As I continue reading ‘Star Wars’ books and delve deeper into the expanded universe, I was left wondering what to read next. I’d seen many of the ‘Legends Collection’ in passing, particularly the “Thrawn Trilogy”, and took to Wookieepedia to read up on everything published under the collection. Among a handful of titles, it was ‘Darth Plagueis’ which spoke to me most and shot to the top of my to be read list. Not just because of his fleeting mention in ‘Revenge of the Sith’, but because Sheev Palpatine — a character I admittedly despise — was sat front and center of the reissue, rather than the character the book is named after, who is secluded to the background as he watches over a throned Palpatine. Further research into it led me to a comment somebody had made declaring this is a great prelude to ‘The Phantom Menace’, helping to flesh out and understand its story more. I became obsessed with it before even owning it, constantly thinking about it and waiting for the right time to dive between the pages.

Readers are introduced to the book’s tone from the very beginning, with a prologue taking you right to the heart of ‘The Phantom Menace’ itself, simultaneously expanding on and diverting from the day Palpatine is elected as Supreme Chancellor. Then we’re taken into the story proper, starting with Darth Plagueis as an apprentice to his master Darth Teneberous. The former is a Muun, a species first seen in ‘Attack of the Clones’, and the latter is a Bith, first seen in ‘A New Hope’ with their most famous representation being the Cantina Band. It was immediately refreshing to be meeting two new Sith, not just of different species within the ‘Star Wars’ universe, but ones I’ve seen in passing through various other forms of media.

From the outset, Darth Plagueis struck me as perhaps the most interesting Sith I’ve encountered thus far. He appeared to be loyal and subservient to his master but, in the very first chapter, seemed to be acting under subterfuge to replace him in the order of Sith Lords. “Brutal” is a word I often use to describe Sith too, from Darth Maul in ‘Shadow Lord’ to Darth Talon in the ‘Legacy’ comics, but none I’ve encountered yet operate as brutally as Plagueis. I was shocked to read of him cannibalising corpses as a way to survive on a planet, and when training Darth Sideous, he removes the heart of a combatant and takes a bite from it. Going into reading this, I never expected it to have such gory and gruesome depictions of physical altercations. As a lover of all things horror, it was a welcome surprise to be sure. And one way in which this stark brutality continues is when Plagueis trains Sidious to be his apprentice, and Sidious is training Maul to be his assassin.

One of my favourite takeaways from reading this has been the expansion and education of my knowledge on the Muun and Bith species. We learn early on about the Muuns being involved with the InterGalactic Banking Clan, and how Plagueis — who operates under the name Hego Damask in public — comes from a wealthy background and has inherited the company Damask Holdings from his father. He puts his wealth to good use, inviting prospective partners to pitch investment ideas to him. It was here when the set-up for ‘The Phantom Menace’ started to really fall into place for me, as one patron proposes “a Podrace course on Tatooine” and mentions Jabba Desilijic Tiure, known to most as Jabba the Hutt, with another mentioning “an untapped reservoir of plasma on Naboo”. In regards to the Bith species, we learn how they were skilled in the art of science.

Plagueis dabbles in this himself, when not operating as Hego Demask, as he becomes hell bent on realising the Sith obsession of everlasting life. Through experimentation on various living beings, he attempts to master control over midi-chlorians as one method to bring this to fruition, with another Sith apprentice called Darth Venamis being an involuntary test subject. Such experiments are witnessed, catalogued and aided by 11–4D, a protocol droid Plagueis acquires early on in the book and keeps on as a trusty companion. The twisted experiments were a huge point of interest for me, in addition to Plagueis’ obsession with creating a mastery over death and enacting Darth Bane’s Grand Plan to rid the galaxy of the Jedi Order.

Reading about Plagueis’ experimentations was one of the most interesting points of the book for me, and I was hanging on tight with each new passage on the subject to see when and if big discoveries or revelations were to be made. But sadly it felt as though he, the character the book is named after, became relegated to a secondary character once he initiated contact with Sheev Palpatine. You could argue this was a way of reinforcing Plagueis’ way of operating from the shadows, as he/Hego Damask is a reclusive being who only ventures out when it best suits him or his business dealings, but one thing I never expected to take away from this book was some semblance of sympathy for Palpatine.

As previously stated, he’s a character I despise and have done for my entire time as a ‘Star Wars’ fan. Yet within the pages of this book, we meet him as a lost teenager, unsure of where he wants to go or what he wants to do with his life. Feeling like he is different from his peers, and at loggerheads with his father. That in particular births an unexpected altercation, something I never expected to read or thought Palpatine to be capable of, which I won’t detail to hold off on major spoilers. Yet as Plagueis takes him under his wing and they both grow closer, eventually becoming master and apprentice, I couldn’t help but think of the grooming Anakin would grow to experience from Palpatine. It’s a sad case of the victim repeating the trauma they experienced themselves rather than ceasing the cycle.

