Dark Horse is trying to balance right on the line between romance novel and science fiction novel. However, to do romance right, you need to commit a lot of pages to developing the relationship, and there is just too much science fiction plot to accomplish that.

This book has a pretty good space opera plot. There is a lot of jeopardy, as Rose's AI friend could be in serious trouble (as could Rose). There are other things going on that I won't mention, because spoilers, but they are definitely exciting enough too. And then you have this romance stuck on the side, which doesn't actually impact the sci-fi plot at all. If Rose and Dav were just friends or if Dav didn't even exist and instead another member of Dav's crew was friends with Rose, it would still work with the plot. This, clearly, is an issue. Now, it could be a romantic subplot, except I don't think it is. Each of the books in this series seems to have a human woman and an alien falling in love. That is a romance series plotline. Also, they don't just sort of fall in love. No, this is serious. But he isn't essential to the plot. On top of that, the relationship isn't developed well and is pretty shallow. For example, I can't say what about him attracts her, except that he is hot. He likes her spunk and that that she sings. And, of course, that she is cute.

Before you get the idea, though, that the book isn't well written, let me say that the characters are great. Everyone has a developed personality, and their relationship with the main characters change over the course of the story. There are interesting people here, who have good reasons for the choices they make.

Likewise, the setting is really well developed. The interactions between characters based on cultural backgrounds, the history, the tech are all really interesting and worth exploring. I'm not going to say that this is the most hard of hard SF. It isn't. But at the same time, Dav isn't a prince in a culture that has only men and who has never seen a woman before. There is a bit of human exceptionalism, in that Rose is more curvy than most of the females of Dav's species (oh, we have so seen that trope before) and she also has amazing skills (like she learns a couple of alien languages in 3 months). While Rose might be a bit of a Mary Sue, it wasn't so bad that I was annoyed by it.

Ultimately, I came into this book thinking it was a romance, and the romance was too undeveloped for me. I'm not sure if I would have liked it if I was looking for SF, as I generally read a different kind of SF. Also, while the plot was well developed, the AI was presented as kind of juvenile and very emotional, which didn't work for me. So, I won't be continuing with this series.

Should you read it? If you can cope with dividing your relationship time between Rose's relationship with Dav and Rose's friendship with the AI, then you might like it. It was not badly written by any means.