This is the first book in David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. It is a classic military SF novel in which an untested female captain is given an impossible assignment designed to make her fail. She has a crippled ship, political enemies, and sits in the center of a vast conspiracy.
Neither aliens nor technology are the focus here, strategy and courage are the main components of this conflict. There is no sex in this novel, and even swearing and violence are fairly infrequent. Hey! Some of us care about that sort of thing!
Anyhow, I highly recommend it and plan to give one or more copies to family for Christmas this year.