BehrItAll

A little bit.

He was assigned by the Jedi Council to be the royal regent for the young princess of Pijal after his Padawan died. So he has been there for 8 years.

And while living there he has not given in to the rich lifestyle of royalty (which is why the Council gave him the assignment, they knew he wouldn't fall to those temptations) because he still dresses shabby, etc. But Qui-Gon catches him in bed with the local innkeeper and in one scene he smokes a death stick.

So he is a very unconventional, roguish Jedi.

I have my review for Queen's Peril by E.K. Johnston

When fourteen-year-old Padmé Naberrie wins the election for Queen of Naboo, she adopts the name Amidala and leaves her family to the rule from the royal palace. To keep her safe and secure, she’ll need a group of skilled handmaidens who can be her assistants, confidantes, defenders, and decoys. Each girl is selected for her particular talents, but it will be up to Padmé to unite them as a group. When Naboo is invaded by forces of the Trade Federation, Queen Amidala and her handmaidens will face the greatest test—of themselves, and of each other.

Queen's Peril just came out this month and it's a prequel to Queen's Shadow.

Just like Queen's Shadow, I really enjoyed this book. I only have the hardcover and so I didn't listen along with the audiobook this time. It is such a fast read, mostly because it is for YA readers, but I like YA. Also, like I said with my last review: there aren't any big battle scenes and no lightsaber fights, but if you love Padmé, then this is a book to read.

The Loves:
- Getting to see Padmé develop her Queen of Naboo persona and maintain anonymity. I guess I never realized that while Amidala was famous, her family and their origins were not known to the people of Naboo. Same for the handmaidens.

-Seeing the handmaidens come together. How they were recruited, their unique skills, their work ethic, but also just being normal teenage girls. Besides seeing them work together to come up with a decoy system to fool even the guards, I liked seeing their squabbles, sorting their complicated feelings, and talk about their menstrual cycles.

I am going to go on a bit of a tangent here: suppressants - sounds like birth control for a galaxy far, far away. Didn't work for Padmé when she gets pregnant with twins...
I mean, I would assume she would still be on them since she was secretly married to a Jedi. Must have just been the will of the Force.

- Ok, back on track. This might be a tiny spoiler but I won't give details. I loved that the prologue was , and how the epilogue is Heartbreaking!

- I loved the little bits of The Phantom Menace and showing some of those characters' POV so that we got a sense of where in the timeline we were: Shmi (which OMG I loved all her scenes <3 ), Palpatine, Maul, and Jar Jar. I also liked that it was not a rehashing of TPM and so we got to see more of the handmaidens' POV during those events.
Especially since it was mention in Queen's Shadow that

- Loved the descriptions of Naboo culture that focused on the arts and music and how that was being used to open relations with the rest of the Chommell sector.

Dislikes:
-I do wish the animosity between Saché an Yané was elaborated. It was too vague. From what I remember from Queen's Shadow

4.5 out of 5 Handmaidens.*

Favorite quotes:

Page 69: "I want to be ready for anything, of course, but I don't want to be so afraid of my own shadow that I give up the parts of me that want to stay idealistic and hopeful. That's why I wanted to be queen, really. To show that Naboo can be strong in its own traditions and a part of the galactic community."

Page 99: (Chancellor Valorum about the tax bill reappearing in variations in the Senate) It was not unlike being haunted, except instead of a ghost that might be exorcised, it was bureaucrats that just would not stop talking about it.