Please tell me you're already familiar with Lee and Miller's Liaden Universe novels? If not, run out and get them. It's space opera, but it's incredibly fun and romantic space opera, with a very well developed world and characters you absolutely will fall in love with. :D

Start with Agent of Change, or, better yet, Partners in Necessity, which includes three novels in a nice, comfortable omnibus.

Hmm, now I want to go home and reread them all again (for the second time this year).