Kit Rocha's Blog, page 2

Win a copy of The Devil You Know

 

There are a few weeks left to pre-order The Devil You Know from one of our participating stores & get a bunch of cool swag pictured above! But I’ve got a hardcover copy here in my pretty little hands, and I’m going to sign it and send it to one lucky person along with Maya’s necklace, a ton of fun stickers and art.

All you have to do is leave a comment below and let us know who your favorite Mercenary Librarian character is, and why!

Farewell 2020, You Were A Decade And/Or A Week Of a Year

First: The Big Update

We are almost (almost! finally! finally!!!) finished with The Devil You Know, book #2 in the Mercenary Librarians series. You can pre-order the ebook now (Kindle, Kobo, iBookstore, Google) and it will land on August 31st, 2021. We will be doing digital & print pre-order thank you gifts again, including new art, new behind-the-scenes snippets, new exclusive stories and new swag for those of you who pre-order in print from one of our partner bookstores. (Those will be announced in a few months!)

If you want to know what The Devil You Know is about, you can read the blurb here!

What about everything else?

So… 2020. That was a year, huh?

We ended 2019 with Donna’s cancer diagnosis. With the help of our friends and community, she made it through surgery and radiation and recovery… just in time for both of us to (presumably, as our doctors now think, though we never were tested) catch early cases of COVID. That…sucked. Whatever we had, we were sick for months. We slept through April and May. Recovery was Not Great.

We did not get things done. None of the things we wanted to get done, honestly. That sucked, too.

That said, we’re crawling out of 2020 in slightly better shape than we came in. We are not exactly healthy but we’re holding steady, and with the support of our agent and publisher, we’ve come close to finishing the book that was starting to seem Like We Would Never Finish it.

In 2021, we’ll be working on Hunter and and Dance With the Devil, as well as writing some further serial parts for Defending Their Mate, which is currently available only on Radish. We are not putting any firm timelines on anything right now because we want to write good books and for the past few years… good and fast have been mutually exclusive for us.

That said… we’re hoping.

Some of you also may have noticed that we spent most of November working on Romancing the Runoff, which was a transformative and wonderful event where we helped raise almost $500k for voting organizations in Georgia. You can read about that in the New York Times, Pajiba, Jezebel, The Guardian, Vogue, Bustle, Glamour, Book Riot, Newsweek, Slate, and oh yeah Stacey Abrams is now our friend. (Not really, but let us pretend.)

For all that 2020 was a year that disappeared in a flash while also lasting a decade, we are going out full of hope and with the conviction to keep fighting to make things better.

We will see you all in 2021. <3 Stay safe, and have a wonderful (masked, socially distant, safe) holiday season!

Deal With the Devil is here!

It’s finally here, y’all! The launch to our Mercenary Librarians series, Deal With the Devil, our first book in over two years. It has been a long two years full of trials, health scares, personal grief and incredible support from our readers, publishers, and friends.

We’re so happy to finally be here.

July

28th: Virtual Launch at The Ripped Bodice
29th: Virtual Event with Jacqueline Carey at Mysterious Galaxy
31st: Virtual Event with Beverly Jenkins at Love’s Sweet Arrow

August

4th: Tor After Dark Reading (IG Live)
10th: Day Drinking with Authors with Molly O’Keefe
12th: Virtual Event with Syosset Public Library
14th: Powell’s Livestream Q&A with Kate Elliott

Deal With the Devil

A Mercenary Librarians Novel

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: join forces and save the damn world.

 

Buy Now
Digital
Kobo
iBooks
Kindle
Nook
Google
.
Paperback
The Ripped Bodice
Love’s Sweet Arrow
Indiebound
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
.

Hardcover
Indiebound
Amazon
The Ripped Bodice
Book Depository
.

.


Advance Praise

“Compelling characters, white-knuckle action, and deceptively smooth worldbuilding make this first Mercenary Librarians book a satisfying and cinematic escape.” ― Booklist Starred Review

“Rocha capably deploys found family and forbidden love tropes while keeping readers on their toes with unpredictable action beats. This postapocalyptic tale of espionage and romance will have readers eager to know what happens next.” ― Publishers Weekly

“…a high-action, high-stakes sf romance. Intriguing characters, tragic backgrounds, and a few twists comprise a strong launch to this new series.” ― Library Journal

“An exhilarating start to what promises to be a compelling series… bring on the next Mercenary Librarians adventure!” ― Nalini Singh, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“A full-throttle read! Action-packed, edgy and engrossing, I can’t wait to see what happens next!” — Jeaniene Frost, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“Complicated characters, complex stakes, and worldbuilding on a grand scale, I loved this book. Pre-order and get multiple copies for friends, too!” — Melissa Marr, New York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely series

