Everina Maxwell is not beating the Lois McMaster Bujold fanfic allegations, and that's okay. I /also/ want a Byerly Vorrutyer-centric novel and wish he'd hooked up with Ivan Vorpatril. That isn't what this is, but I assume Maxwell shares this common sentiment.
Like "Winter's Orbit", "Ocean's Echo" is science fiction of the space opera variety, a romance novel supporting a light sci-fi politik plot.
Maxwell shows a fondness for plot contrivances familiar to readers of romance novels and fanfic. "Winter's Orbit" was arranged marriage and "Ocean's Echo" makes use of the handwavey science fiction, more Mass Effect to my mind than anything else, with the threat of a forced psychic obedience bond hanging over the protagonists. If you know the vibe, you know the vibe.
Like a lot of recent works from and for a certain demo, there's a sense of care to ensure that while there may be misunderstandings between characters, their behaviour and acts are never Capital P Problematic. There is a spectre of having the cake of forced, unwilling intimacy with the eating of consent but seeing the pieces of a novel isn't the end of the world and comes with the territory of reading a lot of books and thinking about books and stories and having an English degree. Maxwell does do a better job of establishing a universe with a recognition of gender as a non-binary construct than some of what I've read. You can still see the World Building of it, but it doesn't itch at my brain.
Maxwell definitely builds the science fiction out from the plot and characters she wants, instead of building plots from a science fiction conceit, but "Ocean's Echo" is a fun, easy read and the non-romantic plot hangs together better than "Winter's Orbit". Still interested in following where Maxwell goes in the future. Byerly /is/ a great character.