Primary Inversion

When commenting to friends midway through reading this novel I said, in a tone filled with disdain, it was 'a romance trying to be hard SF'. By the end I said the same thing, but with less disdain and more uncertainty. I found the romantic tropes frustrating, having empaths involved made it so much worse than in mainstream fiction, the science explanations were sometimes interesting but often I skimmed over them, and there were far too many convenient coincidences, but by the last 30% of the book (Kindle reader), I was reluctant to pause in my reading as it hopped along at a decent enough pace to hold my interest. Not amazing, but I'll eventually read some more of the series as I do quite like the universe.