‘Star Wars: The Princess and the Scoundrel’ Gives Leia Organa and Han Solo a Worthy Wedding

Even though Leia Organa and Han Solo’s romance is a vital ingredient of the Star Wars saga, the movies only included its shaky beginnings and bittersweet summary. It was a small disappointing to see how the few married and drifted aside in the 30 many years between Return of the Jedi and The Drive Awakens, with small feeling that they’d savored any wedded bliss.

Creator Beth Revis aims to remedy that challenge in novel The Princess and The Scoundrel, which will come out in print, digital and audiobook type on Aug. 16. Getting place just soon after Rebel Alliance’s victory about the Galactic Empire in Return of the Jedi, it reveals that Leia and Han got married pretty significantly quickly and jetted off on a rocky honeymoon.

The very first chunk of the story normally takes spot on Endor, as they get ready for the marriage. Revis infuses this segment with ideal levity, due to the fact they have gained the war and are getting into a new period of hope for the galaxy. Leia and Han get used to the point that Luke Skywalker is her brother (and certainly, the super odd Leia-Luke kiss from The Empire Strikes Back is addressed).

It can be just entertaining to devote time with Lando Calrissian, Mon Mothma and a bunch of other heroes when the Empire isn’t nipping at their heels and possibilities appear limitless. This joy seeps into Leia and Han’s Ewok-assisted wedding day ceremony, which Revis describes in beautiful depth.

In the midst of all this, Leia grapples with the revelation that the late Darth Vader — who’d tortured her and Han, stood by as her homeworld was blown up and was commonly a genuine poor dude in her lifetime — was her father. This will make her query if she must find out to use the Force like her twin brother, Luke, or steer obvious lest she fall to the darkish aspect like her pricey aged father.

We know from The Very last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker that Leia will embrace the Power and educate with Luke, but have noticed cherished minimal of this journey. Leia will take her very first steps into this broader entire world in this novel, and these sections are some of the novel’s most intriguing. Revis conveys the uncertainty and risk of  this new aspect of a familiar hero fantastically.

Nonetheless, romance is this novel’s aim and the tale turns into fewer engaging when Leia and Han established off on their honeymoon. Just after an entertaining interlude with Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon, they arrive on the Halcyon, the luxury passenger liner that occurs to be the in-universe setting of the immersive Disney Globe lodge Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. 

Revis builds out this place nicely (and it hardly ever feels like an extended Disney Vacation resort professional), but the novel loses steam as Leia starts to combine business with satisfaction by gradually turning her honeymoon into a diplomatic mission and Han just wanders the ship, engages in sketchy card games and finds some problems.

It will make total sense that these two would slip into their aged routines, primarily when you take into account that she’s invested most of her existence as a rebel battling a totalitarian routine and he’s operated on the fringes of the regulation. Sad to say, the novel feels directionless as they drift apart — quite possibly because we know sinister forces will thrust them aside in a bigger way by The Force Awakens.

Thankfully, their bond is just not rather so frayed at this stage in the timeline and they come collectively in advance of an Imperial menace emerges in the novel’s closing quarter. The tale regains momentum in this article, with Revis making an partaking mystery in advance of dialing up the threat in an imaginative new site. It is really only let down by an underdeveloped villain whose overall look is so brief that they are going to probably be neglected soon after you end this 368-website page novel.

The Princess and The Scoundrel gives Leia and Han a marriage deserving of cinematic icons and foreshadows their destinies in tantalizing strategies. Their honeymoon isn’t as memorable, but it does not choose way too very long for adventure and excitement to reignite the spark of romance.