I recently finished this book myself. Honestly, I forced myself to finish it.
It's a decent sci-fi novel. I didn't find it to be a good BattleTech novel. C+ for sci-fi, D- for BattleTech. I'd read it again before some of the early MWDA novels, but not much else.
There is a lot of "feel" to this book that doesn't match the BattleTech universe.
Why do I think that? A quick rundown:
1. The Combine invaders' plan is a bit to difficult to follow, but it pretty much boils down to ignoring brigade/regional command to carve out a multi-planet fiefdom in Davion space using what amounts to a combined arms battalion. Along the way, they plan to recruit the defending forces they overcome into their little army, without letting them in on the overall plan. This includes 'Mech pilots. To summarize: they're going to convince Federated Suns 'mechwarriors to serve in the Kuritan army with their 'Mechs. Now, the Kuritans reveal this is going to take place by holding their friends and family hostage, but anyone with a knowledge of BattleTech history is going to tell you that no one from that area of Davion space is going to freely do that, and if the Combine is stupid enough to leave them in fully-armed 'Mechs, at some point there's going to be a rebellion. When you run the numbers of attackers vs defenders, this gets even less believable.
2. For some reason, every Kuritan battle armor trooper is a referred to as a "commando", by both sides. It would be forgivable if it was the only faux pas, but it's just another little indicator that the author hasn't spent a lot of time in BattleTech lore.
3. This was the real kicker for me: in a world where cadets supposedly aren't allowed to do much beyond jack squat, someone let them modify three tanks to use projectile melee weapons in place of their primary armament. Then, these prototype systems work, taking down an assault 'Mech. So, beyond the fact that someone let cadets reduce three fully-functional combat vehicles to using single-use melee weapons, they miraculously take down the king of the battlefield.
4. The author appears to have had no exposure to what a Davion training cadre is or how they operate. Maybe they just liked to use the word cadre.
5. The planet being attacked was actually warned. They ignore the warning to the point of reader disbelief. The disbelief gets worse when you realize if they'd been the least bit ready, they'd have soundly defeated the invaders.
There were also a number of character flaws/habits I didn't enjoy, but I write most of that off to being YA material.