the same vein, Rocha and Gailey’s books will hopefully usher in even more SFF librarians, each operating within their own singular context: near-future sci-fi romance where the librarians get to tangle with hot bioengineered Silver Devils, or Wild West adventure brimming with queer love and community on the horizon—or perhaps an entirely different subgenre for librarians to inhabit.

Filling so many vital roles is asking a hell of a lot—especially for librarians-turned-first-responders like Chera Kowalski from the McPherson Square branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. When the Philadelphia Inquirer published its 2017 piece about librarians like Kowalski being trained to administer Narcan to people overdosing in or near their library, she became the face of this growing movement. Named one of Library Journal’s 2018 Movers & Shakers, Kowalski maintains that despite this particularly extreme mission creep, she is still doing her job:

“Public libraries respond to the needs of their communities,” she said in a 2017 TEDMED talk, “and not knowing how to utilize Narcan was a disservice to the needs of our community.” Emphasizing that the opioid epidemic impacts the entire community, she went on to say that “we will continue to do what we can with the resources we have and we will continue to provide whatever help we can in hopes of keeping our community safe and healthy, because public libraries have always been more than just books. We are physical shelter, a classroom, a safe haven, a lunch room, a resource hub, and, yes, even a lifeline.”

Badass librarians aren’t just our future—they’re the unsung heroes of our present.

Enjoyed the action and the romance, but i didn’t find it very memorable. Not sure if I’ll continue with the series.

Deal With the Devil is the start of an intense new science-fiction-fantasy series by Kit Rocha, the pseudonym for the author duo Donna Herren and Bree Bridges. In a future dystopian America, after solar flares have plunged the world into darkness and chaos, the government is nonexistent. Areas of Atlanta are controlled by TechCorps, a power in genetic engineering. Sleek skyscrapers house their elite scientists and executives. Regions not patrolled by the company’s Protectorate forces are lawless wastelands.

Knox is the captain of the Silver Devils team. The group of enhanced supersoldiers have escaped the brutal control of the Protectorate. But their enhancements are degrading and will lead to their painful deaths unless they can get back their biochem hacker who can stop the process. She was kidnapped by someone who is blackmailing the team into bringing in a target.

That target is Nina. She and her fellow genetically modified cohorts are basically lethal librarians who have carved a life for themselves outside of TechCorps’ grid. Knox doesn’t know why the kidnapper wants Nina, but he is willing to lure the information broker in and then betray her in order to keep his team alive. Knox contacts her to make an offer that the teams join up to locate a treasure trove of books and information.


Despite her misgivings, and the attraction she feels for him, she joins forces with Knox. During the long journey to the site, the bond between Knox and Nina grows. Knox realizes he cannot betray Nina and plans to come clean about the kidnapper’s plan. Before he can do that, a shocking development puts them in danger and threatens to destroy their fragile new relationship.

Full of postapocalyptic angst and horror, the story is at its heart a sweet romance between two broken souls and a tale about the love of family. That the families involved are nontraditional make their bonds no less unbreakable. Both Knox and Nina have faced trauma and pain, but fighting for their love may be their hardest battle.

https://lynns-books.com/2020/11/30/deal-with-the-devil-mercenary-librarians-1-by-kit-rocha/
My Five Word TL:DR Review : Dystopia with sexy badass characters

Okay, to be straight to the point, Deal with the Devil is not my typical sort of read but, to be honest, I did know what I was picking up before I started reading it so was well prepared, in fact, it was exactly the sort of read that I fancied and so in that respect it worked an absolute treat.

Jump forward to the year 2086. Let’s just say that things haven’t gone well. The place, is practically a wasteland following a catastrophic event known as the Flares. We have a group of three women, looking after their community. These are women who can look after themselves to be honest, they all have their own particular skills, but, headed by Nina, who is something completely different, they are capable and at the same time caring. They help people in their community to survive is the top and bottom of it and on top of that they try to provide them with reading material. Come on now.

Now we have a group of mercenaries. Hard core ex solidiers who have gone rogue (for reasons that you will discover). These mercs have cut the ties to the Big Brother Style Corporation that controlled them but unfortunately this leaves them vulnerable in terms of their own modifications and keeping them updated in order to survive. Unfortunately, their hacker Luna has been taken captive, and the abductor wants Nina delivering in order for an exchange to take place. Knox, the leader of the mercs has the task of roping in Nina and her companions into a double cross, the bait, some sort of fantastic library, the ultimate goal, to deliver Nina over to who knows what.

