Rogue Agent

A Star Nation in Peril, Book 1

De: Skyler Ramirez

Narrado por: Madeleine Brolly

**_She was his protector. Until he betrayed them all. Now he’s dead—and the secrets buried with him may ignite a war._**

Heather Kilgore is the deadliest assassin in the Fringe, a fearsome agent for her King and star nation. But when a high-profile defector is found dead outside the embassy on a contested world, Heather is pulled back into a past she'd tried to forget. Her orders are simple: find out why her name was in the dead man's pocket. But nothing is simple in a galaxy of shifting loyalties and buried truths.

As the stakes escalate and alliances blur, Heather must confront enemies on both sides of a centuries-old conflict, and she may be the only hope of stopping a war. But for her, this one is personal, and she'll do whatever it takes to complete her mission and find out why she was betrayed.

**Set in the same universe as the fan-favorite _Dumb Luck and Dead Heroes_ series, _Rogue Agent_ is a gripping sci-fi thriller of espionage, loyalty, and deadly secrets. Equal parts space opera and technothriller, it will keep you on the edge of your seat and anxious for more.**

©2024 Skyler Steven Ramirez (P)2025 Skyler Steven Ramirez

Excellent story & narration!

This was my first experience with an audiobook and it didn’t disappoint! I’m already a huge fan of Skyler Ramirez’s Dumb Luck & Dead Heroes books so I already knew the story would be excellent and this edition didn’t disappoint! Can’t wait to listen to the sequels!

A fantastic and exciting science fiction thriller!

Review of “Rogue Agent” by Skyler Ramirez (audiobook)

This is an attention grabbing, exciting, and very intriguing science fiction thriller set in an era when faster than light travel between distant star systems has been possible for many centuries.

This story’s focal character is Heather Kilgore, an Agent of the Order of the King’s Cross, a shadowy organization of assassin/spies that act at the bequest of the King (and sometimes Queen) of the Federated Systems of Prometheus. Kilgore is given the assignment to investigate the death of Conner Monroe, former Naval Commander of Prometheus who defected to the Koratan Confederacy, and whose body was found on the planet Hudson outside the Koratan Embassy.

Hudson is part of one of three adjacent systems that fall on the Harper Line, an area of space where control is contested between Prometheus and the Koratans, who are long term enemies and have been engaged in a mostly cold war for centuries. Kilgore and her former mentor Tabitha Lowry are immediately sent to Hudson on the assigned covert mission.

I won’t provide any further details about the story because I want listeners to have the pleasure of experiencing it for themselves. I will say that the narrative includes many unexpected developments and there is plenty of edge of your seat excitement! This tale is anything but predictable and you definitely won’t see the various twists and turns, or the eventual resolution, coming!

The storyline is very creative and compelling and it kept me engrossed from the first page through the very end. The characters are complex and well developed and drawn and they engaged my compassion in spite of my expectations (I didn’t expect to feel sympathetic towards assassins)!

The narrator, Madeleine Brolly, is excellent and does a great job of bringing the characters, and the overall narrative, to life.

I truly enjoyed this audiobook and I think it’s a superb example of its genre. I definitely recommend it and I look forward to listening to the next audiobook in the series. This was my first encounter with an audiobook by this author and I am very happy to have found a new favorite creator in this medium! I highly recommend this audiobook (or book if you’re not into audio). Get it - you won’t be disappointed!

Review by Sue Ratner

A Decent Story

There were things I liked about the story, but in the end I didn't feel amazed. I leave the 5-star reviews for those kinds of books.

There were some intricate plot details that I enjoyed about the story, but in the end I don't feel like there was enough emotion involved. It felt more like a head-game kind of book. I understand that these are agents, but at some point one of these agents defected (let their emotions dictate their behaviour). I felt that could have been felt a bit more by the reader somehow. As it is, I just don't recall anything, so it must not have been that impactful (to me at least).

The use of Kilgore, Tabitha, Heather, Lowry confused me enough in the end that I didn't really know or care that much who won in the end. A fight between two skilled women agents with a random name thrown in means that one will win. Hopefully its the good one. At one point there was a lot of emphasis on "the redhead," but even that isn't used to actually help the reader out.

At the end, with the x-lover being still alive, it was anti-climactic since the agent didn't think it was very exciting to see him alive. It seems to me that the writer thought it clever, but it just made it less impactful to me. For as much as these women were scarred and basing decisions on their emotions, I finished the book feeling like there wasn't anything memorable about the book.