Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes feels like a D&D campaign, in the best way. I alternated reading the physical book and listening to the audiobook, narrated by Almarie Guerra, and the episodic feeling of the book’s early chapters lent itself perfectly to the audio format. The straightforward set-up builds to something more complex as the story progresses, with worldbuilding that's intriguing but not overly detailed. I just delighted in following the escapades of Captain Eva Innocente and her crew aboard La Sirena Negra; this book is a total romp, littered with references to nerd culture and a cast that easily stole my heart. I’m not often a fan of romance leaking into my SFF, but the budding romantic tension between Eva and her alien Engineer Vakar was an unexpected exception. Vakar is from a race that expresses emotions through scent the way humans change facial expressions, and I loved all the smell based details throughout. Chilling Effect is best appreciated as an adventure story set in space; it’s a good time with a dash of political intrigue, but not a book asking big questions about the way technology impacts future civilizations or requiring the reader to sort through scientific concepts. If you enjoy spacefaring adventures starring troubled good guys trying to go their own way, like Firefly if it were helmed by a badass Cuban American woman, Chilling Effect is the novel for you.