In this book Damia's children are finding their place in the FT&T. Laria is sent as an emissary to the Mrdini on their planet Clarf. Their next to eldest child Tian is sent on board an exploratory naval ship in the role of a go between for the Mrdini and the humans. Both Laria and Tian experience what it is like to be away from the support of their powerful family.

At the same time a Hive ship is discovered on the way to where the coalition had thought the Hive home planet was. This brings about complications and difficulties for Tian.

The book ends unfinished and one has to read the next instalment in order to see what happens. The three books "Damia's Children", "Lyon's Pride" and "The Tower and the Hive" belong together. None of them are stand-alone books. This is both positive and negative. As all of them are currently available on Amazon, this should not be a problem for the McCaffrey fan.

I would not recommend this series as a first experience with the world of McCaffrey. A book like Nimisha's ship would probably be a better first venture.