The Princess and the Scoundrel: Leia and Luke discuss next steps for their family and the Force in new excerpt
Though we just got a brand new Star Wars book when Padawan came out this week, there are less than three weeks left until The Princess and the Scoundrel comes out. And, there’s a heartwrenching new excerpt.
Shared exclusively by USA Today, the excerpt shows Leia and Luke talking shortly after Leia answered Han Solo’s proposal of marriage. The newfound siblings discuss their futures – as family and as people highly sensitive to the Force.
The Princess and the Scoundrel by Beth Revis takes place immediately after the Rebellion’s victory at the Battle of Endor. The book opens with Leia, Han, and Luke still on the forest moon mere hours after the destruction of the second Death Star and the deaths of the Emperor and Darth Vader.
All three legacy Star Wars characters are dealing with conflicting emotions and trauma. And as the title suggests, this book primarily deals with Leia and Han – their wedding and the earliest days of their marriage amid the continuing war to free the galaxy from Imperial rule.
The previous two excerpts shared for the book focus on Leia and Han’s relationship and love for each other. The first showed Leia grappling with the human cost of war and her family’s legacy but putting that behind for a moment to focus on Han.
And the second excerpt gets into Han’s head and shows his unplanned but beautiful proposal to Leia.
This new excerpt takes us back to Leia and Luke, who is ecstatic to hear about his friends’ pending nuptials.
"“You and Han, huh?” Luke asked her.Leia felt a twist of nerves in her stomach as she waited for his response. What if he didn’t approve, what if this soured their friendship, what if—“Finally!” Luke shouted, elation spread over his face."
The passage goes on to show Leia grappling with uneasiness about her future and wanting to freeze this moment – with all three of them together – in time.
"“I feel like I’m on a precipice,” Leia answered Luke as she forced herself to look down, through the tree branches to the distant ground below.She glanced over her shoulder. “I feel like that for all three of us. You, me, Han. This moment, right now, it feels like . . .” She turned back to the railing, but this time her eyes were on the tree-dappled horizon. “It feels like one step, and we’ll all scatter in different directions. Right now, we’re together. Right now, we’re safe.”"
The excerpt also teases the diverging paths Leia and her brothers are about to embark on. Leia considers how much Luke has changed over the years – who was once a humble, naive farm boy is now a formidable Jedi Master and (for now) the last of his kind.
Revis’ words show Leia being confronted with several choices for what she does next. Luke, clearly, wants to train her in the Force because of the power he senses in her. Han wants to marry her and possibly settle down. And Leia knows how important her face and voice are to the burgeoning New Republic government.
"Because that was what the choice really was. Going with Luke, becoming a Jedi—it would be an adventure. It might give her the power he tempted her with.But she had given her whole life to power.And she was ready to choose, for the first time, what she wanted for herself."
Read the full excerpt on USAToday.com.
The Princess and the Scoundrel arrives Aug. 16 and is available to preorder now.