Alpha, by Catherine Asaro

I stumbled across Asaro while looking for something new in the SciFi realm of our library system. My first book was this one, Alpha, where I thoroughly enjoyed her captivationg style of writing which is very rich in characterization and liberal use of high tech SciFi ideas. She also integrates all of this with romance. Alpha is an AI (artificial intellingence) android with evolving intellince who is six feet tall and beautiful, undistinguishable from a human female, who flies jets and wields a machine gun, among other things. I went back and read the prequel to this called Sunrise Alley. Both of these books delve heavily into Asaro's extrapolation of current artificial intelligence theories and the ethics thereof. Can artificial intelligence or evolving intelligences become human?
An easy reading thriller that makes the reader ask themselves many questions, in a writing style as attractive and persuasive as Elizabeth Moon.