This book is the third in the Legacy of the Force series, and follows immediately from the previous book - just a matter of days after the conclusion of Bloodlines.

I started this book with some misgivings after having had many issues with Denning's Dark Nest Trilogy (see my review here), but I am glad to say that my misgivings were misplaced and the author is back to his Star by Star and Tatooine Ghost best.

The book opens with the surprise return of Alema Rar, disabled from her final scene in The Swarm War and determined to seek vengeance against Leia for her part in what happened. Her plans include causing emotional pain by killing Leia's surviving son, but those plans change when she discovers Jacen with Lumiya and realises that Leia's pain will likely be significantly increased by leaving him alive to continue his move down the path of the dark side.

We then move to a meeting between Han, Leia and Wedge Antilles where the latter is asking them to undertake a mission to Hapes - to get Hapes to switch sides. Han and Leia are reluctant at first, but eventually agree.

The resultant trip to Hapes takes Han and Leia into a nasty political situation which is much more difficult than they had expected. Things become increasingly murky with the usual Hapan plotting and double crossing putting their lives at risk - in more ways than one.

The Skywalker/Solo family tensions that have developed through the first two books of the series take a considerable turn for the worse in this book. This aspect of the story has been developed extremely well through all three of the opening books in the series and it will be very interesting to see how things progress through the remaining 6 books.

The main point of view characters in this book are Alema, Han, Jaina, Mara, Luke and Jacen. We did not get quite as much insight into the thought processes of the characters (other than Alema) as I would have liked, but many characters (including several non- point of view characters) continued to be well developed. Even though Lumiya's role seemed at first to be considerably reduced in this book, her pride in her protoge was demonstrated very clearly and interestingly (I'm trying not to give too much away here, hence the cryptic nature of the comment).

As with the previous two books, I would have liked to have seen Jaina's character taken a bit further, but the scenes involving her showed definite promise for a more substantial role in the future.

There were also some additional characters who had not had a role in this series so far, including one who had not been seen in the OT era so far (in the dramatis personae under the name "Nashtah"). Jagged Fel's name appears in the dramatis personae but don't be fooled - he's in it for one scene only. There's little doubt that we'll be seeing more of him in the books to come, though.

This is continuing to show promise of being one of the best series the EU has on offer. As I said at the end of the last review, if only it would bring Jaina and Jag back together it would be near perfect...

I'm very much looking forward to reading the coming instalments by Allston and Traviss - Exile and Sacrifice respectively.

Del Rey has an excerpt from Tempest here and an interview about the book with Troy Denning here.