Welcome back to Go/No-Go, Tosche Station’s regular feature where we offer our spoiler-free opinion as to whether or not you should spend your hard-earned money on a book, film, or other entertainment. Today on the launch pad: Bloodline by Claudia Gray. It’s not only our first look at the years before The Force Awakens but also the political Leia book we’ve been clamoring for for years. But how did it go over with us? To mission control for the verdict!

Bria: Bloodline is the book that I’ve wanted desperately for years. As the resident political nerd and lover of all things Alderaan/Organa/Leia, this book sounded like it was going to be right in my wheel house. Spoiler Alert: It was. This is a book that literally begins with the New Republic having a dedication ceremony for a statue of Bail Organa and it only keeps getting better. Bloodline is the emotional love child of Razor’s Edge, The Force Awakens, and Kenobi and if you don’t think that’s a good thing, I don’t know what to tell you. Claudia Gray writes a pitch perfect Leia who feels like the logical progression of a character we last “saw” 20+ years ago. This Leia has decades of politics and rebelling under her belt but neither is she quite yet the Resistance General Organa that we saw in Episode VII. Everything is just perfect. Gray does an incredible job with fleshing out the galaxy in the years before The Force Awakens and answers some of our questions without making it feel like a checklist. The supporting cast is also fantastically written and I promise that you’ll never look at Korr Sella in those few moments on Hosnian Prime the same way again. However, the two standouts are most definitely Greer Sonnel and Ransolm Casterfo. Greer’s a former racing pilot turned Leia’s Chief of Staff and Ransolm is a Senator from the opposite party who also likes to collect Imperial artifacts. Both could have easily been archetypes but Gray does oh so much more with them that I can’t really go into without spoilers. And then there’s the Organa stuff. THE ORGANA STUFF. Bloodline gets one of the strongest GO recommendations from me in a very long time and I will definitely #VoteLeia for First Senator.

Nanci: Two days after finishing this book and I can’t stop thinking about it, which you know is the mark of a good book. There’s a few things I disliked — mainly the glossing over of certain scenes I really wanted to read — but mostly Bloodline left me wanting more in a really good way. For those of you worried that a political book would be boring, you have nothing to fear. Yes, it’s political, but it’s also fast-paced, easy to understand, and does a great job setting the stage for The Force Awakens. And then there’s the characters. Oh, the characters. There’s been so much good Leia stuff lately (Moving Target, Princess Leia), and Bloodline is definitely the pinnacle of that. Leia is the star of this book and unlike a lot of Legends content we’re not focusing on her marriage or her family. We’re focusing on her job as senator and how her family history plays into that. However, the character who surprised me the most in this book is without a doubt Ransolm Casterfo. I was shocked at how much I liked him. At times, his story moved me to tears. In general, this novel both had me turning pages but also dreading what would happen next. While I loved Aftermath (Sinjir is still my favorite character of the new canon), Bloodline gets the crown of best novel in the new canon so far. Definitely GO buy it.

Flight Director’s Ruling: Bloodline is a GO for launch!