Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold

What fun! Ivan has definitely gotten short shrift in the whole saga. Maybe his apparent ineptitude is only a result of being a pretty normal kind of hero placed in the midst of a clan of truly extraordinary heroes. Maybe Bujold was feeling guilty - or perhaps she had really run out of options with Miles. He is now married with children, and has rather aged out of the system. Are we now going to have to wait for the next generation of Vor offspring?

Typically, for Ivan, he walks into a situation to help out a friend - well, maybe Byerly isn't a friend, but Ivan has that British sort of guilt complex about holding up the side (in a Russian sort of way). In the course of which help, he meets a beautiful girl, and marries her (quite by accident, sort of).

For followers of the Vor of Barrayar, Bujold gives us background on the colonization of Barrayar which has not been addressed so explicitly before. After all, Ivan has to explain his homeland to his lady-love. And typically for Ivan, once he has married Tej, with the understanding that they will divorce as soon as possible, he actually falls in love with her. And, since Tej is his counterpart in terms of ranking in her family (somewhere on the level of the adored family dog, much loved, but of whom little is expected), she does the same. Throw in a couple of rather dominating mothers-in-law and you have fuel for any quantity of confusion.