By George & Josh Bate
The legendary Skywalker lightsaber once wielded by Luke and Anakin Skywalker was shattered to pieces in The Last Jedi, only to be found miraculously put together again in The Rise of Skywalker. This point of discontinuity was just one of many thematic and narrative discrepancies between Episodes VIII and IX that made the two final chapters of the Skywalker Saga feel disappointingly separate from one another.
Star Wars: Legacy, a new novel by Madeleine Roux, bridges the gap between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker by chronicling Rey and Leia’s quest to repair the Skywalker saber, in turn providing vital connective tissue between Episodes VIII and IX that previously did not exist.
Taking place between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, Legacy finds Rey, Leia, and the rest of the Resistance struggling to rebuild after barely escaping the First Order on Crait. Feeling the pressure of being the last Jedi in the galaxy, Rey feels alone and overwhelmed, especially as her mentor Leia has limited knowledge of the Force and the Jedi. A glimmer of hope, however, emerges when Rey discovers that a long-forgotten Jedi Temple on Tython may hold the key to repairing the lightsaber. Rey and Leia make the journey to Tython, where their pursuit of a lightsaber forge intersects with two men who almost pulled off the daring assassination of a First Order major.
Roux, known for her work on the bestselling Asylum series, tells a story that triumphs when its focus is firmly on Rey and Leia, yet stumbles when it pivots to other characters. The logline for Legacy would suggest that the new Star Wars novel is a full-fledged Rey and Leia story, but, in actuality, the novel narratively trifurcates early on.
A significant portion of Legacy is dedicated to Major Britta Wolstenholme, a First Order operative whose sole previous appearance in canon came in the Age of Resistance – Rose Tico comic one-shot. Wolstenholme enters the story having barely survived an assassination attempt. Not only is she determined to find and kill the gang of rebels who tried to kill, but she also wishes to explore suspicions that there was more to the assassination plot than meets the eye.
Wolstenholme is the closest thing to a central antagonist that Legacy features, but her unique role in the First Order following the assassination attempt renders her a rather wayward element of the novel. Her escapades to uncover the identities of her would-be assassins and the attempts at political intrigue surrounding the assassination plot pale in comparison to the emotion and interest in Rey and Leia’s section of the story. In turn, every chapter dedicated to Wolstenholme (of which there are quite a few) slows proceedings down considerably and leaves one wishing for a return to the novel’s primary draw.
The same can unfortunately be said for another third of Legacy’s narrative, which centers around new characters Gavrin Hyllus and Ziff Laresta. The two men were part of a group of four that attempted to take Wolstenholme’s life on Hays Minor. The novel picks up after the assassination attempt failed, leaving Gav and Ziff hiding out with the Church of the Force as they figure out their next steps.
Perhaps even more so than Wolstenholme, Gav and Ziff make for fairly uninteresting characters, who happen to take up a disproportionately sizable chunk of the story. Neither is afforded much in the way of substantial character development squabbles with Rey and predictable evolutions in their perception of the Jedi.
Readers patient enough to withstand the dull stories of Wolstenholme, Gav, and Ziff will be rewarded with some excellent sequel trilogy storytelling that builds upon Leia and Rey’s characters in such interesting ways. In The Rise of Skywalker, Rey and Leia are seen as having a warm, tender, supportive relationship, but Legacy makes it clear that their bond was not always like this. Much of Roux’s novel centers around an understated conflict between Rey and Leia as the former feels the burden of carrying on the legacy of an entire religion and the latter confronts insecurities and imposter syndrome related to her role as a mentor.
It’s through the intimate examinations of Rey and Leia’s psyches that Legacy thrives. Rey’s anxiety, stress, and insecurity bleeds through the pages as the reader is given a front-row seat to the sequel trilogy protagonist’s difficulties navigating so much responsibility with such little training. To make matters even more difficult, Rey is still reeling from the brief, yet intense connection she had with Kylo Ren and struggles to get close to the woman who is the mother of such a destructive figure in the galaxy. These are fascinating topics not touched upon in the sequel trilogy but are given ample room to breathe in Roux’s novel, in turn changing one’s perceptions of the Rey we see in The Rise of Skywalker.
