Conflict of Honors / Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

3.5 out of 5 stars

Sixteen-year-old Priscilla Delacroix was declared legally dead by her mother, High Priestess of the Goddess. Banished to survive on her own, Priscilla has roamed the galaxy for ten years as an outcast—to become a woman of extraordinary skill. . . .

An experienced officer assigned to the Liaden vessel Daxflan, she's been abandoned yet again. Betrayed by her captain and shipmates, she's left to fend for herself on a distant planet. But Priscilla is not alone. Starship captain Shan yos'Galen is about to join Priscilla's crusade for revenge. He has his own score to settle with the enemy. But confronting the sinister crew will be far easier—and safer—than confronting the demons of Priscilla's own mysterious past. 

 A chance to catch up with Shan yos’Galen, whom I met as a youngster in another Liaden universe book, Local Custom. In addition to seeing how life is for a grown-up healer, I got to see the fireworks when he meets a woman of the same talents, who is even more an outsider than he is. His human blood makes him suspect on his home planet of Liad and a nebulous act in the past of Priscilla Mendoza has caused her to be banished from her homeworld.

Shan has a reputation for collecting strays (much like Miles Vorkosigan in The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold). Priscilla has been betrayed by her employer and shipmates and abandoned on an obscure planet. When she obtains a job interview with Shan, the reader may be assured that she will get a job. Now she has to decide whether she wants revenge or merely to live a good life (on the theory that is actually the best revenge). As so often happens in life, the decision doesn’t get left up to Priscilla alone.

Probably the weakest of the Liaden universe books that I have read thus far, but still a very enjoyable book.