I like this rating system by ashleytylerjohn of LibraryThing (https://www.librarything.com/profile/ashleytylerjohn) that I have also adopted:
(Note: 5 stars = rare and amazing, 4 = quite good book, 3 = a decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.) ( )

This story has quite the setup--rape-child whose mother is after some sort of Monte Cristo-style revenge is accidentally abducted by his biological father while trying to help his mother on one of her plots. Here we meet the father, who has an immense ego and anger-management issues, and a half-brother who is, of all things, jealous of the protagonist despite the fact that he's spending most of his time in the ship's brig. And, of course, his father's ship is operating on some sort of clandestine pirate-related enterprise. Somehow, Cherryh manages to provide a somewhat satisfactory conclusion to this mess, if simply by introducing a few characters who aren't terrible people. ( )

Heaven knows why, but I hugely enjoyed this one - although I suspect it had as much to do with my state of mind as the book itself. Set in the Merchanter-Alliance Uni - fifteen or so years after the end of the war, I was happy to return to this corner of Cherryh's imagination after spending a lot of time with Union...... A bad 'station leave' encounter leaves Merchanter Marie Hawkins pregnant. She's not the mothering type, but her encounter with Austin Bowe while a disaster still, somehow, left her disinclined to terminate the resulting pregnancy - which happens despite several layers of birth control. Marie becomes obsessed with Bowe, traces his every move across the galaxy and is sure he is 'up to something' with his trade. While following his mother, trying to help, Young Tom Bowe, their son, now 23, through a series of well meaning mishaps ends up on board his father's ship and gradually finds out things are way more (and less) complicated than they seem. Wisely, Cherryh doesn't ever really address 'what' exactly happened 'that night'..... suffice it to say it made some sense by the end. Many of Cherry's plots are fueled by a real hurt that, given a mix of character and circumstances, goes untended, leaving the person vulnerable and unsure in difficult circumstances - almost always her stories about who do you trust? That and the meticulous evocation of the setting, a winning combo for me. Tink is one of my favorite characters ever. ****1/2 ( )

Another good read by Cherryh, but that seems to be the norm with her works.

First, I have to say I didn't like this one as well as others I've read, including the excellent "Downbelow Station", but it kept me turning the pages to find out what happens.

Tom is a sympathetic character, and I enjoyed watching him mature with his experiences. The supporting/secondary characters are great, too, and I liked most of them better than the Hawkins clan, and the spoiled half brother who whines through most of his time here.

Worth reading. Definitely. ( )

Maybe not one of Cherryh's very best, but still a gripping encounter between Merchanter famiies in the Alliance/Union unverse.

Marie Hawkings off Sprite was looking for her first dockside experience and ended up with the Auston Bowe off the hire-on ship Corinthian. The encounter ended in a dockside brawel, expulsion from Pell and 9 month's later Tom Bowe-Hawkings.

Tom with the off Family name, never really fitted into Sprite's atmosphere, and being raised by the slightly crazy Marie certainly didn't help - she is still fixated on revenge on Austin. But the ships schedules carefuly don't overlap until well after the War, some 40 dockyears on, and Tom is in his 20s. Marie sees her chance - Corinthian has been skirting the edges of the law and she thinks she can get him caught. Instead Tom ends up shanghaied onto the one ship he's never want to see the insides of.

The discipline and life in a hire-on ship is so vastly different from that he knows in the regimated and ordered life as a Family ship. With a Fleet navigator and dockside toughs as unloaders Corinthian is an odd ship anyway, Austin, now captain, has an unpredictable temper and his son - Tom's half brother Christian isn't much better. But Tom survives, and as Sprite tracks them across to Pell again, he begins to realise that different isn't necessarily bad, and that there are many shades of grey in the meaning of honesty.

The worst part about this book are the changing POVs sometimes without much warning, and it isn't always obvious which character is on - the choices jump between: Tom, Marie, Christian, and Austin. A slow start gradually builds in pace and tension. There is one unusal concept, that of darkwalker - that doesn't appear in any other books except the very much later Compact - is intrueging as is the reference right at the very end of the book.

Fun and more details on the Alliance universe. Well worth reading, but it is worth reading DownBelow Station first as it explains a lot of the background. ( )