This is the second book in author Yasmin Angoe’s series about a trained assassin known as Echo. When she’s not targeting someone, she is Nena Knight, a young woman originally from Ghana who has found a family after being robbed of her family, youth, and innocence in Ghana. I was given this book as an advanced reader copy, but after starting the book I felt lost, so I went back and read the first one in the series, Her Name is Knight, before coming back to this one. I don’t suggest trying to pick up the series with the second book. Angoe does give us a lot of Nena’s background, but the bulk of the story will be confusing unless you’ve read that first book.

It’s well worth reading this series. They Come at Knight is the second offering and it continues on with the same interesting characters and setting that Angoe set up in the first book. Having vanquished her family and destroyed the man who attempted to destroy her once and for all, Nena is at a crossroads. She thought she had her life figured out, but events in Her Name is Knight led her to question everything. Her job as an assassin was always to just carry out the job and not question it, but now she is questioning everything. There were events in the first book that indicated that there was trouble in the insular organization known as The Tribe. It’s a group of African leaders attempting to form a coalition to protect the continent from being exploited from the outside, as it has been over the centuries. There is still a question of who is loyal to The Tribe and who might be trying to destroy it from within. Nena assembles a team to go to Africa with the family and root out who is at the center of the problems they are having.

Complicating matters is a romance Nena never planned on. After being sexually assaulted as a youth, she never expected to find anyone she could trust nor make her have feelings of a romantic nature. However, former prosecutor Cortland and his daughter Georgia have managed to capture a part of Nena’s heart she didn’t think existed anymore. That she takes them to Africa with her seems a bit odd, but it works for the story as readers get to view Africa through the eyes of someone who hasn’t been there before.

The writing is great. There is action and tension throughout the book as Nena works to expose who it trying to disrupt what The Tribe is doing. There were hints early on, but I admit I only had one of the suspects correct. Angoe manages to surprise me, which isn’t easy to do. The action seems nearly continuous with breaks for time with family and friends. The descriptions are fantastic and most of the book kept me on the edge of my seat as I turned the pages.

The only weak part I thought was the plot device of having everyone Nena trusts go to Africa. Her parents, Noble and Delphine: perfectly reasonable. Her very pregnant sister Elin: also reasonable. Cort and his daughter Georgia? Well, I can see Nena wanting them to see Africa for real, so okay. Gang leader Keigel? Okay, I don’t know any gang leader in Miami or anywhere else that could take off for weeks to another continent and have everything keep going fine at home. I liked Keigel fine. He was interesting and fun in the first book and in his home setting of Miami. It just seemed like a stretch that he would be able to leave for Africa and expect everything to be copasetic back home.

Still, I very much enjoyed They Come at Knight and will be looking for the third book in the trilogy when it comes out. This is an excellent story with compelling characters that held my interest.