👁️ SHOP UPDATE 🌵✨ Preorders are now live for my spring/summer update! POs end on May 26th, reblogs appreciated!

The Aftermath Trilogy by Chuck Wendig: It’s based basically right after Return of the Jedi and is about a Republic crew hunting down Imperial leaders. I will be honest, some of it is slow and ik a lot of people aren’t huge fans of the present-tense writing and the “interludes”, however it does bring really interesting lore into Star Wars and I love its take on the found family trope. The first book is really slow, it wasn’t my fave however once you finish it the quality of the books does get better. It’s like the prequels, it starts off funny but after each novel it gets better. Empire’s End, the last novel, was honestly amazing and is so worth the read but you’ll need to get through the first two books first. If you’re an original trilogy fan or someone who just wants to learn more about Star Wars then you have to read this series it’s great.

The Padmè trilogy by E.K. Johnston: I have not read the final book (Queen’s Hope) yet, but I can say that the other two books are literally amazing. Padmè is actually a really great and important character and it was nice to see her as someone other than Anakin’s love interest. In my opinion, the books really do her justice. It was a pretty easy and quick read, especially as someone who (lately) has not been reading much. You also get some Naboo handmaiden lore and in Queen’s Peril you get some POVs from other characters which was cool. I honestly couldn’t think of any reason someone wouldn’t enjoy/want to read these books apart from not being interested in Padmè, I really enjoyed it and so did a lot of Star Wars fans so if you want to know more about Padmè, or you want to do some light Star Wars reading then read these books.

The Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy by Timothy Zahn: I literally loved these books so much. Timothy Zahn created Thrawn all the way back in the 90s in his Legends trilogy and you can really tell this just by reading the books. The Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy is begins right before the end of the Clone Wars and it’s basically like “what was happening in the Unknown Regions during this time???” as a book. Like it’s so interesting to see how this part of the galaxy was having its own conflicts and stuff going on and were pretty much oblivious to the Clone Wars, it really shows how isolated the Unknown Regions were to the rest of the galaxy. There’s also a lot of Chiss lore which is great, and the characters are amazing. One thing I will say though, the book is heavy on space-ship fights and a lot of the time when this was happening I didn’t understand like half the terms all the characters were using but the whole book was Thrawn just outsmarting everyone which is what kept me through it. It has me hyped for the other Thrawn trilogy which I haven’t started yet, but this is a great read if you saw Thrawn in the Rebels series and want to know more about him.

Rogue One novelisation by Alexander Freed: just a warning, if you read this you will never be the same, like ever again. When I started this book I thought I was gonna be bored because I was like “I already know what goes on in the movie, what more could I get out of this?” but Lord was I so terribly wrong. It’s an expanded version of Rogue One. You’re put inside the heads of the characters and you also get POVs from other characters that otherwise weren’t in the film and it is honestly just so amazing how much lore that a novelisation could bring to a movie, and to the Star Wars universe as well. Tbh if I hadn’t run out of tears I would have bawled my eyes out when I finished this book, it’s literally so good and if you love Rogue One then it is a requirement to read this book. Tbh you don’t even have to love Rogue One to love this, the writing was great anyone who likes Star Wars should read it lmao.

Bloodline by Claudia Gray: if you haven’t read this book then what are you doing with your life. This is one of the first Star Wars books I have ever read and I have no regrets at all. It’s about Leia’s final years as a senator in the New Republic, around five years before the Force Awakens. In the Force Awakens everyone was shocked that the New Republic was destroyed overnight by the First Order, but Bloodline does a really good job of showing how weak, careless, and corrupt the New Republic Senate really was. Like it actually frustrated me how annoying the Senate was, like you had senators who openly worship the Empire and senators who outright didn’t care about the people and at times it felt like Leia was the only sane person in the Senate. What is going on throughout the novel is that the Senate is divided between two factions: the populists and the centralist, and the senators are more concerned about someone from their faction becoming chancellor than actually doing their jobs. The book really does show how much Leia values duty to the Republic over herself, because at the start she is planning on retiring from the senate but stays for the sake of helping people, and eventually she leads the Resistance. Someone give my girl a break fr. But yeah if you wanna know what the hell was going on before the sequels (like we all do), or you love Leia (like we all do), or you love Star Wars politics, stop what you’re doing and read this book.

Honourable mentions (mostly books I haven’t read but a lot of ppl recommend)

The (canon) Thrawn trilogy

Lost Stars

Any of the High Republic books (I have only read Light of the Jedi and can’t wait to read more abt this era)

Battlefront II: Inferno Squad (if you haven’t played the game then probs don’t read this)

Any of the “From a Certain Point of View” books

The Legends Thrawn trilogy. I know this isn’t canon but I think it’s definitely worth a read and you don’t actually need a bunch of knowledge of Legends to read it.

Brotherhood

Master & Apprentice

Any of the Crimson Dawn comics

Dark Disciple

Ahsoka