A brilliant, twisty sci-fi adventure! O'Keefe's mastery of setting, character and compelling plot are dazzling.

O'Keefe does a great job of world-building as the tension ramps up throughout the first half of the book, and then when it takes off, there's a huge twist and everything turns upside down. Even her minor her characters are compelling and believable. It's reminiscent of the Expanse, complete with sci-fi, politics, espionage and survival in the hazardous depths of space. There's action, a bit of romance, and all exceedingly well-paced, building to an exciting conclusion.

Between the covers is a 5-star story... but it's slightly weighed down by extra stuff that isn't part of that 5-star story. The book has four on-going narratives, two of which tie together brilliantly. Of the other two, one is world-building that helps flesh out the stakes towards the end, but one just appears to be setup for another book. Unfortunately, at the moment there's only one book, and when that second one comes out, it's entirely possible those stray elements will converge into a brilliant expanded arc, but they don't really add anything to this book's story. That said, even the stray part is really good, and still solidly engaging, so it's a minor quibble. If it were a separate short story, I'd still recommend you read it, because it's good -- it just feels slightly weird here amid the action of this book, but that's the only reason I'd give this 4 rather than 5 stars.

I'm all in for the Protectorate #2.