Now, look. I’m not going to try and say that this book is reinventing the wheel. There is plenty of sexual tension here – mainly between Knox and Nina who are both two hard ass characters with plenty of battle scars and a hard outer exterior to match. There’s also lots of set up – you can already see the pairings for future novels clicking into place. And, I won’t deny, there was a little bit of eye rolling here. Everybody is superfit, they’re all dangerously gorgeous and you stand an equal chance of having your throat cut as having your day made. But, like I said above, I was well aware of that fact when I picked this book up.

Don’t go into this expecting heaps of world building or unique ideas though – the setting and, to be honest, the plot, are more backdrops for the eventual coupling that will inevitably take place, but, I did like some of the storylines and each of the characters have their own personal set of skills which makes them unique.

In terms of criticisms. Instalove. I don’t need to say more.

So, to round up. If you fancy a road trip with a bunch of sexy, hard hitting, muscle wielding, tough talking, ‘my dad is bigger than yours’ characters that also have hidden depths (that are not really so very hidden in fact you could dig them out with a teaspoon if you had a mind to do so) then here you go. And, did I mention there is some smouldering sexy times – because there are, and I suspect there will be more to come in future instalments.

There you go then.

Also, brief mentions of libraries – which always makes my day (is that weird?)

Okay, to be fair, this isn’t my go to style of book but I can’t deny that it was fun and, okay, you dragged it out of me, sexy. I wouldn’t go for this type of story as the norm and to be honest I’m not sure I’d reach for the next in series but this was a very easy book to get along with and it was a little bit of what I fancied at that moment in time. I suppose, it just felt easy to get along with and I have no quibbles with that at the moment.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

Take two groups - one of three women (Nina, Dani, and Maya) who sought to restore knowledge to a ravaged Atlanta area and one of four men (Captain Knox, Conall, Rafe, and Gray0 who where the remains of the Silver Devils, a former TechCorps security team. Knox and his team have a problem, their biohacker who manages their implants has been kidnapped. Their mission is to acquire Nina and bring her to a location for an exchange. The problem is that Nina is much more than a pretty face and when hormones and emotions start to get involved, things get complicated real fast! And when the con is complete and the exchange is to take place, thing get really weird. Kit Rocha has set up an interesting world and team to play with in this world. I wonder what she will do with it next?

Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to read this title.

This book is just as awesome as all the hype says it is.

In a post apocalyptic world, Nina, Dani and Maya are information brokers who are trying to keep their community afloat. When a mercenary team is sent to take them out, instead they team up to find a mythical library. Knox and company are fun, who we will see again. Nina drove me a tad nuts at the end. But this was a kick butt and sexy read.

I am looking forward to the next book, especially with the teaser at the end.

If you are looking for an action-packed, post-apocalyptic, steamy romance, look no further. Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha is your answer. It has strong, badass characters, interesting worldbuilding and politics, and, of course, a passionate love story.

I've had this ARC for awhile and started it several times but simply could not get into the story. It starts off with a strong opening scene but then just kinda settles for a bit into a generic dystopian action with generic action figures for characters. But then around the 50% mark it shifts and the story suddenly becomes really, really good and the characters fill out and it ends great.

This is set in Atlanta in some future time after a series of solar flares have decimated the world and it has become a bit of a messy mess. A shady big corporation seems to have displaced the government, the people seem to be divided into the massively rich who work for or with the shady corp and everybody else. A lot of the everybody else's seem to be hard scrabble scavengers, predators or just people eking through an existence. It also is a place where super soldiers are made, genes are modified, cloning happens, people are chipped etc.

We meet two groups of people. One group is Nina and her crew, Maya and Dani. We learn from the first chapter that Nina is skilled fighter, enhanced with super reflexes, super intelligence -- she is just an all around bad ass who is one of those special types who has been enhanced by shady corp. So are Dani and Maya, both have special uber-human skills. They are ride or die for each other and apparently do good in their little corner of the community they live in and look out for its inhabitants.

The second group is Knox and his crew -- Rafe, Con, & Gray-- Super Soldiers for the shady corp who have been implanted with a special device that controls their enhancement. But they've gone rogue and are AWOL and their implants need to be maintenanced on the regular. If they aren't, then they degrade and cause the men to die a slow, agonizing painful death. And the only person who can do it is another of their crew who has been kidnapped. The price of her return? Knox and his crew have to lure Nina to a specific place at a specific time. They make her an offer she can't refuse and offer to be her bodyguard/escort detail.

This is a great plot set up and has a lot of promise. There is built in deception, hence a good romantic conflict and since we are dealing with two groups who are super loyal to each other and also super bad ass and super suspicious and all of them can kill with the flex of a pec, then we are sitting on a very volatile situation all around.

Like I said, the first half was flat to me. It was all action and set up and snarky banter and reminders about how everybody is super bad ass and super hot. But they were all character arche-types, imo, not actual people. I had a hard time sinking into the story because there wasn't a great character hook for me to glom onto and not a lot of emotional real estate for me to take up residence. Hence I wasn't invested in either group, really.

