Review:
Years ago, Temperance (Temper) Reed was a member of one of the wealthy Ten Families, second only to the Five. Then she tried to interfere with one of her brother's schemes and ended up banished. Her only home, since then, has been the Quest, a spaceship with a ragtag crew.
After she's betrayed by her lover, the ship's captain, she buys the ship off of him, becomes the new captain, and tries to get jobs decent enough to dig herself out of debt. Unfortunately, her first job as the ship's new captain seems likely to be riddled with traps. The Escajeda, one of the Five, hires her to scout part of Herschel Two, a mostly deserted planet that happens to have a cult living right near the Escajeda's choice of survey site. In addition, the head of the Escajeda has forced her to bring his second child, Arcadio Escajeda, along as the ship's new security expert. Temper's pretty sure his primary goal is actually to spy on her and her crew, and make sure they're upholding their end of the deal. It also seems like he's hiding something - for some reason he keeps leaving the ship to do some scouting on his own when he thinks no one is watching.
This was one of my Book Bonanza purchases, bought early on to help keep me from feeling bored while waiting in lines.
In the world of this series, the various top Fifteen Families were like cutthroat corporations that each specialized in something. If I remember right, the Reeds were into AI, the Nakatomis were into weaponry, and the Pierces were into energy. I can't remember what the Escajedas were most into, but if their plan worked and Temper and her crew found a source of phydium (a new source of energy) on Herschel Two, they'd be able to cut into the Pierces' energy monopoly. Of course, just like Temper suspected, Arcadio was there for more than just phydium.
Temper didn't particularly impress me, at first. She seemed to think more with her emotions and libido than anything, and her decision to buy the Quest off of Ven, even at a steep discount, looked like an objectively bad idea. Her reaction to Arcadio only reinforced my opinion that she was more libido than brains, although she at least waited a while before trying to jump his bones.
After I got to know Temper more, well, she never exactly impressed me, but I did come to appreciate her. Buying the Quest was an objectively bad decision, but she made it in an effort to ensure that her crew, her little found family, could stay together and continue to have a home. She may not have been the most brilliant captain ever, but I at least liked her intense loyalty to her people. I could understand why Arcadio started to fall for her.
That said, aside from a couple conversations, readers (and Temper) never got to learn too much about Arcadio. Yeah, he was a more decent guy than one might initially assume (my favorite warm fuzzy moments were when he worried about her being properly armed or suited up), but considering the decisions he made at the end of the book, I wanted to know more about his relationships with others in his family and how he fit into everything. There were blank spots there that were never sufficiently filled in.
This looks to be the first entry in either a trilogy or a series. The next book focuses on Micah, the ship's gruff medic, and the woman introduced in this book as Generosity, a member of the cult on Herschel Two. I liked Micah well enough and I'm willing to be won over by Generosity - I plan on giving their story a shot.
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