Representing the greatest conflict for Rey in the novel are visions of a dark side version of herself. Such visions took place in The Rise of Skywalker as Rey was faced with glimpses of a villainous, red lightsaber-wielding, sharp-toothed version of herself, but Legacy expands on these visions by adding extra context for them. Too much of Roux’s writing is dedicated to rather repetitive vision sequences, although the novel once again enhances viewing of The Rise of Skywalker by adding nuance to Rey’s concerns that she will fall to the dark side.
Leia, meanwhile, sees that the gulf between her and Rey is widening but feels helpless to stop it. As she faces the harsh realities of aging and her family’s complicated legacy in the galaxy, she finds herself in the role of reluctant teacher. Imagine being suddenly asked to teach a course on a topic you are only somewhat familiar with and that begins to capture what challenges Leia faces in the novel.
Naturally, Leia’s role as Rey’s potentially unqualified mentor gives way to reflections and flashbacks to Leia’s training under Luke. While this will be explored more fully in the upcoming novel Twin Crossroads by Beth Revis, it is certainly interesting to see Leia and Luke’s relationship further built out in a way that both honors the characters’ depictions in the original trilogy and adds new, unexpected complexities to their dynamic.
Star Wars: Legacy also compels in the ways in which it adds to existing canon. In addition to addressing how the Skywalker lightsaber was repaired between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, Roux’s novel also provides additional context for the reveal in Episode IX that Rey descends from Palpatine.
Most interesting to hardcore Star Wars fans, however, will be the ways in which Legacy offers new information about the Old Republic era of Jedi. Tython, the primary planet on which the novel takes place, houses an ancient Jedi temple once occupied by Old Republic Jedi. As the novel progresses, Roux introduces a subplot involving what led to the ultimate dissolution of the temple and, along the way, provides insights about various figures in the Old Republic, how people spoke during this era of galactic history, and more. The Old Republic may have been expansively explored in Legends / EU, but it has hardly been touched in canon, meaning Star Wars fans like us hungry for any crumbs about the Old Republic will find Legacy to be an unexpectedly revealing novel.
Unfolding over the course of 392 pages, Legacy certainly improves in its last 120 pages or so as the focus narrows in on Rey and Leia’s journey. It also helps that the aforementioned Old Republic subplot is further detailed and some familiar faces pop up in exciting cameos.
VERDICT:
Star Wars: Legacy makes the jolt from The Last Jedi to The Rise of Skywalker less jarring by answering the question of how the Skywalker lightsaber was repaired between Episodes VIII and IX. Madeleine Roux’s new novel successfully bridges the gap between the two Skywalker Saga movies and adds context to the story and characters that will change how one views The Rise of Skywalker. Everything in the novel involving Rey and Leia makes for absorbing reading as the former struggles with the burden of keeping the legacy of an entire religion alive, visions of a dark side version of herself, and a complicated relationship with Kylo Ren, while the latter faces the harsh realities of aging, her family’s complicated legacy in the galaxy, and imposter syndrome related to her role as mentor for Rey. Unfortunately, the novel spends far too much time with a trio of less interesting side characters, who drag down the pacing and engagement in the story every time a chapter is dedicated to them. Thankfully, Legacy corrects for this misstep somewhat in a third act that narrows the focus on Rey and Leia and features exciting cameos from a number of familiar faces. Coupled with unexpected insights about the Old Republic and the Jedi of that era, Roux’s novel interestingly answers questions that have lingered in canon, while deepening the psychologies of the sequel trilogy’s most prominent female characters.
Star Wars: Legacy is available on July 28, 2026 from Random House Worlds
