I can't recommend the Expanse series. The first two books are interesting. The next two are loaded with boring human conflict that slowly progresses with lots of filler. The big bads do crazy pointless shit just to drive the thin plots. It is essentially Game of Thrones in space. The authors are deliberately stretching the stories to milk the series.
The third and fourth books are the weakest by far and are actually done much better by the TV series than the books.
The TV series version of Ashford is an actual deep character and not just a 2d caricature. Equally, all of the schoolgirl romance stuff in Cibola Burn is removed.
The rest of the books are pretty decent though I thought, so if you stopped at Cibola Burn I'd recommend Nemesis Games and the rest.
