Dark Disciple: Star Wars Paperback – March 1, 2016 by Christie Golden (Author), Katie Lucas (Foreword) (Del Rey)

First I have to say that when it was announced that the original expanded universe was being scrapped I (like many others) was not too happy. After spending a lot of time and money on the novels comics etc. to have everything conveniently tossed aside to start over was a little disheartening. Then came the force awakens and well you know.... it turned out to be a good thing. All that being said lets get to the book itself.
Dark Disciple as it turns out is a pretty good read and stand alone book. If you read christie goldens other star wars novels omen, allies and ascension then your familiar with her style. She has an easy to read way about her that makes the books flow which is a good thing. The love story that develops between vos and ventress felt a little rushed to me, it could have been fleshed out just a little bit more, but perhaps that is just publishers keeping the book to under 400 pages.
The story follows Quinlan Vos as he is assigned a task by the jedi council to recruit Asajj Ventress to help kill count Dooku. I will not give away any spoilers here but an interesting observation of the book is how it brings out what can happen to people who are put into undercover high stress combat situations, things can get.... fuzzy. People who are exposed to that kind of stress for extended periods of time are changed and the book does touch on that..... in a star wars way. Example; the council gives vos the assignment and when he comes back they become afraid weary of him but they do try as best they can to help him, perhaps the author was trying to make a statement about vets who come home different and no one understands them except for those who went through the same thing. Just an observation.
If you are looking for a good star wars read then this is one you would want, it has plenty of action, a good story and it focuses on two characters that after this book will probably not get any more time spent on them. The development of both characters is better in the comics I feel but all of that is no longer cannon but if you take what was written in the comics, the clone wars show and this book then together you have a good grasp of two characters that will be missed.