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The Choir and its cryst-born navigators, who eventually return to the crystal they were born from, has guided humanity through the stars for a millenia. One of these navigators discovers that all is not well with her order on the day her mother dies and her mentor leaves her behind. When she teams up with a pirate captain, can they get to the bottom of the conspiracy at the heart of the Choir?

The Two Lies of Faven Smith is a pretty fast paced space opera that centers itself around the budding relationship forming between the titular navigator Faven and the pirate captain Bitter Amandine. There's sexual/romantic tension between the two through the whole book. It's a well-played tension that the narrative attention always stays right on the line of keeping it interesting and never overstaying its welcome. Like I said, it comes out through great banter and an explanation for why a character is making the stupid move that they acknowledge is the stupid move. Great characterization between the two

I really enjoyed this one, the back and forth between the sheltered Faven and the roguish Amandine was really fun to read and the plot went through all sorts of twists and turns that kept me going with one more chapter, what's another chapter, just one more.

The Choir and its navigators reminded me of a sort of cross between the Bene Gesserit and the Navigator's Guild from Dune, though the pacing for this conspiracy fueled plot moves a lot quicker.

Thanks to Orbit books for providing me a review copy through NetGalley

Note: I received a complimentary copy through Netgalley

Martin Allgeier is Third Assistant Librarian. Just some guy. He says that in the intro chapter. He swears thats the one thing he's not going to lie about.

Martin has to hire a bounty hunter to help track down the niece of the Director, the head of the government of the planet Offyonder. Can Martin, the Bounty Hunter Sol, and a street dancer find the endangered girl in the middle of a civil war before something terrible happens?

I enjoyed the infiltrating a civil war to rescue the target plot. There were a lot of exciting moments. The only issue I really had is that either early on the vocab was clunky and then the author got into a groove and it stopped or it was very in character clunky academic speech narration and onboarding to the character's POV took a chapter or two while the narration felt clunky. I'm honestly not 100% sure which, but all wording issues I noticed seemed to go away by about Chapter 3.

There are a couple twists toward the end I won't spoil here. One is basically right there practically in the text from the first chapter, but one is really well done and well set up through a good chunk of the book.

If you like spy thrillers and sci fi, and can be patient with the narration for a chapter or two, this was a fun read.