Review: Aurora Blazing

Aurora Blazing by Jessie Mihalik
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars

Author Jessie Mihalik's sequel to her popular Polaris Rising follows the story of Polaris's protagonist's sister, Lady Biana von Hasenberg, who has been recently widowed. (Fans of Ada will be glad to know that she does appear in the novel, though she and Loch are on the borders of this story.) Bianca has been keeping a lot of secrets from her family about her dreadful deceased husband, Gregory, who has... um, modified her. (He was basically a mad scientist.) In the Consortium world, though women from powerful families retain their power, they are little more than chattel in the hands of an unscrupulous husband and Bianca has paid a heavy price for this fact. Now widowed, back at home with the von Hasenberg family, and with her House being on the brink of war with House Rockhurst (over some of the events from Polaris Rising, Bianca is attacked and her brother Ferdinand is kidnapped. She breaks out of her father's security stranglehold to try to find and rescue her brother and is saddled with Ian Bishop, the young man who heads her father's security. With a background as shadowy as Marcus Loch, and as Bianca's entire marriage was, all Bianca knows is that Ian is quite handsome, and getting on her very last nerve as he tracks her all over the Universe as she tries to get Ferdinand back.

I found this book a little less satisfying than its predecessor in part because I didn't quite feel Bianca's trauma issues blended well with Ian's often cutting high-handedness and I felt that it was too similar in its template to the first novel. While I could see Ada's growing attraction to Loch, who also isn't exactly what he seems to be, the relationship between Bianca and Ian just didn't work as well for me and I can't seem to articulate why. I also think I missed Loch's brio a bit, since Ian is not as colorful a character. And I don't understand why Bianca's father would ever have allowed her to marry and leave to join another house if she is really the best hacker in the universe, among other things. I need more about Albrecht von Hasenberg in order to understand how such a vile man and father would risk a power match that might lose him an asset like Bianca. Because he really almost lost her. Perhaps he's too sexist to realize her value, though her training implies otherwise.

The next von Hasenberg sibling to rebel is evidently Catalina, the youngest, in the as-yet unnamed third and concluding novel in the Consortium Rebellion trilogy. She will be rebelling with Jonathan, introduced in this book along with his adopted sister Aoife. I must confess I think it would be way cool to have a von Hasenberg daughter who rebelled without a man's assistance, just for the sake of rebellion. Ada started out that way, which might be part of why I liked her so much. In any case, I also wish the brothers would rebel. Just for the equity of it. Albrecht sounds like he totally deserves it.

I received a Digital Review Copy and paper review copy of this book from Harper Voyager in exchange for an honest review.


View all my reviews