This title is part of the CAEZIK Notables series of speculative-fiction books marking important milestones in science fiction or fantasy.

This Nebula- and Hugo-nominated novel is held in fond esteem by many Heinlein fans. Beginning in the early 1970s, Heinlein suffered from a number of health crises, including reversible neurologic dysfunction (toward the end of the decade), which greatly impacted the quality of his writing.

Friday, first published in 1982, is considered his “comeback” book. Much more reminiscent of his earlier, tighter works, it shows the Grand Master back in his earlier form.
 
Friday is a secret courier and ardent lover. Employed by a man she only knows of as “Boss”, she is given the most awkward and dangerous cases, which take her from New Zealand to Canada, and through the new States of America’s disunion, all the way out into the stars and the new colony of Botany Bay.
 
Thrust into one calamity after another, she uses her enhanced wits and very many skills to evade, seduce or even kill her way out of any sticky situation she finds herself in. For she is both superior and inferior to the average human.
 
As an AP—artificial person—the best humanity has to offer has been written into Friday’s DNA. Yet she is often treated like a second class citizen—if she were ever able to claim citizenship. Her mother was the test tube and her father the knife, as the saying goes, so she has less rights than the biologically-born human, and no soul, according to the church.
 
But in Friday Heinlein has created one of the most enlightened, warm, engaging and humane characters in the science fiction field, gifting us a novel of female empowerment that was well ahead of its time.