“A roller coaster of nail-biting thrills combined with top-notch world-building, palpable heat, and real emotional stakes. You’re going to love it.” ― Gwenda Bond, NYT Bestselling author of Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds

“My advice? You should cancel your plans so you can get swallowed up in Kit Rocha’s exciting new world.” — Thea Harrison, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“High-stakes action and plenty of chemistry, DEAL WITH THE DEVIL absolutely crackles!” — Chloe Neill, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“Nina is everything I love in a heroine—smart and badass, but with a core of hope and kindness. And Knox is jaded, honorable, and so very conflicted. I loved it!” — Jessie Mihalik, author of Polaris Rising

“A kickass heroine team for the ages, the desperate but honorable (and also smoking hot) heroes who must betray them, and pulse-pounding action on a dystopian road trip. The sizzling sexual tension is simply the icing that makes Deal with the Devil one of my favorite SF reads ever.” — Alyssa Cole, Award Winning Author

Read The First Chapter

Nina had broken the cardinal rule, and now she had to kill someone.

Four someones, actually. She counted the shuffling footsteps behind her as she eyed the stack of crates and scrap blocking the alley’s exit. Razor wire glinted in the low light, heading off any thought of climbing over the mess. The only route of escape was back the way she’d come.

A brutally effective trap. Under other circumstances, she might have admired its elegance. Right now, it just pissed her off.

Never go out alone after dark. Dani’s admonition—or did it qualify as an order?—echoed in Nina’s head as she turned to face the men who’d blocked her in. The obvious leader stepped forward, brandishing a cheap pistol, as the three others fell into loose formation around him. The tall man on the left stood with his hand hovering near his hip, like he was getting ready to reach for a weapon tucked into the back of his waistband. The two on the right carried knives.

Surprisingly expert grips on all the weapons. The tall one was favoring his left knee. And one of the men wielding a knife was built, with the kind of bulk that made close contact a bad idea. Four men, two guns, at least three knives.

She did not have time for this.

“The bag,” the leader grunted. “Now.”

Nina’s hand tightened around the black strap slung over her shoulder. She didn’t like fighting if she could avoid it—too many variables—but she couldn’t afford to comply. She might have, if the satchel had held her usual haul of scavenged books or random data. But this was a commission, specially sourced information collected for a specific purpose—and a specific client.

Losing it would cost her more than money.

“Walk away,” she advised flatly.

One of them snickered.

Oh well, she had to try. Not that the world would suffer by losing these assholes, but because her conscience demanded it. Of course, they’d laid a trap in a dirty alley, and they didn’t seem too broken up about going four-on-one to rob her.

Maybe she was actively doing the world a favor.

The leader stepped forward, his index finger trembling as he pulled the trigger. Nina ducked, and the bullet went high, shattering a window that was probably already cracked or broken to begin with.

Everything in Five Points was.

When she came back up, she was inches from the man’s face, close enough to see flecks of spittle fly as he opened his mouth to yell at the others. She smashed the heel of her hand under his chin, snapping his teeth shut on his tongue.

He screamed, and she ducked again, this time to put herself on the other side of his outstretched arm. A hard blow to his shoulder spun him around, away from her, and she pressed close to his back, turning him into a shield.

Then she locked one hand around his, turning him into a weapon, too. She squeezed off two more shots, each finding its target in the dead center of an attacker’s chest, before the gun jammed.

Shit.

The third man returned fire. The bullets slammed into his friend—so much for honor among thieves—and sent Nina stumbling back. She recovered just in time to dodge another shot, but she heard the razor-sharp whistle of its path as it cut through the air near her head.

Too goddamn close.

She launched herself at her last attacker. She kicked out, feinting as if to disarm him, only to target his weak leg at the last second. Her boot crashed into his knee, and she felt the joint give as he crumpled. The gun fell and skittered across the grimy asphalt, lodging itself under a mangled crate butted up against a length of chain-link fencing.

Just as well. They’d undoubtedly drawn enough attention already. She reached into her jacket, drew her pistol, and slid her thumb over the biometric scanner embedded in its grip. The weapon activated, chambering a round with a soft click.

The two shots she fired exited the elongated barrel just as quietly, silencing the man’s shrieking and groaning.

Nina stood over him for a moment, watching the dark blood as it began to pool beneath his head. “You did pretty well,” she muttered. “You never really stood a chance, that’s all.”

A chill swept over her despite the relatively warm spring night, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck. For a moment, it felt like someone was watching her. Not just observing, but staring at her hard enough to bore holes through flesh.

Right into her soul.

