Orson Scott Card’s “Speaker for the Dead,” is about redemption. I am not a huge fan of science fiction myself, but it does not focus heavily on the concepts, but more on the relationships, within oneself and with others, and it wins my heart.
Set many years in the future, and also after his first book in the “Ender Quartet”, Ender Wiggin, or Andrew Wiggin, is an infamous killer who was once celebrated and now the example of hatred. Ender has published his personal feelings toward those he killed in a book (under a pen name), which has been world renowned and practically as popular as the Bible. Ender did this as a reconciliation for what had happened, and has yet to forgive himself.
Without his parents, and leaving his only sister behind to be a Speaker for the Dead on another planet, he is lonely and soft hearted. You love Ender and feel his suffering, as he carries, literally and figuratively, the rest of the race he destroyed on his back.
He falls in love with the family tied to the new race that is becoming a threat—and tries his best to help, because there have been too many deaths already. As he assists, he falls in love and eventually marries Novinha, and adopts the children and finally finds his place.
There’s plenty of action, suspense, and story there to keep you reading, but in the end, the most rewarding and satisfying part of the story is that everyone finds the peace they are searching for.
