Strong woman or helpless damsel?
A single mother who flees her abusive husband to save herself and her son's life, joins her brother in starting a starship crew and business, pilots the ship, holds the family together as its moral compass while training her son to be a better man than his father. By the time kidnappers come for them she fights off several while putting her son in a safe place out of their reach. She makes the most difficult bargain, choosing exile for herself in trade for protection of her son from further attacks.
Annemarie Tarsis is the youngest child of Joseph and Mary Tarsis. Joe is the current Elder of the Tarsis family Bloodline, and COO of StarSys, the family business. Mary, the CEO.
After high school, as many youths enjoy to do, Annemarie went on a summer of planet hopping across the galaxy. She intended to return to college after the usual 3 months of exploration. Anne woke up one day in a room in New Vegas, with a ring and a husband and a problem. She did not remember details of her husband’s claim- Tyrian Tauri was his name, by the way- of the long days of enjoying each other’s company, falling in love, and why she was now pregnant with his child.
A believer in the culture of Life, Annemarie tried to make this marriage work. She learned belatedly, that her husband was aggressive, alcoholic, and abusive when he frequently got drunk. He was not a Galactic citizen, hailing from the wilder Rim with its variable subjective codes of morality. After months of effort to reconcile their differences Anne fled Tyrian's side when he attempted to end her pregnancy by doing violence to her growing belly.
Anne's eldest brother Manny came and rescued her, sending a platoon of Marines down to bodily remove her from Tyrian's grasp. They fled across the galaxy in his- Manny is also known as Admiral Manuel Tarsis- in his Admiral's Barge, a Destroyer of the Galactic Navy.
Her baby was born just as the ship exited a wormhole and entered space above the family planet of Ceres. Hence, Anne named her baby boy after home. She named him Ceres. Ceres Tauri.
Future Spoilers:
Annemarie is in exile in a convent on a planet at the end of the Apostle Stars. She made a bargain with her husband, to remain there in secrecy. If she stayed in exile, Tyrian would not pursue, her family, or their son. Tyrian agreed.
After Ceres visited A.Vahlahha in 2525, freed thousands of slaves, and killed thousands of Tyrian's pirates, including destroying the entire fleet and their home base of a.Valhalla, Tyrian aims to break this agreement. He set sail for that planet with intent to extract vengeance from AnneMarie for what Ceres has done.
Spoiler Spoilers:
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Like, wreck your enjoyment for the next 2 Ceres novels, spoilers.
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AnneMarie placed a clone of herself in the convent long ago. When Tyrian and his core group come to set a trap for Ceres, the person they fight over is the clone of Annemarie.
Still more spoilers:
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Anne was thus one of the many fellow instructors on Sensei Aramada's dojo planet.
She also moved to Atlantis and took a position on the Academy staff while Ceres attended.
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Spoilers for the author's notes only. Will ruin a whole book for readers:
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Since then, she has been amassing a following out of the Tarsis' family's loyal bodyguard and spy corp. She will pop up in 2527 and intervene in the ensuing plot.