She shook it off and holstered her pistol. There probably were eyes on her—the pickers waiting to crawl the place when she was gone. They would wait for her to take first pass at the bodies, out of grudging respect as well as self-preservation. As victor, she had the greatest right to claim the spoils.

She knelt beside one of the bodies, and spent shell casings bit into her skin through her pants. They weren’t even from this firefight, just scattered detritus. Another testament to this area’s legacy of violence.

Once upon a time, this had been a nice neighborhood. The building on Nina’s left used to house city offices, and the one across the street—now a highly trafficked brothel—was an old warehouse that had been converted into chichi lofts catering to the young and wealthy. A faded sign still hung on the side of the building—Now leasing for Spring 2043.

They never finished the construction, and no one but squatters ever got the chance to move in. Not after the devastation of 2042.

Not after the Flares.

It started with a solar storm. For two days, a huge blast of magnetic energy surged toward earth, headed straight for southern Europe, exciting scientists and doomsday preppers alike. In the end, huge areas of France, Spain, and Italy were impacted, though the long-term damage to their power grids was minimal.

No, the worst thing about that storm was how it interfered with satellites, scrambling their signals so that no one noticed the much larger coronal mass ejection in its wake.

The second solar flare hit North America head on. By that time, the United States’ utility infrastructure had been crumbling for decades, ignored or worse by politicians with other priorities—tax cuts for corporations and new fighter jets and the same old fossil fuels that had driven them into the Energy Wars to begin with. The flare struck a killing blow, pushing the weakened government to its knees as it plunged the country into darkness and chaos.

This used to be a nice neighborhood, not that Nina knew any of that firsthand. But there were plenty of old-timers down at the local bar who’d tell you all about the world that once was—the shining city of Atlanta, back before the desolation of the Flares—for the cost of a few highballs.

Nina’s stomach twisted. She could still feel the hungry weight of those stares on her as she rose and backed away from the corpse at her feet.

Tonight, the vultures could have it. All she wanted was to get home.

#

The scavengers were already converging.

Perched on the rooftop where he’d been doing recon, Knox watched the gang of kids creep out of the darkness. They moved like shadows themselves, wraith-thin and nearly silent. The shitty streetlights dimmed and surged as the kids spread out in the bloodstained alley, swarming the dead bodies with tragic efficiency.

They worked fast, gathering up everything Nina had left behind. Bloodied clothes, worn boots, even the shitty gun wedged under a broken crate. A girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen popped the magazine to check it before tucking the handgun through her belt. Before long, the group had stripped the men down to their underwear and melted back into the gloom.

The whole thing had taken only minutes. The men who’d tried to jump Nina lay sprawled and exposed on the cracked asphalt, their pale skin washed out by the flickering metal-halide lights. They looked even sadder like this. Naked, abandoned.

And dead. Very, very dead.

Knox eased back from the edge of the roof and rolled to his feet, ignoring the warning ache in his muscles. He got a running start and made the leap between buildings. The impact of the landing stabbed through his knees, and he rolled to disperse the shock of the force—something he wouldn’t have had to do a week ago.

Time contracted around Knox. He could feel each second that slipped away. He swung out onto the rickety fire ladder and slid toward the ground, ruthlessly forcing his mind back to the job.

But he kept seeing those dead bodies. Nina had killed four armed men in the time it had taken Knox to draw a deep breath, then walked away from the encounter without a scratch.

Of course this job couldn’t be easy.

His safe house was a mile-and-a-half hike through the shittier parts of Atlanta. This far south of the TechCorps HQ, security was lax, and Protectorate forces wouldn’t venture out without a direct order. There were no checkpoints like the ones lining the streets that wound their way up the Hill, where the TechCorps sprawled like a brooding dragon sitting on its hoard. There, disciplined squads made regular sweeps amongst the posh high-rises that housed elite scientists and distinguished executives. Farther down the Hill, haphazard patrols guarded the more modest homes and businesses that catered to the fortunate families who’d found a way to make themselves useful to the TechCorps.

None of that existed here. The southern half of the city could be on fire, and the Protectorate wouldn’t stir itself to piss in this general direction in a feeble attempt to put it out. Sure, they swept in every few months to remind people that the TechCorps still had one boot pressed to their necks, ready to come down. But the rest of the time, they didn’t give a shit if the people in the poorer neighborhoods tore each other apart, as long as the TechCorps had enough warm bodies to fill their support staff jobs and their experiment rooms.

People so desperate for money they’d do damn near anything for it? That was the only resource no one was running out of any time soon.

Knox knew that better than most.

