Two and a half stars, rounding up to three. Rarely have I ever wished Goodreads could let us give half stars more, because the rounding up (and for consistency's sake, I always round up) makes it appear better than it is. In fact, this novel is very much split for me. On the bright side, it has the Nightsisters, a group of Force-wielding witches who live in a matriarchy on a distant planet, and they are unreservedly enjoyable. I like everything about them. Unfortunately, this often disturbing population and their internal machinations are periodically interrupted by an extremely off-putting romance. Leia has a marriage proposal from the heir of an extremely wealthy empire, and accepting such would allow her to establish a new Alderaan, where the refugees of her home planet could settle and rebuild. Said heir is also attractive, but that's neither here nor there.

The bargain to rebuild Alderaanian society on a new planet should have been the central focus of the romance storyline here. Despite Luke's ridiculous assertion that all women dream of being swept off their feet by a literal prince (which, have you even met your sister, Luke?) Leia is - and always has been - primarily a political figure whose central ethos is how best to serve her people. Instead this is glossed over in service of a very silly love triangle between her, Han, and Prince Isolder... a triangle which largely consists of the two men trying to one-up each other with no regard at all to what Leia wants. At one point Han even puts her under mind control to get her to go with him, and I nearly shut the entire book in disgust. There is only so far the witches of Dathomir can redeem such tripe.

Also, I do not much care for the fact that Dathomir was being bought and sold - again, by Han (among others) - with no consideration for the consent, or even the knowledge, of the inhabitants. I realise this was written back in the 90s, but I would hope any Star Wars author writing today would be less glib, and more critical, about this practice, which was not even remotely interrogated by Wolverton within the text. No, I'm changing my mind. Down to two stars you go.