Queen's Peril is a Star Wars Expanded Universe young adult novel by E.K. Johnston, a prequel to her novel Queen's Shadow. It was released on June 2, 2020.
Set shortly before and during the events of The Phantom Menace, the novel focuses on Padmé Amidala's early days as the new Queen of Naboo and the bond she forms with her handmaidens, as they navigate both galactic politics and adolescence.
Read an excerpt here
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The official summary:
When fourteen-year-old Padmé Naberrie wins the election for Queen of Naboo, she adopts the name Amidala and leaves her family to 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.[1]
Tropes:
- "Ass" in Ambassador: Nitsa Tulin, the representative of the planet Chommell Minor is described as being disdainful and shows no interest in the summit she's travelled so many light years to attend.
- Aborted Arc: A lot of the early book follows Padmé reaching out to the other planets in the Chommell sector and meeting their representatives but this is dropped when the Trade Fedration blockade begins, not being fully resolved either during or after the invasion.
- Call-Forward: Even though it's been generations since a Naboo monarch had a Body Double, Captain Panaka's insistence in the excerpt that Padmé have one is going to be a very good idea…
- Captain Obvious: After Obi-Wan says the governor's message is a trick like in the film, once he leaves Rabé asks if he thought they were too stupid to know that for themselves (although in The Phantom Menace Obi-Wan was stating it more for the audience's benefit as well).
- Continuity Nod: Just as in Queen's Shadow, it's mentioned in the excerpt that Sabé comes from a family of musicians, specifically hallikset players.
- Ignored Expert: Eirtae built a repulsorlift for an opera company with specific instructions that's it would only work with four people. They ignored her and had five singers climb on it, causing an accident.
- No Periods, Period: Averted. Saché getting her first period becomes a plot point, as it sets off a security sensor that indicates when someone in the queen's suite is bleeding (Mariek Panaka subsequently points out how stupid it was to put such a sensor in a room occupied by teenage girls). They actually had to add a page about menstruation to Wookiepedia as a result.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Around the middle of the story, Padmé and Sabé's friendship is strained after Padmé accidentally derails Sabé's burgeoning romance with a teen ambassador. Then the Trade Federation invades and they have to work together to save Naboo, leading to them making up.
- Prequel: To both Queen's Shadow and The Phantom Menace, depicting the very beginning of Padmé Amidala's reign as Queen of Naboo.
- Properly Paranoid: Padmé and Tsabin decide that Captain Panaka is a "no reason not to" thinker about the former having the latter as a Body Double, even though no monarch of Naboo has had one since the last dispute with the Gungans, generations ago.
- Series Continuity Error: The canonical Star Wars Character Encyclopedia: Updated and Expanded established that King Veruna was Queen Amidala's predecessor as Naboo's monarch, but in this novel a never-previously-mentioned queen named Sanandrassa is depicted as her immediate predecessor. In the novel Tarkin, during a flashback set around four years before The Phantom Menace it's also mentioned that Naboo is currently ruled by a king, but going by the timeline in Queen's Peril, either Queen Réillata or Queen Sanandrassa was ruling at this time.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: To strengthen Naboo's ties with other worlds, Padmé calls a summit on Naboo and invites representatives from several other planets in the Chommell Sector. Unbeknownst to her, this causes Palpatine to accelerate his plans to have the Trade Federation invade Naboo, as he wants Naboo to be as weak as possible to avoid other worlds coming to their aid and garner more sympathy within the Senate.
