Jumping through Grimspace is what Sirantha Jax was born to do, literally. As a carrier of the rare J-gene, Jax is one of an elite group of navigators, trained to guide starships through Grimspace, a wormhole shortcut through space. Jax's Corp career comes to an abrupt end when a ship full of diplomats she's navigating crash lands on Matins IV, killing everyone onboard. Everyone except Jax.

Confined to a psych unit for evaluation, Jax quickly comes to the realization that blame for the crash is about to be laid on her. Although she has no memory of what happened, she seems to recall coming out of Grimspace in one piece, but the details are fuzzy. When a stranger breaks into the facility and offers her a way out, Jax runs without looking back. Although she has no way of knowing what the man and his crew want of her, she does know that to stay where she is would be suicide.

The man, who introduces himself as March, wants Jax to help train other jumpers. In the status quo, the Corp controls all interplanetary travel and trade. The company has become the ruling government on a good many planets and they plan to keep it that way, no matter what it costs in money or lives.

This is solid science fiction with a firm romantic thread. A strong heroine on the verge of self-realization, Jax is a woman ready to take control of her life and make her own choices. Although she starts out worrying mostly about taking care of number one, she eventually realizes that there's more "hero" in her make-up than she ever gave herself credit for. There are some sad deaths along the way, and I would have liked to know a little more about some of the people and places Jax comes across in her travels, but with all the sequels around, I'm hopeful there will be more of Jax and her universe coming soon!