The same can be said for Darth Maul, who surprisingly appears and has a rather prominent role in the book. But as much as I love Darth Maul (you can read my spoiler free review of ‘Shadow Lord’ by clicking here), I can’t help but feel confused and conflicted over what I read here, as the introduction of him disputes how Sidious came to procure him as a child in ‘Shadow Lord’. Palpatine is gifted an infant Zabrack who would grow up to be Maul in this book, whereas the recent animated show shows Maul being taken from his brother as a more grown up child. This calls into dispute the validity of canon when it comes to events like this in media.

I’m aware of Disney “throwing out” the Expanded Universe and rebranding it as “Legends” in April 2014 after acquiring ‘Star Wars’ from George Lucas. Seeing as this was published in January 2012, it would now fall under the “Legends” umbrella. Yet to me, this reads as a definitive prologue and expansion to the events of ‘The Phantom Menace’. Many events from the film are put into place over decades of meticulous planning and scheming between Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, with some of them even being executed. Toward the end we read of two Jedi being sent to try and settle the Trade Federation blockade outside of Naboo, one of the many machinations the Sith duo plan and pull off.

To release a thirty chapter, three hundred and twenty three page book only to essentially “chuck it out the window” seems like an incredible waste of time, effort and money. Not just for those who read it, but for those who brought it to life. Yet it was reprinted in August 2022 under the “Essentials Legends Collection” with a Disney logo slapped on the back, and four years later one plot point is entirely unravelled. The idea of “canon” is up to the personal interpretation of the consumer, I know, and despite the narrative conflicts I will personally still choose to believe it to illustrate the events of what happened leading up to and surrounding ‘The Phantom Menace’. It was extremely exciting getting to a place in the book where events you are so familiar with are being relayed to you from a different perspective, giving you the power to mentally slot new scenes and characters into the film all these years later. It’s going to be a lot of fun to rewatch ‘The Phantom Menace’, and read the novelisation, with this at the forefront of the mind.

As somebody who is a massive fan of the sequels (‘Attack of the Clones’ is my favourite film after ‘Rogue One’, for instance) and whose favorite era of the franchise is the formation of the Clone Army and fall of the Republic, it gave me great joy to see Master Sifo-Dyas turn up in print here. And to see his conversations with Hego Damask, essentially planting the seed of the idea to place an order for creation of a Clone Army on Kamino, funded by Plagueis himself. This immediately called to mind the ‘Clone Wars’ episode ‘The Lost One’, broadcast on March 1st in 2014, where Anakin and Obi-Wan attempt to uncover the mystery behind Master Sifo-Dyas’ disappearance and learn it was Count Dooku who called for creation of the Clone Army — events which are corroborated in ‘Tales of the Jedi: The Sith Lord’, broadcast on October 26th 2022. Despite both episodes being two personal standouts from their respective shows, it’s a shame reading this has partially skewed my views on the stories being told. On the one hand, Disney are seemingly keeping continuity with these two episodes, yet continue to unravel and replace the one told in ‘Darth Plagueis’.

Continuity and canon aside however, one of the biggest thoughts I had while reading ‘Darth Plagueis’ was how it feels like a lot of working backwards. Episode I, II and III are already incredibly long and complex affairs, but there is so much in those small snapshots of such a dense creative universe where you’re left wondering how you got to that position. Granted ‘Star Wars’ does a great job at planting you in the middle of the action, but after repeated watches or once you decide to delve into the expanded media (or “Legends”), you can’t help but wonder questions like “who is Darth Plagueis the Wise?” or “how did the Trade Federation blockade come to be?” These questions, and so many more, are answered when reading this book. Yet the fact these events and characters probably wouldn’t have existed were it not for the prequels was extremely prominent in my mind when reading. I am not claiming this to be a bad thing, but it doesn’t feel like a stand-alone story, instead being so tied to the prequels. ‘Darth Plagueis’ takes a lot of passing comments or character names in them and wraps their plot threads up neatly, giving you so much additional content and context, while acting as a prequel of its own.

When beginning this book, I expected it to revolve around Plagueis himself a lot more than the duo of him and Sidious. As soon as Tatooine and Jabba were mentioned early on, I was torn. I did enter this to experience an expansion on ‘The Phantom Menace’, yet I wanted it to majorly center around Plagueis. I felt shocked once Palpatine was first alluded to and introduced as it occurs so early on in the book. Combined with the ‘Star Wars’-esque names of places and characters, after a while they all started to blur together and lose meaning. It was a lot easier toward the end of the book as its overlap with Episode I and ‘The Clone Wars’ can help you envision such places and names, but so much of it toward the center of the book sadly became a merge of words for me. But this is a ‘Star Wars’ book, and I’m not going to stop reading them with this, so it’s something I will hopefully grow and adapt to.

