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Bloodline is the second Star Wars novel by author Claudia Gray and the first “adult” novel through Del Rey. As the author of the fantastic young adult novel Lost Stars (go read it if you haven’t), I was excited to see Gray earn the opportunity to write again in the Star Wars universe. Set six years before The Force Awakens, Bloodline is a rarity on two fronts: it’s a novel about politics and a novel about Leia Organa. Thinking back to the hundreds of old Legends novels, many included Leia but few ever focused on her (Razor’s Edge being the most notable). The level of political intrigue in the Legends timeline varied greatly, but I can really only think of one that focused completely on politics and that was Darth Plagueis. To write a book focused on politics, Leia is the obvious choice of a main character, so it was great to see these two ideas come together. Ever since this new Story Group-driven canon was announced, I’ve been advocating for material featuring new characters. There are plenty of great new characters to be found in this book, but it struck me that Leia is really a new character as well. I hate to keep comparing these new novels to the old ones. But after 20 years of reading post-RotJ Legends material, it’s hard to shake my understanding of the characters as they were in this time period. In Legends, Leia was the most ill-defined and underused character out of the Big Three. She was in the books more often than not, but she never really stood on her own. It was always “The wife of Han Solo, Chief of State Leia Organa Solo” or “The sister of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight Leia Organa Solo.” Her character was frequently defined by comparison to the men in her life instead of her standing on her own merits. With Bloodline, Gray had a huge opportunity not only to define the political state of the New Republic, but also to redefine how we have come to view post-Return of the Jedi Leia. This is Gray’s greatest accomplishment. This is a book that is 100% Le...
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