Queen and Commander (Hive Queen Saga #1) by Janine A. Southard

Science Fiction

What Goodreads says:

**WINNER 2013 IPPY AWARD -- Silver Medal for Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror E-Book**

On a world where high school test scores determine your future, six students rebel. They’ll outrun society as fast as their questionably obtained spaceship will take them.

Rhiannon doesn’t technically cheat the Test. She’s smarter than the computers that administer it, and she uses that to her advantage. She emerges from Test Day with the most prestigious future career possible: Hive Queen.

Gwyn & Victor are madly in love, but their Test results will tear them apart. Good thing Rhiannon is Gwyn’s best friend. Rhiannon can fix this. Queens can do anything.

Gavin is the wild card. Raised off-planet, he can’t wait to leave again... and he’s heard of an empty ship in orbit. The Ceridwen’s Cauldron.

Both Luciano and Alan fit in the system. They don’t need to leave. Only their devotion to Rhiannon spurs them to join the Cauldron’s crew.

Spaceships. Blackmail. Anywhere but here.

Queen & Commander is book one in a new Science Fiction series and like many new series it requires a lot of world and character building. 

Janine Southard did a good job of putting up the framework for the series but there is a lot left to do.  For me this is like what you see when the outside walls of a building are in place.  You understand the outside but have no idea about what fits in the interior. 

The characters were trying to find their places in the group but still had not jelled into a whole.  Rhiannon needed to be a strong central character but was still trying to learn her duties.  There is a unique idea for how groups are formed and how they function.  What I did not see was how this grouping came to be.

The world is made up of different groups but several are only names.  That left more questions than answers. The plot puts the group in a really bad situation and they only get out by working together.  The action just sets up the series.  There are more questions than answers in Queen and Commander but everything is in order for future books.

I wanted more detail about the characters and the world so I do hope for more answers in future stories set in this universe.

Janine A. Southrd published Queen and Commander in 2014.

I received an ARC of Queen and Commander from Netgalley in return for an honest review.