Book review: Deacon by Kit Rocha

Title: Deacon
Author: Kit Rocha
Publication date: 29th August 2017
Genre: Dystopian/Romance
Series: Gideon's Riders #2
Source: Review copy from author

Description: Book #2 in explosive new series from bestselling author Kit Rocha...

Ana has trained most of her life to achieve one goal: to prove that anything men can do, she can do better. Now she’s Sector One’s first female Rider, and being the best is the only way to ensure she won’t be its last. Distractions aren’t allowed--especially not her painful attraction to the reserved but demanding leader whose stern, grumpy demeanor has already gotten into her head.

Deacon has spent the last twenty years trying to atone for his past, but the blood he spilled as a mercenary and assassin will never wash away entirely. If his riders knew the extent of his sins, he’d lose their trust and respect. It’s easier to keep them all at arm’s length, especially Ana. But his newest recruit’s stubbornness is starting to crack his defenses.

And their sparring matches are driving him wild.

The passion sparking between them can’t be denied, but neither can the vengeance barreling toward Deacon. When his old squad comes back to punish him for his betrayal, Ana and the Riders are squarely in the line of fire. The only way to save his people may be to make the ultimate sacrifice.

But first, he has to convince Ana not to follow him straight into hell.

My thoughts: I continue to be a huge fan of Kit Rocha, and I'm really glad that the Gideon's Rider series takes us back to their dystopian future America. In Deacon, readers get to know the group of Riders much better. If you're new to the series, the Riders are a group of men (and now a woman) who protect the area of the city known as Sector One, and particularly its royal family.

Ana is the first woman who has been allowed to join the Riders, so there are a lot of people watching her, and a lot of expectations resting on her. She feels like she's an experiment - that she must do well, otherwise they'll never let a woman join again. She can't risk anyone ever thinking that she got through a test or a hard patch of training just because Deacon went easy on her because she's a woman. And that means she certainly shouldn't be thinking about sleeping with him. I was really interested to see how Ana handled these issues, and I'm pleased with how things turned out.

When a sinister playing card is found at the site of an arson attack, Deacon knows it's a message from the assassin gang known as the Suicide Kings, a gang he used to belong to. Many years ago they sent Deacon to kill Gideon, but he never went back. Now he thinks they're looking for him, and that he must face them head on: kill or be killed. I think the tension was done really well with the Suicide Kings plotline. I really didn't know where it was going, and whether people would come out of it ok or not. There are some very tense moments, and I love how the characters support each other and play off one another.

As for the romance, I liked these two as a couple. Their biggest challenge is to figure out together how to make their personal relationship work alongside their professional one, and where to draw the lines between the two. It leads to some really difficult and really moving scenes - as with many a Kit Rocha book, make sure you have your tissues close to hand! A dystopian twist on the falling-for-the-boss trope, I loved the nail-biting plot and thought the romance meshed with it perfectly - it was one solid story, not a separate love story & action story.
I'm giving Deacon by Kit Rocha 8 out of 10.

You can find it on iBooks and Amazon, amongst other places.