BLURB: Lieutenant Ashwin Malhotra is a Makhai soldier—genetically engineered to be cold, ruthless. Unfeeling. His commanding officers consider him the perfect operative, and they’re right. Now, he has a simple mission: to infiltrate Gideon’s Riders, the infamous sect of holy warriors that protects the people of Sector One.
He’s never failed to execute an objective, but there’s one thing he didn’t anticipate—running into Dr. Kora Bellamy, the only woman to ever break through his icy exterior.
When Kora fled her life as a military doctor for the Makhai Project, all she wanted was peace—a quiet life where she could heal the sick and injured. The royal Rios family welcomed her like a sister, but she could never forget Ashwin. His sudden reappearance is a second chance—if she can manage to touch his heart.
When the simmering tension between them finally ignites, Kora doesn’t realize she’s playing with fire. Because she’s not just falling in love with a man who may not be able to love her back. Ashwin has too many secrets—and one of them could destroy her.
REVIEW:
A great start to this new spin off series. I devoured the Beyond Series last year and was really intrigued by Ashwin, the genetically enhanced soldier and Dr. Kora Bellamy. So of course i was looking forward to their story.
This one opens a few months after the events of the final book in the Beyond series, and while you can probably read this as a standalone and not be too confused, I personally feel new people to the series should start with the Beyond books. IMO you’ll get a better sense of Eden, the Sectors, some of the characters who were introduced in the previous series, and just get a generally better grasp of this world and what is going on!
Sector One is vastly different from Sector Four, but i feel readers will see that juxtaposition better if they read the previous 9 books of the Beyond Series (or i could just want people to read them because i love them and there are characters that i adore :P)
So we get to peel back the layers of Ashwin here, get a sense of who he is beyond what we saw of him in the other series, beyond the emotionless soldier. By the end we see that he’s still struggling with the things he feels. And what i liked was that his emotions aren’t shown to be as only a result of his interactions with Kora but with the Riders and the other people in the Rios family.
And what we learn about who (or rather what?) Kora really is? that added a whole other layer to their relationship!
Now as with the other books we get POV chapters from the MCs of book 2 (Deacon and Ana) and i’m already intrigued by these two. Ana’s the first female Rider and a black woman so I’m definitely looking forward to their book.
I love when background characters (but let’s be real Gideon aint no background character but i’ll go with that for now lol) are so interesting that apart from being engrossed in the main MCs i just want to know alllll the things about the leader of Sector One. also who’s he gonna be paired up with because we have no idea when his book will be >.> I have my suspicions of who his LI is but we’ll see if i’m right.
We also get to meet some O’kanes whooo hoooo…i was thrilled to see a cameo of my fave Ace, though it was brief…more O’kane cameos please. i know this is about Gideon and crew but some visits to the other sectors from time to time couldn’t hurt.
Anyhoo this has probably gone into rambly territory now so i’ll wrap up by saying i’m waiting in anticipation for the next two books in the series and i’ll just be over here trying to figure out who ends up with who. 🙂
Rating: 
Oh! to peep the covers of the next two books and learn more about this series clicky
Ashwin releases : March 7th, 2017 so pre-order from your link of choice!
