Analog
The plot threads are intricately interwoven, but in due time, they all come together in a very satisfying crash-bang finale, complete with music and clinch. The plotting is careful and well-balanced. ...the great excellence lies in the relationships.

Romantic Times
Ambitiously creating a complex emotional environment, Mr. Miller and Ms. Lee pique our curiosity with an equally complicated plot development.

Lisa DuMond
The authors create a credible universe, intriguing characters, and the ride of your life. Never, in all those pages, is there a dull moment. The exploits are too involving to stop for a break. But, even given the non-stop action, it is the authors' teasingly slow unveiling of the characters that steals the book; you may never care about a cast of characters more or await their return with more anticipation. - SF Site (May 2000)

Jennifer Dunne
Partners in Necessity is actually a 3-book omnibus, being a re-release of theout of print Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, and Carpe Diem. Anyone Imet who had ever read these books rhapsodized over them. Having finally hadthe chance to read the books myself, I understand. It isn't so much the plotor the style that elevates these works to such a level of adoration, as it isa unique sense that a window has opened onto another universe to let thereader watch events transpire for the length of the book, at which point thewindow closes, leaving the reader begging for another glance through the nowdarkened glass. These are not characters. They are real people, whose liveswe have been privileged to share.

Conflict of Honors opens with a young woman hiding in the shadows, watchingher own funeral, searching the crowd for her mother and finally making eyecontact -- only to have her mother turn away. What a grabber of an opening!We pick up Priscilla's adventures years later when the outcast with a senseof honor is taken in by Shan, a starship Captain who has a habit of caringfor strays. While teaching her about the Liaden concept of melant'i, a sortof cross between self-esteem and social standing, he also must teach thewoman he has come to love that she is worth loving. All while trying to foilthe plots of two psychopaths bent on revenge, explore the use of Healingpsychic powers, and provide for the future of Clan Korval, among other twistsand turns.

Agent of Change and Carpe Diem tell the story of Shan's brother, Val Con, abrilliant Scout who has been brainwashed (more like brain folded, spindledand mutilated) to become a covert operative for the mysterious Department ofInterior. He meets Miri Robertson, a retired mercenary whose cushy bodyguardjob for the wrong man has landed her on the deadly side of vengeance with anintergalactic Mafia, and the two must struggle to stay alive without killingeach other, facing existing enemies and adding scores of new ones with everydisastrous attempt to break free of pursuit. Due to a misunderstanding witha clutch of Turtles and a knife, Val Con and Miri are unintentionally marriedand intentionally lifemated, a pair of complications they'd love to live longenough to figure out. By the end of Carpe Diem, the stakes have escalated tothe point where the entire clan is in danger, and they are forced to put PlanB into effect.

I'd previously read and reviewed Plan B, but after reading Partners inNecessity, I immediately bought a new copy so I could reread it. The addeddepth of understanding (one might say I correctly perceived the characters'melant'i) was such that it was like reading an entirely new book.

Count me as one of the rhapsodizers. Better yet, buy a copy of Partners inNecessity and join the legion of Liaden fans yourself. - Science Fiction Romance