Wake of the Nightshade: Book 1 of the Lanian Silver Trilogy Book

Well, this is a "space opera" type of novel told from the point of view of a young captain on her first voyage as the captain of a merchant vessel. Direct from a shattering disappointment and possible scandal Kylara Vatta takes command of a small, obsolete trading vessel in her wealthy family's fleet. Sent to sell the ship for scrap she has other potentially more profitable ideas.

But then does anything ever go as planned?

Not if you want an exciting novel. It's almost as if someone had said, "well at least nothing can go wrong on a trip like this" and then followed it up with, "what else can go wrong" and then, "well what's the worst that could happen?"

I'm a big fan of Ms. Moon's Paksenarrion trilogy, however I wasn't able to get into the first effort of her's into space opera that I tried. This one was really pretty good. I got it from Audible and found it to be a good book read by an only fair reader. It did lose my interest a bit a few times, mostly when Kylara was having some emotional internal dialog. On the whole however I found the book surprisingly interesting (considering it is about a trading vessel), well written and thoroughly characterized. You'll get to know the people and the set up for the following volume(s) works well. I like it and can recommend it. I think even the hard science fiction sticklers will be okay with it. While it doesn't try to explain ansibles or how it's FTL drive works (Faster Than Light for the uninitiated) it does recognize the possibility and the difference in an "in system drive" and an "FTL". It doesn't go into this in great detail (which will be appreciated by other readers) but it's there.

As I said, good book, interesting story, good characters, 4 stars and recommended.