Sporting Chance

Sporting Chance is a science fiction novel by Elizabeth Moon. This is book two of a series, but I didn't read book one and found this worked just find as a stand-alone. It's a space opera, which is my favorite science fiction sub-genre, and the characters are wholly realized people. I do like the way this author writes. A real page-turner.

from the back of the book:

When last heard from, Captain Heris Serano, cashiered Captain of the Fleet, now captain of a rich lady's yacht, and her employer, Lady Cecelia, had just triumphed over a heinous cabal, a "Hunting Club" that used human beings as prey. Much to her horror, one of the hunters had been none other than Prince Gerel, first in line to the throne. He had been told the nature of his prey only at the last minute, and was assured they were criminal volunteers who would get off scot-free if only they could avoid the hunters for a mere three days. While deeply uneasy about the morality of the whole venture, and unwilling to indulge in any "hunting" himself, the Prince had been persuaded of the legitimacy of the "club's" activities.

How could he have been so stupid??

Having volunteered herself and her yacht to spirit the Prince home so as to avoid a Royal Scandal, that indeed is the question that Lady Cecelia -of the Royal Blood herself- wants answered; she remembers her nephew the Heir Apparent as a rather bright young lad. But strangely, as the voyage proceeds the Prince goes from dumb to dumber. Clearly a plot is afoot, poison is in the heir, and he and our heroines have only a Sporting Chance.

Strange Horizons reviews the omnibus edition of the series, saying it's a "a page-turner. The writing is brisk and unfussy, with plenty of action and not a little peril. There are beautifully described space battles" and concludes by calling it "superior entertainment."

I've read a couple of books by this author, including the first book from a different series Trading in Danger.