Rules of Redemption is the first book in T. A. White’s Firebird Chronicles, the action-adventure sci-fi series that has thousands of fans posting five-star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Book #1 delivers everything I love in a good girly space opera: a badass female main character, fast-paced action scenes galore, tension that turned my knuckles white as I gripped my ereader screen, plus a slow-burn romance that kept me turning pages loooong past bedtime!
Kira is a retired war hero whose mysterious past has left her isolated, working as a salvager harvesting tech from alien spacecraft left over from the war. But when she’s forced to dock in the space station she once called home, a daring rescue blows her cover and brings her face to face with the truth that she’s more than she seems.
Not only do her former military companions find out she’s not dead after all, an arrogant and advanced alien race called the Tuann claim she’s one of their own. To avoid war between the Tuann and the humans, Kira embarks on a journey accompanied by the humans who hate her, a shipful of aliens who mistrust her, and their arrogant-but-attractive leader Graydon, right hand man of the alien emperor.
But Kira is operating under secret orders from her human admiral, and hiding plans of her own that not even her human companions know of. And a new war is brewing that no one, Tuann or human, is ready for.
I was SO anxious to find out whether Kira would redeem herself or whether she’d be found out and tried for treason, and SO intrigued to see if she’d cave to Graydon’s pursuit! I couldn’t stop myself from staying up late reading “one more chapter,” then later still reading “just one more.”
Fan reviews highlighted appreciation for Rules of Redemption’s well-developed cast of side-characters including Kira’s surprising best-friend Jin, a drone whose heart is more human than AI, and her former military crew, whose relationships with Kira are fraught with history and yet full of room for growth.
Fans also adore the hilarious banter between Kira and her companions, and I couldn’t agree more. Kira’s witty and back-and forth with Graydon was the highlight of the book!
Fans also said it was nice to read a space opera romance with a full-fledged politics-and-action plot at the forefront instead of being all about sex. (SPOILER! There’s no sex in this book, though there may be some kissing.) That being said, I do see potential for the slow burn romance between Kira and Graydon to burn a little hotter in books to come, and I’m not complaining!
Rules of Redemption brings its main plot to a satisfying conclusion while at the same time leaving readers clamouring to find out what happens next between Kira, her human companions, and the alien commander Graydon.
I’ve already downloaded book two so I can find out!