Still, he hadn’t realized just how bad it had gotten until the Protectorate had pulled them in to deal with the growing labor uprisings. For years, Knox and his team had been deployed outside of TechCorps’ territory, entrusted with delicate missions that required a certain amount of discretion and finesse. Knox had advanced corporate interests and forged connections in dozens of regions—from the fiercely competitive shipping clans in Florida and the Gulf Coast to the warring crime syndicates that had taken over Washington, D.C.

Not that the word crime had much meaning anymore. The only rules left were the ones you were powerful enough to enforce.

Knox had seen lawless places that had descended into swirling chaos, as well as cities with rigid laws that made military discipline seem lax. He’d even seen towns where people had come together, pooling their resources to restore comfort to everyone. The mountain communities dotting the Appalachians, the close-knit neighborhoods ringing New York City’s boroughs, the cozy communes in New England—all were places almost idyllic in their relative peace.

Somehow, Atlanta had become a combination of all three. Though the TechCorps held the city in its brutal grip, their control didn’t extend to support, so the outlying neighborhoods had fallen into neglect. But within those neighborhoods, you could find sparks of light. Communities coming together. Workers fighting for better pay, for better lives.

Hope. That was why the Protectorate had recalled the Silver Devils. Hope had been bubbling up through the cracks in the TechCorps’ power, and they’d wanted Knox to snuff it out.

In those orders, Knox had finally found a line he couldn’t cross.

He broke free of the final line of buildings and left the streetlights behind. Darkness wrapped around him, another layer of safety, and he relaxed slightly. No one was likely to be wandering out this way after dark. The Devils had set up shop in West End, in an abandoned warehouse overlooking the reservoir. The crumbling remains of the old interstate rose beside it, dwarfing the squat concrete building. A huge chunk of the overpass had caved in over a decade ago, wiping out the community below and discouraging resettlement.

After the Flares, weak infrastructure had been their downfall. The federal government had been held together by tissue paper by that point, unable to function effectively, and state governments had filled the void with varying levels of success. Atlanta had been doing better than most of the rest of Georgia, with strong citywide leadership that might have rallied, given time.

Except that the infrastructure was already so fragile. And the TechCorps were right there, a monolith of recently merged medical and tech companies with the latest and greatest of everything. How generous they must have seemed in those first dark days, reaching out with their seemingly unlimited supplies of solar power, water, food, and medicine.

TechCorps offers were always too good to be true, and the hooks they sank into you went bone deep. Atlanta’s swiftly displaced city government had no doubt learned that lesson as harshly as Knox had.

Knox approached the abandoned warehouse they’d taken over. It was truly off the grid, not even hooked up with power or water. They had to procure or process both for themselves. Not the most comfortable place to crash, but it didn’t matter. They wouldn’t be here long.

Besides, the Silver Devils had stayed in worse.

Knox approached from the north and stopped precisely five feet from the back door. His embedded communicator beeped, and he activated it with a low command. “Knox here.”

“Gotcha, Captain. Disabling security.”

Conall’s reply echoed inside Knox’s head. They’d had the subcutaneous comms for almost a year, and Knox still wished they’d carved them out along with their trackers three days earlier. Conall swore he’d modified the frequencies to be unique and untraceable, but the things still creeped Knox the fuck out.

Implants to make him stronger and faster? Fine. To moderate his biochemistry to make him the perfect soldier? Okay.

Conall’s voice serving as his inner monologue?

Too far.

It took nearly a minute before Conall sounded the all clear. Knox crossed to the door, which popped open just as he reached it. Conall greeted him with a grin and an outstretched hand. “Glasses.”

Knox slipped off his glasses and relinquished them. “Pull the last thirty minutes of footage first and get it up on the wall. Everyone needs to see it.”

“So you caught up with the mark?”

“Yeah.” Knox eased past Conall and let the tech worry about resetting the security measures. The cavernous main room of the warehouse was well lit, with bright solar-powered LEDs hanging from the bare beams. Rafe and Gray sat at one end of the trestle table, the remains of a meal as well as one of Gray’s ever-present disassembled guns spread out between them.

Knox stopped at the other end and stripped off his tactical vest. “We have a problem.”

“How bad?” Rafe asked, his rice-laden spoon hovering in the air. “She got a security team or something?”

“She is a security team.” Knox shrugged out of his shoulder rig and dropped it on the table. His backup pistol followed, as well as the knife sheath strapped to his leg. “Watch the footage.”

Rafe obediently picked up his chair and turned it to face the whitewashed section of wall at the back of the building. Gray looked up without moving—or taking his full attention from the rifle components in front of him.

