The Iskat Empire is held together by treaties, which are in turn sewn up with arranged marriages. Some of the subject planets are beginning to chafe under Iskat rule, so when the Iskat Prince Taam dies in a flight accident, his widower, Jainan, is hurriedly remarried off to another Iskat prince, Kiem. But a marriage between a prince whose reckless past has given him a reputation as a spoiled and disobedient royal and a quiet and deeply damaged widower who isn’t showing any actual willingness to remarry doesn’t seem like then bandage the empire needs. And when Taam’s death is revealed as a murder with Jainan as a suspect, the marriage only gets less likely to succeed. But there’s more to both Kiem and Jainan than anyone else sees, and possibly more between them than either could have hoped.

Sci-fi romance with an idiots-to-lovers trope? Yes, please. And it doesn’t disappoint. ( )

I see what all the hyper was about -- fantastic love story, firmly rooted in awkward people not knowing how to bridge a communication gap. I love the world building, the political machinations, the unexpected customs, but the love story's slow unfolding and the crew of characters is the real star here. ( )

TW: flashbacks to intimate partner abuse, gaslighting ( )

I’m sure there are loads of reviews singing the praises of the (deserving!) leading men, so I’ll leave them for everyone to love on while I talk about our girl Bel.

Highly efficient, dignified ex-space pirate confusing 'personal assistant to Prince Kiem' with 'exasperated sister-figure to that lazy moron, Kiem'? A sweet, slow-burn fondness for Jainan? The whole, “you scared the shit out of me you idiot” bit when she comes to yoink the boys off the mountainside? The whole, “we are not getting this Thean child killed,” bit with the anarchist undergrad she barely knows but adopts on-sight (sidenote: same)? The whole, “lol fuck that lowbrow job offer” bit when she turns down thE EMPEROR just so she can keep chillin with the fool squad because she’s actually a not-so-secret die-hard softie?? ... I’m deeply in love.

Anyway, lovely characters. Great story. I’m excited to see if Maxwell writes anything else in this universe~

Final conclusion: readable, but very meh, and *so* derivative. The plot is silly and convoluted and not very interesting. Every character is just painfully straightforward and bad at subterfuge, except when they're miscommunicating. At the same time, it's not bad bad, and I might have benefited from lower expectations, so giving it one star feels excessive.

Feels influenced by the Vorkosigan books and The Murderbot Diaries, but space is just the scenery and no interesting questions are being asked. I'm disappointed with the relationship tropes; I thought we were gonna talk about grief and second loves, ala Cordelia Aral (who learned and grew and changed from their also very fucked up previous relationships!), but instead we have "Taam is a monster who deserved what he got."

The worldbuilding is one of those cases where the author uses oddball names and oddball genders as a flimsy stand-in for coming up with new and alien cultures. Provenance made me believe that the Hwaeans are obsessed with their ritual objects. Winter's Orbit has ceremonies because That's What Being Royal Is, IDK, Let's Have An Object Handover Party.

At least the names are short. I've decided that Taaaaaam is just the space-spelling of Tom. Fucking Tom. ( )