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Commander Cordelia Naismith of the Beta Colony is on a scientific expedition on an alien planet when she and an ensign return to find their camp destroyed and the crew that didn't escape to their ship killed by the Barrayarans. They're attacked, Cordelia falls into a ravine, and wakes up to find herself a prisoner of "the Butcher of Komarr," Captain Aral Vorkosigan.

Turns out, he's not the bloodthirsty villain he's been portrayed as, and he's in as much danger from at least some of his own people as she is.

They get to know each other--and fall in love--as they work together to bury the dead, care for the ensign (who'd been hit with a nerve disruptor), survive in unfamiliar terrain, and eventually recover his command.

I didn't entirely believe the romance, but had to take it as given. I did, however, believe the respect and admiration between them, and that was enough.

Shards of Honor was appropriately titled, as so much of the conflict for both of them has to do with honor. They're a wonderful couple of star-crossed lovers, both strong and honorable, and in impossible situations.

There are intriguing characters and hair-raising adventures, as well as painful and emotional decisions. I was very pleased with my introduction to All Things Bujold.

This book comes next chronologically, but was published several years after Shards of Honor, and after other books in the same series.

Cordelia and Aral are now married, living on Barrayar, and expecting their first child. All is well, despite some culture shock on Cordelia's part, until the emperor dies and Aral is named Regent for the child emperor, and they're plunged into political intrigue and danger.

An attempt to poison them affects the growth of their unborn child and leaves Aral sterile. Cordelia opts to use the Betan technology left behind--a uterine replicator--to continue the pregnancy outside her body, and hires a medical scientist to perform experimental treatments on the baby, now named Miles, to save him.

The rest of the story is one page-turning adventure after another, as a pretender attempts to sieze the throne, kill Aral, and kill or kidnap the young emperor. But when Miles in his uterine replicator is taken and held hostage, Cordelia can't afford to play politics any longer.

All the great characters from Shards of Honor are back, and there's a lovely secondary romance--not a simple or easy one, of course. There's more worldbuilding, in the form of Cordelia's complaints and observations about the differences between Barrayar and the Beta Colony. Mostly, though, it's just en engrossing story full of adventure and characters I cared about.

This was the best of the bunch, I thought. Harriet thinks she's been hired as a personal assistant to American actress Rowena, but she was actually hired as a catalyst to upset the sex/romance triangle between Rowena, her director husband Lewis, and her brother Chris.

Lewis proposed the experiment with a two-fold purpose: to use the presence of another woman to break up the incestual relationship between Rowena and Chris; and to plot out the course of what he expects to be his finest film.

Harriet is the only one not in on the scheme, and it's soon apparent that she's the wild card, and she affects them all in ways they hadn't predicted.

There's plenty of sex, of course, but there's also a lot of emotional and plot content to it. The incest was icky, but as it was consensual and not coerced at all, it could have been worse. I wasn't sure about the need for the bit about making a movie at first, but it provided a good framework and reason for both Lewis and Rowena to stick with the charade even when things started to get sticky.

This one, I didn't like. Half-sisters Louise and Gina are reunited after a 10-year estrangement when Louise leaves her husband and, having nowhere to go, asks Gina if she can stay for a while.

Turns out that Gina's lucrative job is as an exotic dancer and sometime prostitute, and she lives with her lover Ahmed, who owns the club where she's the headliner.

You can see where this is going, right? Louise decides to dance to earn the money she needs. It takes her a whole weekend to become great at it. There's a lot of what seems like juvenile snickering going on--oooh, she showed her boobs!

Near the end, there's an attempt at a role reversal, which could have been good, if I'd cared about either of the sisters. I didn't. They were both unpleasant and self-righteous (if that term can be applied to a person who looks down on someone who's reluctant to join in a sex-and-drug orgy), and the only interesting character was ex-porn star Rick who was trying to make a new life for himself, and who had far too small a role in this story.

This one also starts with a woman, Eleanor, leaving her husband, and needing money. Eleanor is a non-fiction writer, and her agent's latest project is for her to work with sex researcher Marcus Grant on a book about awakening a woman's sexuality.

She is, of course, resistant--in large part because she feels her low libido caused her husband to "turn gay." She's persuaded to collaborate, but only if she can test out his theories on herself, because she's planning to prove him wrong, though subconsciously hoping he's right.

Marcus's theory is that by exploring various facets of sexuality, a woman will learn what turns her on, and she'll become more sexual. His list of facets is pretty simplistic: massage, pornography, exhibitionism/voyeurism, lesbian experiences, and S&M; and Eleanor's response to the tasks was almost unbelievably naive.

Still, the story was saved because of the non-sex aspects. The collaboration and experiment have consequences neither of them anticipated, both emotional and sexual.