After another few seconds of fiddling and some muttered curses, Conall flipped his handheld projector upright, and the surveillance footage from Knox’s glasses appeared on the wall. The video from the night-vision camera was tinged with green, though Conall color-corrected it with a few keystrokes.

On-screen, Nina arrived in the alley. The video washed out the gold undertones of her skin, and the angle of the shot left her face in shadow. She surveyed the trap she’d walked into with no apparent alarm as the four men drifted into the frame.

Knox had almost intervened then. The instructions he’d received had been very specific—if he wanted his biochem hacker back, he was to deliver Nina to the designated coordinates, alive and unharmed.

He’d seen so much death in those four shadowy outlines—first Nina’s, when they overpowered her. Then Luna’s, when Knox failed to provide her ransom. Then each of his men, one by one, as their degrading enhancements slowly poisoned their bodies. Without a biochem hacker to regulate their implants, the Silver Devils might as well put bullets in their heads right now. Or go crawling back to the Protectorate.

Knox would prefer the bullet.

“Holy shit!” Conall’s shocked exclamation drew Knox’s attention back to the surveillance footage. Four bodies were already on the ground. It had happened that quickly—so quickly Knox hadn’t even had time to vault off the roof to help.

Rafe shoved his spoon into his bowl of rice and braced his elbows on the table. “Go back and play it slow.”

Conall obeyed. Even at half speed, Nina was fast. She dodged a fucking bullet before commandeering the man who’d tried to shoot her as a human shield. Then she used his gun to fire on two of his friends while the weapon was still in his hand.

Knox was good, the best the Protectorate had ever turned out. And even he wasn’t sure he could have pulled that off.

Gray sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin, his brows drawn together in a contemplative frown. “Who is she?”

“Fuck that,” Conall retorted. “What is she?”

“Trouble,” Rafe rumbled. “Hot, sexy trouble. Does this mean we go with plan B?”

Rafe always wanted to go with plan B, where he deployed his charming smile and his big, beautiful brown eyes, and everyone melted for him. Knox had relied on the man’s natural charisma on plenty of missions, but the thought of Rafe using sex to lure Nina into a trap . . .

“No,” he said, too curtly. “Plan A was to pick her up off the street. That clearly won’t work. Plan B would be to sedate her, not seduce her, but we don’t know what she is or whether our tranqs will work on her. So we go with plan C. She’s an information broker. We’re going to make her an offer no broker could refuse.”

Gray scrubbed one hand over his face with a rough sigh. “Maybe we should focus on figuring out another way to get Luna back.” He gestured toward the makeshift screen. “I already wasn’t crazy about kidnapping someone. I’m really not crazy about getting killed during the attempt.”

Knox wasn’t wild about the kidnapping, either. When he’d first joined the Protectorate, it had been with wide eyes and dreams of heroics. He’d decided that he would accept the biochemical enhancements. He’d train day and night, if that was what it took. And then he’d go back out into the world and do some damn good. Help people like his father, who’d died protecting a neighborhood store from petty thieves. Make things better instead of worse.

His eyes hadn’t been wide in a long time. The world wasn’t interested in being saved. And the only allegiance Knox owed now was to the men in this room, men who’d followed him into battle and the depths of hell and now into treason, where a ticking clock was counting down to their slow, painful deaths.

“We don’t have time,” he reminded Gray. “Conall couldn’t trace the communication. We don’t know who took her, or what they’ll do if we show up at those coordinates without the payment they requested. And every day we stall, our side effects are getting worse.”

“It’s Luna,” Rafe declared, as if that answered the moral dilemma. “Helping us is what got her into this mess. And sure, the lady is hot and all, but . . .” He waved a hand at the paused video, showing Nina frozen in the act of delivering her silent coup de grace. “You don’t get that good at killing by being a sweet little pussy cat.”

Gray relented, holding up both hands in surrender. “Understood. Still not too keen on dying, though, so this ruse of yours had better work, Knox.”

It would, because Knox had been saving this weapon since the day Conall had offered it to him. His game-winning ace. An information broker’s ultimate fantasy.

“Conall?”

“Hmm?”

“How thorough are those files you have on the Rogue Library of Congress bunker?”

Conall tipped his chair on two legs so he could snag a small data pad off his workstation. “Old Uncle Aiden was a little cracked, but he was fucking meticulous. So I’m guessing pretty thorough.”

“You’re guessing?”

“I never actually decrypted most of them. Seemed a little reckless.”

“How long would it take you to decrypt it and redact any references to location?”

Conall tapped his leg as his eyes darted back and forth and his lips moved in silent calculation. He’d always sparked with barely restrained energy, but now he was restless and fidgety all the time.

“Twelve hours?” Conall said finally. “Maybe twenty-four, if some of the files have multiple encryptions.”