Then they get on the road and spend time with each other and here is when I felt the authors finally began to let the story take shape. At about 50% the two teams meld together for a bit of fun derring-do and Knox and Nina -- who had been sniffing around each other implicitly -- hop on the train to bone town - explicitly.

And then the shoe drops and things really get exciting. Finally, here was the character and emotion that was missing in the first half. And it was enhanced by a fantastic reveal scene, added to all the action and super bad-assery we've been thrummed over the head with. Great payoff and it is only a little past the middle of the book.

The rest of the book is no slouch and does not back off. Now that we finally broke the seal on emotion and character, we get it in spades. I loved this entire back half.

So slow start but damn what a bang up second half and ending.

When I read this description I had to read this book and that was just because I'm a librarian. The story and characters are fun, and the idea is definitely original. On my rating scale, 3 stars is good, or I liked it. I really did like this popcorn of a book, perfect to take your mind off of everything that is happening in the real world.

Set in the future, Nina and her friends serve as community librarians lending out books while fighting for their lives against Techcorps. ARC from NetGalley.

When Kit Rocha first announced they were writing a Mercenary Librarians series, I was beyond excited. Mercenary.Librarians. COME TO MAMA. Deal with the Devil is the first book in the series, and it definitely left me wanting more.

Garrett Knox is captain of the Silver Devils, an elite squad of super soldiers. He joined up to change the world and do some good, but he quickly realized TechCorps, the agency in charge of their genetic modifications (and basically the world), just wanted elite assassins. They finally have enough and he and his team have gone AWOL, but without regular maintenance, their genetic modifications will deteriorate and slowly kill them all - a kill switch embedded by TechCorps to keep them in line. The problem? The scientist they need to fix their implants has been kidnapped, and the only way she'll be returned is if Knox delivers Nina, an information broker, in exchange.

Nina is skeptical of Knox's offer to lead her to the fabled hidden Library of Congress, but she it's an opportunity she can't pass up. She and her sisters-of-the-heart a strong and capable, so they agree, but keep their guard up. She's surprised at the chemistry they have, but she knows falling into bed with someone she doesn't trust is a bad idea. The more time the two teams spend together, the harder it is to keep a wall between them.

I absolutely loved the sheer amount of Girl Power in this novel. Nina, Dani and Maya were wonderfully written. They were kickass, but also relatable. Knox and his Silver Devils were also very well done. I like that they paid attention to the strengths the ladies brought and didn't try to take over or make decisions for them. There was a good amount of mutual respect on both sides that really brought this novel together.

Parts were a bit predictable [spoiler]Ava's return, and the revelation at the end about Mace in particular[/spoiler], and there were times the story moved rather slow, but I easily fell

Mercenary librarians in a post apocalyptic world, yes please! And with lots of romance! Can’t wait for the next one.

This is the first book in a new series for the authors. It is a post apocalyptic action romance with "enhanced" characters. The setting is in the Atlanta area in the near future with Tech companies controlling the country. There are a trio of genetically modified women who work as mercenary librarian/archivists. The story is told from multiple points of view, but was easy to follow and is not a cliff hanger. The majority of the story is of Nina, a warrior with a conscience wanting to improve her world, and Captain Knox who wants to save what remains of his team. Both have escaped the control of the Tech companies and are wanted. The world building is well done and there is a great cast of characters with varied issues and enhancements. All of the characters show growth throughout the story. There are "Tech memos" at the start of each chapter and initially I found them distracting as they use alpha numerics for characters rather than names. Taking notes and using the authors clues the characters can be identified and these notes add a great deal of back story and information.
The start of the book is dramatic and grabs your interest, but then hits a slow area. Fortunately, it picks up and provides lots of action and angst. I like strong female characters and these are some of the best, and the male characters respect and admire these women which is even better. I also enjoy the bantering among the troops.
I received an ARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to others. I am also looking forward to the next book.

I had seen some nice reviews of this novel and as the cover also attracted me, I was very curious to delve into the story of this first volume.

Nina, Maya and Dani do their best to help people in this world left to itself. It is not easy. So when Knox, a super-soldier, shows up with the possibility of subsisting a little longer, she can’t refuse to go with him. But then, our hero has an idea in mind, and he has to trade the beautiful and tough Nina to get the hacker he needs to survive. Yet Knox didn’t expect to fall under the young woman’s spell. But he also knows that telling her the truth could change Nina’s opinion of him.

It was a very nice novel, although it’s true that the feelings between the characters can be a little annoying after a while, because it’s very present. But once in the story, I thought it was very nice to follow and I was also curious to see how things would end.

A nice first volume and I’m curious to read the rest now!