I read the new High Republic book Midnight Horizon last week, and it was incredible! It was a really great High Republic story, combining fun humor and sweet scenes between characters with high tension and conflict. It gets really dangerous for our characters, both familiar ones and new, and overall I would highly, highly recommend this book.
Spoilers ahead for Midnight Horizon by Daniel José Older.
It was cool to see Corellia long, long before we usually see it. Corellia isn't the nicest place when we see it in stuff like Solo, but we get a sense of a Corellia that isn't in as dire straits here (though things still aren't the greatest). My favorite of these Corellians is a young woman heading a bodyguard service that her mother passed to her following retirement. She's really fun and I loved reading not only from her perspective, but other characters' perspectives on her. She's funny but also kind and genuine, and has a lot of good growth in this book.
Reath and Ram are both Jedi padawans I knew from other High Republic media, but I hadn't yet seen them team up. And it was totally adorable. Despite being Jedi and involved with galaxy-wide conflicts and saving the day all the time, they're both still teenagers and I thought that the humor between them really captures a light, young friendship. It was hilarious and super cute to see them interact as their friendship grows, and then later to see how they both teach each other and support each other through the tough times, and step up when things get dire.
Zeen Mrala also gets a lot of focus in this book, the Force-sensitive girl who hangs out with Jedi but isn't training as one herself. I only knew her from Race to Crashpoint Tower, though I know she's also in the High Republic Adventures comics. It was really cool to see her again, and I loved the growth that she has in this book. She's another character that's really fun to read and has a lot of energy and personality, and it was a real pleasure to get to know her a lot more in this book.
This book also has strong ties to The Fallen Star, mostly at the end. We know from that book that Starlight Beacon crashes and burns, and we read that harrowing experience from the perspective of some of the people on it in that book. We're far away from it, but our characters learn about it in this book. You can feel how much it devastates them, because they all had people they cared about on that book and lived on Starlight Beacon. What was most scary about it was that Lula Talisola, companion and very close friend to Zeen, was on there. She's listed as missing in this book but Zeen swears that she's alive and that she'll find her, not unlike Bell Zettifar with his friend Burryaga in The Fallen Star. I definitely hope that they team up to find their missing friends at some point, and that they find them!
I think my favorite part of this book overall was the discussion of Jedi philosophy. I loved the conversations that both the masters and the padawans have with each other on what it means to be attached, how Jedi should handle emotions, and how to love without attachment. It really made this book so much better for me as I love that kind of thing. Yoda showing up towards the end of the book after being missing for a while and saving the day Thor-style was also super, super cool.