Book Review: Trade Wars

Trade Wars picks up not long after Foreign & Domestic. It grabbed my attention from the very first paragraph, which also set the tone for the book. Phillips delivers yet another Clancy-esque Navy thriller starring the Texian Armada misfits on another banter-filled, high-seas adventure. The stakes are higher this time, but that’s okay because the crew are also better armed, and there are more of them!

Heck, there’s more of everything. More ships. More tech. More heart-pounding battles between enemies who half the time can only guess where their opponents are. Phillips really took the realism to the next level without slowing the pace. I really felt like an officer on a submarine sweating bullets to locate the enemy sub before they found me. Felt the pressure of command when “the right thing to do” doesn’t necessarily correlate with your orders, the agony of decision, and the weight of the consequences.

Now imagine that your spouse is one of your subordinates on that same ship! That’s enough conflict for three books right there—and it’s just the beginning.

If you couldn’t already tell, I had great fun with Trade Wars and highly recommend it for any fan of the genre.