I picked up a copy of Into the Dark, by J. A. Sutherland, when it was free on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
At fifteen, Alexis Carew has to face an age old problem – she’s a girl, and only a boy can inherit the family’s vast holdings. Her options are few. She must marry and watch a stranger run the lands, or become a penniless tenant and see the lands she so dearly loves sold off. Yet there may be another option, one that involves becoming a midshipman on a shorthanded spaceship with no other women.

Review:
I was more impressed than not with this book. But it is very much the story of a girl joins the Navy. That is notably not a story about a girl who joins the navy and has an adventure. Maybe that will come in future books, but this one is largely dedicated to what led to her joining, meeting and charming the crew, learning her way around a ship, coming to terms with command, etc. And all of that was interesting in its own way. It’s obviously well thought out (even if I did think ships with sails in space an odd choice).

But I think this book suffers for being a little too congenial. With the exception of one uncouth individual, who Alexis even managed to charm eventually, you’d think she’d gone space with a ship full of her favorite uncles and cousins. Everyone is unaccountably pleasant and accepting of her. Further, she is pleasant, polite and poised at all times. She accomplishes everything with ease, succeeds at every task set before her, is overly generous, and basically just a little too capable for a new recruit. This is only exasperated by the fact that I couldn’t credit her skill, wit and comportment to a fifteen-year-old. She reads as much older.

Having said all that, I did quite enjoy the read. I’d be more than happy to pick up another of Sutherland’s works.