Rogue's Rules

by Rhobin Lee Courtright

As a pirate, Jezlynn Chambers greatest plunder is revenge. As a former Space Service Corps officer aboard the Constant, her sense of justice demands retribution against those who destroyed her career... and her mind. Other disgraced crewmates from the Constant join her mission, but Jezlynn must keep a secret from her friends -- she is not the person they remember. If she can keep her fractured mind together, they can form a criminal alliance that will change history, or destroy them completely.

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

While I read many genre and select subjects in non-fiction, I've written mostly scifi/fantasy. Although I have more scifi in the works, this is changing as I'm also working on an historical and on a contemporary romance.

My first book, Magic Aegis, was published in 2005 and won the Dream Realm Award for Fantasy that year. Change and Acceptance are written in that same fantasy world. My science fiction efforts started with Rogue's Rules, which was a Dream Realm Award finalist, is about a multi-personality heroine. Loser's Game and Devil's Due complete that series. Devil's Due is an EPPIE finalist as well as a Dream Realm finalist for 2007.

Home World, Aginfeld is a futuristic romance and part of to-be-written series called Home Worlds.

New in April, Champagne Books released my Romantic Suspense, Stone House Farm

In February 2011, MuseItUp Publishing released Crewkin a space opera I'm sure will please scifi readers.

Hope you take a chance and read one of my works.

Reviews

[Bob Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose to read this book because its protagonist has multiple personalities, and I’ve worked with several clients with this condition. I found that the author got it pretty well right. Jezlynn Chambers was adopted from an orphanage at 5 years of age. Who knows what horrors she’d experienced before then? Loving father was mostly away working, while mother was a cold, distant, unloving figure. As a young adult, Jezlynn went through terrible experiences -- and coped through a skill she must have developed in infancy: leaving one part of her consciousness to cope, while identifying with another part that could escape.
Most people with this pattern -- ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder’ -- develop a very large number of alters, often in a fluid pattern that changes with the needs of the situation. But I have met those with Jezlynn’s pattern of a fixed number of stable personalities.
Rhobin got the inner feel of multiple personalities right, so, to me, this is a fascinating study of how unbearable trauma can strengthen a person.
OK, OK, I know few readers are psychologists. The setting for Jezlynn is space opera. Humanity has expanded into the galaxy, and has evolved into distinct subspecies. One corrupt family dominates the United Planets Alliance, and the back story is, a son of this family is responsible for Jezlynn’s disgrace, experience of slavery, torture, despair. In this story, she rescues ex-crew members, and forges a long, clever and risky campaign of vengeance.
This of course gives plenty of scope for excitement, tension, and character development. In the end, she and her friends discover the truth: successful revenge is a poor victory.
I do have some negative reactions to this book. Some of the action and dialogue is hard to understand. The book could do with a good line edit. While science fiction has a right to imaginary technology (that’s what SF is, right?), that should be explained well enough for the reader to imagine its workings. Here it often is -- and sometimes isn’t.
All in all, however, I am happy to give the story 4 stars.