Coming out of this, seeing it align so neatly with Episode I was incredibly satisfying, and though the prelude of the book spoils the ending, I still thoroughly enjoyed the read. Getting to know Darth Plagueis has made me really love his character, as I’ve never encountered a Sith who is as sick and twisted as he… though acts committed by The Stranger in episode five of ‘The Acolyte’ do come to mind. I never expected to experience any kind of positive feelings toward Emperor Palpatine, and though my stance on him hasn’t entirely shifted, his up and coming before claiming the throne as the only Sith Lord was a moving read. I loved seeing him and his master both lurking in the shadows, leading double lives and playing a galaxy-wide game of chess for the pay-off to be seen across Episode I, II and III. I can see why this book is so highly regarded by fans, and the constant mentions of Darth Bane and the Grand Plan have made me even more eager to sink my teeth into the trilogy of Darth Bane books, plus even more Expanded Universe (”Legends”) entries surrounding characters like Admiral Thrawn and Darth Revan. It’s a big old galaxy out there, and I would love for us to explore it together.

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After reading and reviewing both ‘Catalyst’ and ‘A New Hope’, I thought the only sensible course of action was to read the next book in the ‘Star Wars’ saga. But if you’re expecting to be fighting AT-AT’s on the snowy tundra of Hoth, you’re in the wrong place! Getting lost in the rabbit hole of ‘Star Wars’ novels led me to come across something called ‘Splinter of the Mind’s Eye’, written as the original sequel and first piece of expanded media in the franchise. Were the first film not to be successful, this was to be adapted into a low budget follow up film. It seems like an entirely different universe to imagine ‘A New Hope’ not being successful, but if there’s one thing I love, it’s looking at what could have been and the different versions of the same thing to find as many differences and similarities between them. I knew I had to get my hands on a copy of ‘Splinter’ and go into it knowing this was the first ‘Star Wars’ sequel, not treating it as a first draft of ‘Empire’ as such, but an alternative timeline of what could have been. So here is everything I found out and want to talk about.

As soon as the story began I felt like I was in the ‘Star Wars’ world, as Luke and Artoo are escorting Leia and Threepio to a planet called Circarpous IV in an effort to recruit them into the Rebel Alliance. My mind was immediately taken to ‘Rebels’ and ‘The Clone Wars’, where countless episodes of both shows see our leading heroes travel to new or familiar worlds in an effort to expand the Republic or Rebel Alliance. You know you’re off to a good start when the first few pages strike you with an “it’s like poetry, it rhymes” moment. Though it isn’t all smooth sailing for our beloved duo of humans and ‘droids, as they’re soon forced to make a crash landing on the planet Circarpous V, where things really started to get interesting.

Not only does Circarpous V also go by the name of Mimban, which was ringing bells for me the first time I read it, though I can’t place exactly where from, the most interesting part is it being a swamp planet. You can make immediate parallels between Luke crash landing his X-Wing on Mimban to the same thing happening in ‘Empire’ when he arrives — or rather crashes — on Dagobah when seeking out Master Yoda. Once there, Luke and Leia spend multiple rotations traversing the swamp in an effort to find some kind of civilization. And there’s an interesting scene during one of their nights as it seems Luke is extremely into Princess Leia, who we know go on to be revealed as twin brother and sister in ‘Return of the Jedi’, but this was written years before that. Years before Yoda uttered the words “there is another” too, so it’s easy to believe this alternate timeline of the franchise could have featured them becoming romantically involved, a feeling which cropped up constantly for me throughout my reading.

Civilization is eventually found in the form of a town under occupation from the Empire, making me think of stories set during the early days of the Galactic Empire like ‘The Bad Batch’ or ‘Andor’, with the latter being a more fitting comparison as the Empire have a mining operation on Mimban. Luke and Leia seek shelter and food in a local tavern, and are joined by an old woman called Halla, the epitome of the “mad old woman” trope. Reading her dialogue made me picture a hunched over, wrinkled old woman with haggard grey hair. Somebody the locals think is crazy and slightly scary, but bonds well with the central characters and becomes crucial to their story. Halla strikes me as our Yoda supplement here as she immediately recognises the Force within Luke, and the pair later go on to wield the Force together in an effort to escape a sticky situation, with the voice of Ben Kenobi looming in Luke’s ear. That reminded me of Luke using the Force to grab his lightsaber in the Wampa cave, and Ben Kenobi’s Force Ghost making an appearance on Hoth.