Too long, but it was still the best chance they had. Knox slid an empty tablet down the table. Conall caught it. “Do it. We need schematics, paper trails. Proof. Redact anything that would lead her to the real location. Load it all on there.”

Conall raised one brow. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just throw together some dummy shit? I can make it look good enough to sell the con.”

Knox turned back to the video frozen on the wall. He’d underestimated her physical strength. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake with her mind. “This isn’t the time to take chances. Use the real data.”

“Yes, sir.”

And that was that, as far as Conall was concerned. He settled into his task, trusting that Knox would spend his family secret wisely. That he’d save Luna, save them, keep them all out of TechCorps torture cells, and probably score them enough credits to settle down to blissful lives of leisure.

Knox had worked hard to earn that trust. To deserve it. Somehow, he had to pull this off and be worthy of it.

#MercenaryLibrarians Are Coming!

We’re just five months out from the release of the first Mercenary Librarians book. It feels like this day has been coming forever, and also like it’s coming up so fast. We’re super excited! Get all of your Mercenary Librarians info & pre-order links below!

Deal With the Devil

A Mercenary Librarians Novel

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: join forces and save the damn world.

 

Preorder Now
Digital
Kobo
iBooks
Kindle
Nook
Google
.
Paperback
The Ripped Bodice
Love’s Sweet Arrow
Indiebound
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
.

Hardcover
Indiebound
Amazon
The Ripped Bodice
Book Depository


Advance Praise

“…a high-action, high-stakes sf romance. Intriguing characters, tragic backgrounds, and a few twists comprise a strong launch to this new series.” ― Library Journal

“An exhilarating start to what promises to be a compelling series… bring on the next Mercenary Librarians adventure!” ― Nalini Singh, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“A full-throttle read! Action-packed, edgy and engrossing, I can’t wait to see what happens next!” — Jeaniene Frost, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“A roller coaster of nail-biting thrills combined with top-notch world-building, palpable heat, and real emotional stakes. You’re going to love it.” ― Gwenda Bond,

NYT Bestselling author of Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds

“My advice? You should cancel your plans so you can get swallowed up in Kit Rocha’s exciting new world.” — Thea Harrison, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“High-stakes action and plenty of chemistry, DEAL WITH THE DEVIL absolutely crackles!” — Chloe Neill, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

“Nina is everything I love in a heroine—smart and badass, but with a core of hope and kindness. And Knox is jaded, honorable, and so very conflicted. I loved it!” — Jessie Mihalik, author of Polaris Rising

“A kickass heroine team for the ages, the desperate but honorable (and also smoking hot) heroes who must betray them, and pulse-pounding action on a dystopian road trip. The sizzling sexual tension is simply the icing that makes Deal with the Devil one of my favorite SF reads ever.” — Alyssa Cole, Award Winning Author

Chatting about Books with Alyssa Cole!

Hey, y’all! Here’s a heads up about something new we’re going to be doing. Probably roughly monthly, as our schedule permits.

Since we have so many cool author friends, we thought it would be fun to lure them onto a video livestream with us and ask them goofy questions, and let you also ask them goofy questions. It’s like a virtual group hang, and it’s going to be incredibly fun!

If you can’t tune in live but would like us to ask your question (the video will be available afterwards!) please leave a comment or send your question to kit @ kitrocha.com

The details:

Friday, August 30th

9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific

http://twitch.tv/thebrokencircle

The chat will be hosted on our twitch account, where we also occasionally host livestreams of us being goofballs while playing video games. We’re new to streaming on twitch, but it’s a fabulously flexible streaming platform with amazing tools for cool events!

If you already belong to twitch, you can follow us now & get a reminder about this chat.

Unfamiliar with twitch? Donna has put together this nifty FAQ!

What is Twitch?

Twitch is a live streaming platform where content creators—you guessed it—live stream content to viewers. There’s a chat feature where viewers can interact in real time, both with the streamer and with one another.

Isn’t Twitch for video games?

Sure. A large number of folks who stream on Twitch do so while playing video games—us included. But there’s also a lot of other content out there, like cooking streams, mindfulness discussions, chats about life, and more. One of our goals is to increase the presence of book discussion on Twitch, particularly for romance novels.

So where do I find these non-gaming streams?

A personal favorite recommendation of mine is Uncle Brontosaurus. He’s a gamer who also does cooking streams, usually with his other half, Aun-T-Rex. He’s also one of the nicest guys on the internet. Hanging out in his super-chill chat is actually very relaxing—when’s the last time that happened in a comment section?!

Okay, you convinced me. Do I need an account?

