Review: Aurora Burning

Aurora Burning 
Rating: 4/5 
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

First, the bad news: an ancient evil—you know, your standard consume-all-life-in-the-galaxy deal—is about to be unleashed. The good news? Squad 312 is standing by to save the day. They’ve just got to take care of a few small distractions first.

Like the clan of gremps who’d like to rearrange their favorite faces.

And the cadre of illegit GIA agents with creepy flowers where their eyes used to be, who’ll stop at nothing to get their hands on Auri.

Then there’s Kal’s long-lost sister, who’s not exactly happy to see her baby brother, and has a Syldrathi army at her back. With half the known galaxy on their tails, Squad 312 has never felt so wanted.

When they learn the Hadfield has been found, it’s time to come out of hiding. Two centuries ago, the colony ship vanished, leaving Auri as its sole survivor. Now, its black box might be what saves them. But time is short, and if Auri can’t learn to master her powers as a Trigger, the squad and all their admirers are going to be deader than the Great Ultrasaur of Abraaxis IV.

Shocking revelations, bank heists, mysterious gifts, inappropriately tight bodysuits, and an epic firefight will determine the fate of the Aurora Legion’s most unforgettable heroes—and maybe the rest of the galaxy as well. 

Aurora Rising was a nice little surprise for me, I'd been sent an ARC by the publisher and even though Sci-Fi isn't my usual thing I fancied picking it up and giving it a shot. I ended up really enjoying myself reading it and highly anticipating the sequel, Aurora Burning. In fact I was kind of procrastinating from reading Aurora Burning because I was so excited for it and knew I'd binge through it in no time! 

Aurora Burning follows much the same kind of formula as the first book. There's a nice action packed opening before the whole Kuzco 'yeah that's me' kind of thing like I mentioned in my review of Aurora Rising. I do love how it's addressed and acknowledged in the narrative so I'll give it a pass for being kind of, exactly the same. There's also the multiple POV's, the slices of information on the world although from what I could tell a lot of them were the same as from the previous book but don't quote me on that because I'm not 100% sure as I didn't have time for a re-read! I just got that eery sense that I'd already read them. The humour and snark of the previous book is also present in abundance throughout Aurora Burning, as is the action scenes, fast pace and slight ridiculousness that sometimes pops up. 

However, this time around I feel like we get a lot more emotion than there was in the previous book, to go with the new characters that we're introduced to and we finally get some more background and insight into the characters. Zila in particular was much appreciated by me as I kind of always forgot she was there in the previous book and I felt like out of all the characters we got to know her the least. With the absence of one character, Zila certainly takes the spotlight a lot more in this book. Not only do we come to understand her thanks to a very cleverly written chapter, but she also has a lot more to do in this book! Before she kind of felt like an additional crew member to bulk out numbers and I couldn't quite figure out what her purpose was so I was excited to see her take on more of a role and learn more about her. It was also nice to see her relaxing and becoming more comfortable with the others! 

As you'd expect from the cover of Aurora Burning, our cover man Kal takes more of a focus in this book. I felt like we saw a lot less of Tyler than we did in the previous book and all eyes were on Kal as we went deeper into his character's background and there were some brilliant twists with him that I usually figured out about 2 seconds before the reveal! I also loved getting a deeper look at the Syldrathi and the split between them with the Unbroken opposing pretty much everyone. 

Aurora Burning picks up smoothly from where we left off with a burst of action to pull you in as we get to grips with the current situation our crew have found themselves in. Once again, I liked that we didn't hang around and jumped straight into things. Quickly being introduced to the 8476343 problems they have to face. One of which is new character Saedii who's badass, a little bit scary and yet still kind of awesome. 

I have to say, Finian further cemented his place as my favourite character in this entire series! I love he and his narrative and I loved getting to see one of my ships develop further in this book. I feel like Finian had more depth in this book, as did Scarlett actually! The two of them really remind me of my Teen Wolf OTP Stydia! Speaking of OTP's, I feel like Saedii and Tyler are going to become a thing next book and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. I've been holding out hope for Cat and that hope hasn't entirely died so I'm not sure if I can get behind Tyler X Saedii. 

I have to say, Kal was my biggest disappointment in this book. He was super intriguing in the first book with his 'enemy within' and that internal struggle and then we get plenty more intriguing information about him in this book...but somehow he ended up just being relegated to being the love interest. He stopped being a character all of his own and really just became like one entity with Aurora and I felt like the entire point of him this book was to be Aurora's love interest. It was really disappointing and I felt like his potential was never really explored which made the ending all the more frustrating. 

On the subject of Aurora and Kal, I never fully got on board with their romance in the first book, it seemed very insta-love and didn't have much depth to it but I figured it would be expanded upon in this book. However, there's a little plot device in this book that allows months to pass for the two of them in the blink of an eye and I was side-eyeing it immensely. It sped up the romance but I still didn't fully buy it because we didn't get to see a lot of it and it seemed like it was there to make things more wrenching and emotional towards the end but it just...fell a little flat to be honest. 

There are still some plot twists that are pulled out to surprise you that leave you gasping and ramp up towards the end fantastically. I also particularly thought that the final chapter was clever as we snap quickly between POVs and it added to the building rhythm of the finale, keeping you speeding towards the end and amping up the tension before the absolutely horrific cliffhanger ending. Was that really necessary!? 

I can't say whether I enjoyed this more than Aurora Rising, I think I might have enjoyed the previous book a little bit more. Aurora Burning is much like Aurora Rising in that it isn't entirely perfect, there are a few things that niggled at me, but it was still a fast and enjoyable read that you could have fun reading! I look forward to having that cliffhanger resolved in the next book and I'm once again, probably foolishly, holding out hope for a certain character! Although I think I've now finally lost hope for Cat.