Aurora Rising: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

We meet again!

(Bear in mind my reviews are pretty back-logged, so this technically was the beginning of the year at the time) For my second read of the 2022 year, I decided that I would start a series that I had bought nearly a year prior and had been eyeballing for quite some time. Without further ado, here we go

Brief Synopsis:

Here we are, over 200 years into the future. We live in space now, humans are called Terrans, and there are more than one, or two, or three types of alien life. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s been plenty of wars that have been fought in the 200+ years, but right now is at a time of relative peace, except for with the Syldrathi.

The Syldrathi fought the Terrans for quite some time before a hesitant peace was agreed upon. However, the Starslayer is a Syldrathi that wasn’t fine with that peace and started destroying any that did agree, including his own fellow aliens and Tyler and Scarlett Jones’ father, the famous Jericho Jones.

Tyler and Scarlett are twins that have just faced a huge milestone: the draft. Tyler is an alpha and has been dreaming of the draft, where he gets to assemble his all-star team, for years. However, Tyler misses the draft when he’s out in the Fold and discovers Aurora (Auri) who has been floating in space for over 200 years and was presumed gone forever.

Since Tyler misses the draft, he mostly gets the misfits, minus his own sister and their best friend of many, many years, Cat. Tyler, Scar and Cat are joined by Finian, a Betraskan alien, and Zila, who is another Terran but is oddly robotic and doesn’t really care about reprimands.

Finally, Kal finishes up their little group. Kaliis Idraban Gilwraeth is a Warbreed, the type of Syldrathi that are infamous in following Starslayer, though now his followers are called the Unbroken. Kal isn’t popular among the Syldrathi anymore, not the Unbroken or the others, making him just another drifter, though a seriously deadly one.

What seems to be a harmless and embarrassingly low-ranking trip to assist a refuge ship turns out to be anything but. When Auri awakens, she’s directed to become a stowaway on Tyler’s ship and they’re followed by a legion of Unbroken. A fight breaks out and Auri saves Kal… without even touching the other Syldrathi? Oh, her one eye goes totally white, too.

To top it off, a lot of other really dang weird things keep happening to Auri, and after a very nearly deadly situation with some officials that are after Auri, they all become fugitives floating through space just trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Through some very pushy guidance from whatever seems to be controlling Auri subconsciously, they all end up in Sempiternity, which is a ship comprised of a lot of other ships and the rules kind of don’t really matter. While there, Fin employs the help of a distant relative to give them a place to stay while they try and figure out why Aurora-not-Aurora led them there in the first place. They’re searching for something she keeps calling the “Trigger” which seems to be a priceless statue that is owned by THEE alien mobster that pretty much controls all of Sempiternity. To make matters worse, his place is pretty much, in every single way, break-in and rob proof.

However, they didn’t come this far just to come this far, and they decide that they have survived to this point, so they may as well keep pushing. There’s a masquerade ball conveniently happening at the big mobster’s place, so that’s their in. The GIA (the officials after Auri) try and persuade Cat onto their side, and I’m sad to say that for a while I fully believed that she was selling everyone out. However, they use this to better their chances and create a pretty damn elaborate escape trap, with the Trigger in their possession, that would take far too long for me to explain. But trust me, it was really damn impressive.

Back on the run, Auri gets “taken” again by this thing controlling her and reveals what they think is their next step.

Unfortunately, that’s not really what it was meant to be. It turns out that it was more of a warning for them to stay the hell away from Octavia, the place that Auri was supposed to end up at more than 200 years previously. When they arrive, they find out that everything is covered in these vines, leaves, and spores that are traveling through the air. One of them ends up getting seriously hurt and, unfortunately, infected with these spores, effectively beginning to turn them into the enemy. Because that’s what they found out: the GIA are all infected with whatever this is. And whatever this is; it seems like Auri may be the only thing that can truly stop it. Though they were actually being warned away from the planet, they find out a lot there. This Ra’haam (the spore-like entity) has tried to take over before and was stopped by the Eshvaren, which is what keeps guiding Auri. It’s omnipresent and all-consuming and isn’t going to stop until it has taken over everyone’s consciousness and being to become ONE.

I know, scary huh? They unfortunately lost one of their ranks to the Ra’haam, and honestly, it was such a heartbreaking thing to read. But the team is persisting, they’re not giving up, and they’re ready to just kick some ancient ass.

My Rating:

10/10. I loved everything about this book. The pacing, the characters, the sass, all of it. Just truly a great book that I recommend across the board.

Favorite Quote(s):

“The notion of faith was all but dead as humanity started reaching out to the stars.”

“But the pull of her is like gravity. A bottomless pool in which I would happily throw myself to drown.”

“The confluence of events that led to this moment is so remote as to be almost impossible. Our very existence is a miracle.”

A book I read with similar vibes:

Lunar Chronicles for dang sure.

Check out my Goodreads (Traci Bishop) to see what I’m currently reading and to see a good chunk of the books I have already read. My Instagram can be found on the home page and I will share whenever a new post is up as well!

Until next time <3