The Fantasy Review’s list of The 7 Best Space Opera Books with a Female Lead.
Trading in Danger (Vatta’s War, #1) by Elizabeth Moon
From the blurb:
Ky Vatta is a highly promising military cadet with a great future ahead of her, until an insignificant act of kindness makes her the focus of the Academy’s wrath. She is forced to resign, her dreams shattered.
For the child of a rich trading family, this should mean disgrace on a grand scale. And yet, to her surprise, Ky is offered the captaincy of a ship headed for scrap with its final cargo…
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1) by Becky Chambers
From the blurb:
Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain...
On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington, #1) by David Weber
From the blurb:
INTRODUCING HONOR HARRINGTON
Having made him look a fool, she’s been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her.
Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship’s humilating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station.
The indigenous people of the system’s only habiltable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens…
Fortune’s Pawn (Paradox, #1) by Rachel Bach
From the blurb:
Deviana Morris isn’t your average mercenary. She has plans. Big ones. And a ton of ambition. One of those is going to get her killed one day – but not just yet.
Not when she just got a job on a tiny trade ship with a nasty reputation for surprises. The Glorious Fool isn’t misnamed: it likes to get into trouble. And with a reputation for bad luck that makes one year as security detail on this ship equal to five years everywhere else – Devi knows she’s found the perfect way to get the jump on the next part of her Plan. But the Fool doesn’t give up its secrets without a fight, and one year might be more than even Devi can handle…
Valor’s Choice (Confederation, #1) by Tanya Huff
From the blurb:
Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr was a battle-hardened professional. So when she and her platoon were yanked from a well-deserved leave for what was supposed to be “easy” duty as the honor guard for a diplomatic mission to the non-Confederation world of the Silsviss, she was ready for anything. Sure, there’d been rumors of the Others—the sworn enemies of the Confederation—being spotted in this sector of space. But there were always rumors...
Into the Dark (Alexis Carew #1) by J.A. Sutherland
From the blurb:
At fifteen, Alexis Carew has to face an age old problem – she’s a girl, and only a boy can inherit the family’s vast holdings. Her options are few. She must marry and watch a stranger run the lands, or become a penniless tenant and see the lands she so dearly loves sold off. Yet there may be another option, one that involves becoming a midshipman on a shorthanded Navy spaceship with no other women.
Mutineer (Kris Longknife, #1) by Mike Shepherd
From the blurb:
Kris Longknife is a daughter of privilege, born to money and power. Her father is the Prime Minister of her home planet, her mother the consummate politician’s wife. She’s been raised only to be beautiful and to marry well. But the heritage of the military Longknifes courses through Kris’s blood—and, against her parents’ objections, she enlists in the marines...