Not at all! You can watch live streams or videos of previous broadcasts without logging in or even having an account. However, if you want to keep track of certain creators’ channels—called “following” in Twitch parlance—and be notified of when they go live with new streams, then yes, you will need an account.

The good news? You may have a premium Twitch Prime account just waiting for you.

Wait, what is Twitch Prime?

It’s a subscription service that offers certain perks, like ad-free viewing and the ability to support your favorite streamers. And if you have Amazon Prime, you already have Twitch Prime, as well. This article provides a pretty good rundown of the details, as well as how to take advantage of your Twitch Prime benefits as an Amazon Prime subscriber.

We hope to see you on the 30th!

Join the #MercenaryLibrarian army!

I know things have been quiet over here, but the transition from a 100% indie timeline to a primarily traditional publishing timeline has a bit of a gap in it… Okay. A big gap.

We finished Deal with the Devil in September of 2018 and have gone through revisions and copyedits. Tor is working hard to pull together the cover and the packaging for our ARCs, at which point we’ll be kicking off the first stage of our Mercenary Librarians Take Over the World evil plan.

(Am I supposed to call it an evil plan out loud? Oh, well, why pretend. It’s an evil plan! Look out, we’re coming!)

Of course, the one thing the long lead time has given us is a lot of time for EVIL PLANNING. And that means I want to spend that time amassing my army of badass book lovers so I know who wants to join the chaos & hijinks.

We’re going to be doing a lot of fun things for readers, but today I’m looking for all of my book community people. Librarians, IG photographing badasses, booktubers and bloggers and those of you on the front lines at independent bookstores!

If you want to be in the loop when we get going, please sign up below! If you wear multiple hats, feel free to check any that apply. We’re going to be doing our best to have fun things for everyone.

You may not hear from us right away, but rest assured: #MercenaryLibrarians are coming. And they don’t let anything stop them.

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Sector Swag: Beyond Shame & Noelle!

Over the next year or so, we’re going to be doing the occasional contest to give readers a chance to win not just some O’Kane swag, but some truly awesome tie-in merchandise created by the utterly amazing Dragonsworn Cosmetics.

One of the best parts of Cal from Dragonsworn is that she’s an O’Kane fan, and truly gets the characters! All of the cosmetics, colors and scents she designed for our Sector heroes & heroines match their personalities and their vibes, and we love every last one.

Today, we’re going to highlight some of the amazing products she made inspired by Noelle, the heroine of Beyond Shame! And in honor of this, you can get 15% off on any Noelle-related product you buy on for the next couple weeks by using the promo code: NOELLE4LIFE.

Custom Scent

Sweet cream, butter rum and clover honey to be almost too sweet; bunches of flowers in lilac, violet, and tuberose grow unashamedly wild and bright.

Custom Color

Rich berry-pink with tons of holographic sparkle. Noelle is sweet, not saccharine, and this kitten has claws.

Available Products

All of Dragonsworn’s products are handmade. A full ingredients list is available on the listing! For most bath & body products, you’ll have to select the scent you want from the drop down. A full list of O’Kane & Gideon’s Riders scents is available here. (Because of this, your 15% off coupon can apply to ANY scented body product in the store…in case you need more than one O’Kane in your life. :D)

Perfume
Soap
Eye Shadow
Nail Polish
Scented Top Coat Nail Polish
Whipped Body Butter
Cuticle Oil
Herbal Shampoo
Moisturizing Conditioner
Toner & Aftershave
Hair & Beard Serum

The Contest

Because we’re excited about how cool this swag is, here’s your chance to win something awesome! Leave a comment below about which product you think is the coolest, and on May 1st we’ll select one winner for the ultimate Noelle swag pack. Prizes include:

An O’Kane themed tote bag
A signed copy of Beyond Shame
An O’Kane for Life button
An O’Kane for Life flask
Various stickers, bookmarks & fun goodies
A bar of your very own Noelle scented soap
A bottle of your very own Noelle themed nail polish

So leave your comment below, and you might win the grand prize! And if not, you can still shop for some cool stuff over at Dragonsworn.

Kit Rocha’s Next Adventure…

Sooo, we’ve been quiet since we released Ivan, partly because WHEW, another book out in the world and also partly because WHEEEEE, we had a secret project! Avoiding talking about secret projects is not fun for any of us, so I’m really pleased that this one wrapped up and came to fruition quickly so we can shout it out to the world.

Soooo… @totallydonna & I did a thing. We are super excited to be working with @torbooks on this new project, and amazingly grateful to our rockstar agent @seyitsme for guiding us into this new adventure.

Find out more about the new project here: https://t.co/ZYOguKw2kf pic.twitter.com/U185v8ec2B

— Bree (&

Ivan & Maricela are here!

