Star Wars: Bloodline – A Disney Nerds Book Club Review

This month for our book review, we’re off again to a galaxy far, far away with our favorite princess, Leia.

This month I read “Bloodline” by Claudia Grey which covers the years in Star Wars canon before the film, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” I was excited to read this book after reading one of Claudia Grey’s other Star Wars books, “Leia, Princess of Alderaan.” That book follows Leia as a teenager and we discussed it last year.

“Bloodlines” follows Leia as an adult.

At this point, she’s married to Han Solo, she’s already given birth to Ben. Ben is off with Leia’s brother, Luke for training. In this story, we find Leia as a senator in the New Republic. Unfortunately, things aren’t as peaceful as we’d hope after the rebellion Leia, Han, and Luke helped many years ago. Leia and other senators who fought in the rebellion are coming face to face with the younger generation who might not remember the wars as well as the older generation. There are also conflicts between the parties. Leia is a Populists, the party that favors self-governing systems and planets. The opposite party is the Centrists, who believe a sole power must guide the galaxy. Leia is finding a lot of similarities to the opposing parties to what the senate was like before Palpatine took over. She worries that after everything they fought for, the New Republic might have the same fate as the old.

Is Leia looking to make a change?

Leia is at a crossroads at this point in her life. She has to navigate the senate but sees everything that is wrong with it. Leia sees the separate parties fighting and worries that another war is on the horrizon. She wonders if there’s anything she can do to help and stop it. She even questions retiring from political office and joining Han Solo who is involved in the galactic ship racing league. But before Leia even announces her retirement, a plea to investigate a potential crime boss piques her interest. Leia decides to investigate Rinnrivin Di who may or may not be running a criminal cartel in the Ryloth system. Her investigation also introduces a new character to the Star Wars canon, Ransolm Casterfo. He is the exact opposite of Leia. He’s a Centrist senator who seems to have an obsession with the empire. He ends up working on the investigation with Leia. During the investigation, she has to figure out if she can trust him and if he really is as bad as she thinks of him when they first meet.

Now I won’t give away any more spoilers but I must say I enjoyed this book. It’s a perfect book to get more story before “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” It also provides the story on how this new rebellion starts and even when the First Order originates from. In addition to these backstories, we get more insight into Leia. We dive into her thoughts and getting to see more of the strength that we have come to love from this character. On the outside, it seems like she is alone. Han is not with her. Luke is away and her son Ben is with him. Her family is spread out over the galaxy and she still shows strength and drives to do what’s right for the galaxy.

I highly recommend this book to any Star Wars fan, especially a Leia fan!