Marque and Reprisal (Vatta's War)

Amazon.com Review
Marque and Reprisal is Nebula Award winner Elizabeth Moon's second novel about Kylara Vatta, starship captain in her family's interstellar shipping business. Fresh from war, Ky is trying to resume a normal trading schedule when an unknown enemy attacks her prestigous family. Though her family is large, Ky may be its only surviving member. But she cannot confirm this, for sabotage has cut off communications between star systems. And Ky has other problems. She's been turned into a privateer against her will. Her family's mysterious foe knows where she is, and is trying to kill her. And she has a bloody secret of her own. Packed with action and intrigue, Marque and Reprisal and its prequel, Trading in Danger, are as strong and interesting as Elizabeth Moon's popular Serrano Legacy series, which also successfully combines hard SF, military SF, and adventure SF with interstellar and familial politics. The Kylara Vatta novels will please fans of the Serrano Legacy, Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan saga, David Weber's Honor Harrington series, and Robert A. Heinlein's juvenile novels. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
After her debut in Moon's somewhat lackluster Trading in Danger (2003), capable young Kylara Vatta, now captain of a dilapidated space freighter, lets loose in this rip-roaring sequel. With most of her immediate family back home on Slotter Key blown to smithereens in a dastardly sneak attack and communication lines down, Ky must first find out who's responsible—then kill the villains out to drain Vatta blood. But this military SF tale is no mere shoot-'em-up. Ky thinks as well as she fights, coolly weighing commercial alternatives and handily using such human resources as her undercover operative cousin Stella and precocious teenager Toby Vatta, as well as the hard-currency diamonds that arrived with Stella in Aunt Gracie's legendary fruitcake. Though mildly tempted, Ky also sees through fetching chick-magnet Rafe (he of many aliases), son of the top of InterStellar Communication's command and now a covert agent with his own complex agenda. The charm lies in Moon's deft characterizations, especially the exorcism of Ky's guilt over her family's deaths. There's plenty of shipboard and dockside action, plus authentically grungy space-station settings. Former Marine Moon has a genuine hoorah series going for her.
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