 

The third book in Gideon’s Riders is here! Family intrigue, bodyguarding hijinks, lots of longing, forbidden love, passionate smooches and, of course, a happy ending! You can buy it at any of these ebook retailers: Direct (DRM Free), Amazon (Global Link), Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Google

To help you out with keeping track of the players in Sector One, we have created (very abbreviated) family trees of those pesky noble families and a breakdown of the Riders. You definitely don’t need to know who all the various uncles, grandparents and cousins are, but it might help you get an idea of who is related to who! (People who have never appeared in any of the books, even by mention, are grayed out.)

 

 

 

 

 

Ivan
Gideon’s Riders, Book Three

As the sheltered princess of Sector One, Maricela’s life is defined by duty: to her people and to her family. Her wealth and influence have allowed her to build a better world, but they come with a price—the responsibility to secure political stability with a practical marriage. Maricela cherishes the idea of marrying for love, but there’s not much romance in the endless line of suitors interested only in prestige and power.

And her handsome, brooding new bodyguard isn’t helping the situation.

Ivan is the perfect, deadly warrior, a man trained from childhood to be the ultimate protector to the Rios family. His focus on keeping her safe is intense–and a little intoxicating. When the threat of danger cracks his icy control, Maricela realizes she’s not the only one fighting against temptation.

Ivan knows that the blood on his hands makes him unworthy of the pure-hearted princess. But from the first kiss, their forbidden affair feels inevitable. He can give her a glimpse of life outside her gilded cage and a lover who wants the woman instead of the crown. The only thing he can never do is promise her forever.

Because spurning her noble suitors to marry her bodyguard wouldn’t just be a scandal. It could set off a political firestorm that would tear Sector One apart.

Buy Now: Direct (DRM Free), Amazon (Global Link), Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Google

Beyond Series Rebrand!

It’s been a long time since we started the Beyond Series–almost six years, in fact! While we love the old covers of the series, it’s time for a fresh look. So we’ve spent the last few weeks overhauling our covers and some of our oldest blurbs to hopefully have a chance of bringing the books to a new audience of readers!

Today I’m revealing the cover for Beyond Shame here on our site! Starting on February 3rd with smexybooks.com, we’ll be revealing one cover per day for the next 11 days, covering all nine novels and three novellas. And each blog hosting a reveal will have a shiny copy of the new book to give away to a lucky reader!

(Note: if you like your books to match and are worried, don’t be! You’ll still be able to get the old covers in print at online retailers.)

I’ll be updating this post each day with a link to the latest reveal:

Beyond Control (February 3rd) – coming soon

Beyond Pain  (February 4th) – coming soon

Beyond Temptation  (February 5th) – coming soon

Beyond Jealousy  (February 6th) – coming soon

Beyond  Solitude (February 7th) – coming soon

Beyond  Addiction (February 8th) – coming soon

Beyond Possession  (February 9th) – coming soon

Beyond Innocence  (February 10th) – coming soon

Beyond Ruin  (February 11th) – coming soon

Beyond Ecstasy  (February 12th) – coming soon

Beyond Surrender  (February 13th) – coming soon

But for now, feast your eyes on our cover for Beyond Shame and check out the new blurb below!  (And if you’re new here, you can download Beyond Shame for free on any online vendor!)

All Noelle Cunningham has ever wanted was a life beyond–beyond her stifling role as a prim and proper councilman’s daughter, and beyond the walls of the patriarchal city of Eden, the only remnants of safety in a world destroyed by solar storms decades earlier. But when she’s banished for violating the prohibition against immorality, she’s unprepared for the lawless world outside the city’s walls.

The sectors surrounding Eden house those abandoned to fend for themselves–men like Jasper McCray, bootlegger and cage fighter. Jas clawed his way up from nothing to stand at the right hand of Sector Four’s ruthless leader, and he’ll defend the O’Kane gang with his life. But fighting hasn’t prepared him for dealing with a sheltered City princess who falls at his feet.

Her innocence is undeniable, but so is her intense sexual curiosity. Soon they’re exploring every dark fantasy she’s ever been ashamed to have. But if Noelle wants to claim her place with the O’Kanes and at Jas’s side, she’ll have to find the courage to embrace something even more terrifying than her own desires.

Her own power.

We’re so excited about these new covers! Beyond Shame features Noelle, caught in a raw, vulnerable moment just before she comes to life. Behind her is the Broken Circle–shelves of liquor bottles just waiting to be poured. All of the soon-to-be-revealed covers will feature a heroine, because while the O’Kane gentlemen are badass and scary, the O’Kane ladies are life.