Bloodline by Claudia Gray
Bloodline is a Star Wars novel about Leia set around halfway between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. Like a lot of people, I was looking forward to it for the promise of a Leia book, and one that dealt with her as Darth Vader's biological daughter, but I saw several people express disappointment with it. I both agree and really really liked it.
See, the core plot of the book is a middleaged senator who was a hero of the rebellion that created the current government becoming jaded and tired of the government she helped create, which has been divided into to polarizing factions, as the senate starts to be overrun with Bright Young Things who are old enough to remember the war, but not really old enough to understand what it was like to live it, or what the corrupt previous government really was, and so idealized views of it are cropping up. She decides to retire and undertake one final, important mission so that she can go out with a bang and have some more intergalactic adventures with her husband and also spend more time with her brother and kid. She finds the perfect Final Mission, then gets stuck babysitting a young senator from the opposing political faction for it. Then there are a bunch of shenanigans and adventures that alternately involve blasters and political speeches as the two senator work out their differences and are doing Grand Things together until SECRETS and BETRAYAL rear their ugly heads.
The book does a far better job of explaining WTF is going on with the First Order and The Resistance than The Force Awakens did, and bridges the gap between ROTJ and TFA pretty well (though part of me is always going to think that TFA would have been better if it were a few more generations down the road, not one generation after ROTJ). All the political shenanigans and the plotline of the antagonistic senators becoming allies were good and I enjoyed Leia's various sidekicks a lot. As a Leia book though, it just...falls flat somehow. I don't really know how to pin it down completely. Leia doesn't have enough anger or sass, and is too willing to try to color inside the lines for my tastes at times, though I did appreciate a lot that her opinion of Vader's literal last second redemption was pretty much "Well, Luke, I'm glad you have that to make you happy" instead of forgiving him or, you know, naming her kid after the guy who tortured her, made her watch her planet blow up, took an entire city hostage to catch her, froze and sold her boyfriend, and spent a few years chasing her across the galaxy. (My EU exposure was limited, but learning that in the "Young Jedi Knights" series way back when elicited a huge "NNNnnnnoooooo!" from me.)
So, it actually is a good book and one well worth reading, it's just probably not quite the Leia book ost of us wanted.
See, the core plot of the book is a middleaged senator who was a hero of the rebellion that created the current government becoming jaded and tired of the government she helped create, which has been divided into to polarizing factions, as the senate starts to be overrun with Bright Young Things who are old enough to remember the war, but not really old enough to understand what it was like to live it, or what the corrupt previous government really was, and so idealized views of it are cropping up. She decides to retire and undertake one final, important mission so that she can go out with a bang and have some more intergalactic adventures with her husband and also spend more time with her brother and kid. She finds the perfect Final Mission, then gets stuck babysitting a young senator from the opposing political faction for it. Then there are a bunch of shenanigans and adventures that alternately involve blasters and political speeches as the two senator work out their differences and are doing Grand Things together until SECRETS and BETRAYAL rear their ugly heads.
The book does a far better job of explaining WTF is going on with the First Order and The Resistance than The Force Awakens did, and bridges the gap between ROTJ and TFA pretty well (though part of me is always going to think that TFA would have been better if it were a few more generations down the road, not one generation after ROTJ). All the political shenanigans and the plotline of the antagonistic senators becoming allies were good and I enjoyed Leia's various sidekicks a lot. As a Leia book though, it just...falls flat somehow. I don't really know how to pin it down completely. Leia doesn't have enough anger or sass, and is too willing to try to color inside the lines for my tastes at times, though I did appreciate a lot that her opinion of Vader's literal last second redemption was pretty much "Well, Luke, I'm glad you have that to make you happy" instead of forgiving him or, you know, naming her kid after the guy who tortured her, made her watch her planet blow up, took an entire city hostage to catch her, froze and sold her boyfriend, and spent a few years chasing her across the galaxy. (My EU exposure was limited, but learning that in the "Young Jedi Knights" series way back when elicited a huge "NNNnnnnoooooo!" from me.)
So, it actually is a good book and one well worth reading, it's just probably not quite the Leia book ost of us wanted.