An early Honorverse book, but still good. Honor's already being loaded up with an improbable number of, um, honors (after last volume's dual peerages, she also ends up here in command of the Bestest, Coolest, ship in the fleet, plus a flag captain, plus working under another brilliant mentor, plus ...

Pavel Young is back again, and once all the worried glances and twisting guts of fear and unhappiness are resolved and the Actual War starts up, the Honor/Pavel conflict becomes even more important. And Honor both earns her chops as the Brave Captain Who Drags Her Crew Through The Fire (For An Excellent Cause) and sets up the conflicts that will lead to the next couple of books.

Weber slowly increases the non-Honor space here, with glimpses into the minds and actions of her antagonists domestic (Pavel, the Bad Admiral) and foreign (the Peep government forces starting up a "short, victorious war" to prop up their regime). It's a writing style Weber expands on in each succeeding volume, sometimes to excess.

Still, the battle scenes are gripping, the melodrama is appropriately dramatic, and the bigger picture keeps getting bigger as the Manticore-Haven War finally kicks off with many, many bangs.