The way Halla describes Luke and Leia’s presence on Mimban feels extremely prophetic, as she says: “You’re here illegal, without proper identification. The moment anyone asks you to produce it and you can’t, they’ll dump you in the local lock-tight for questioning.” Fast forward to the modern day of 2026 and you can sadly see a lot of parallels between this and what’s happening now. There is so much stigma and hatred toward so-called “illegal immigrants” in Western territories, with people being detained in immigration detention facilities like “Alligator Alcatraz”, living under the constant threat of “being sent back home” by leading politicians and told their mere presence in these countries are ruining the culture and communities.

Before I even began reading the book, there was mention of a “Kaiburr Crystal” within the blurb, which made me start to wonder if the Imperial mining presence was mining for it/them like the Empire wound up doing in an effort to construct the Death Star’s superweapon. This isn’t the case, as the Kaiburr Crystal is an element of folklore on Mimban, supposedly located in one of the many temples across the planet. But Luke and Halla soon make it their mission to find it, if it is real, after discussing the implications of it falling into the wrong hands: “Anyone in possession of the entire crystal would have such a lock on the Force that he could do almost anything” and “you know what kind of damage a Force master could do with the entire crystal in his hands.”

I may not have the script for ‘A New Hope’ memorised entirely, but I’m pretty sure this is the first mention of what would go on to become the Kyber Crystal in the wider ‘Star Wars’ canon. Our first encounter with the titular “splinter” then shows it has a glowing red colour. Knowing what we now do about the process of a Sith bleeding a Kyber Crystal to gain its red colour in modern day ‘Star Wars’, it’s an interesting point to know the first real encounter with a Kyber/Kaiburr crystal shows it to be naturally red over a more passive colour which is altered through channeling rage and hatred from the Dark Side. I’m also pretty sure, if memory serves me well, this book features the first mention of the Emperor too, who would go on to appear via hologram in ‘Empire’, showing seeds being sown here for a higher power above Darth Vader.

During the aforementioned sticky situation, Luke and Leia encounter a new species called the Yuzzem, who I picture as looking like Ludo from ‘Labyrinth’ while having the short temper of a Wampa if you get on the wrong side of them. I’d later learn the Yuzzem can be seen in ‘Return of the Jedi’, as singer Joh Yowza takes center screen during a performance of ‘Jedi Rocks’ in the revised edition of the film, himself being a CGI rendition of the species. It’s also during this section of the story where my first reservation arose, as Leia is suddenly transformed from a strong and powerful leading woman into a damsel in distress.

It’s sadly not the first time it happens in the story, as Luke has to blag his way through having her as a slave and slaps her, but I feel the beating she endures from the local Captain-Supervisor is the peak of her character being diminished. Leia still has her signature sass and fight within her, though I feel Luke being on the receiving end of a beating would have been more in line with Leia’s preestablished progressive characterisation. Though the story does discuss her interrogation aboard the Death Star in ‘A New Hope’ and how the trauma of it is still fresh in her mind and hard for her to recount, showing its devastating effects and a lovely bit of continuity. Combined with the beginning of chapter seven, where the Captain-Supervisor is undergoing medical treatment, it surprised me at just how brutal the book can be in places. ‘Star Wars’ is often shrugged off as something made for kids, but the lengths writer Alan Dean Foster goes to when illustrating the more physical scenes and their aftermaths left my jaw agape at the almost horror-esque passages.

Early on in the book we read Luke and Leia witnessing a native of Mimban — whose species are nicknamed as “greenies” — being mistreated and abused by an Imperial officer in an attempt to get a drink while at the tavern. This struck me as yet another real world parallel as there’s no shortage of indigenous people being mistreated by newcomers who set foot on their terrain throughout history. Later on Halla tells Luke and Leia how the “greenies” are only one of the indigenous species on Mimban, with the Coway being another. These serve as yet another challenge for Luke and Leia to overcome on their journey toward the Temple of Pomojema, in addition to traversing the subterrains of Mimban and the creatures inhabiting the planet. When combined with the swamp-like setting, both the “greenies” and the Coway made me think of the many isolated tribes living with zero human contact all over the world.

One thing I will say is how, in the final chapter, it struck me how the Kaiburr crystal feels like the ‘Star Wars’ version of the Philosopher’s Stone. Both are red crystals which have healing properties and are known elements of folklore or superstition, for instance. The Kaiburr crystal is said to have been created by the god Pomojema and used to heal the sick within the book; the Philosopher’s Stone soon became an obsession in alchemy for its apparent ability to produce the elixir of life, giving those who drank it immortality and rejuvenation. Another interesting point for me is the absence of Han Solo and Chewbacca, though knowing Han is frozen in carbonite during ‘Empire’ as Harrison Ford was uncertain if he’d return for a third movie, it’s not surprising how Han is reduced to a fleeting reference late into this book. What was surprising to me was how little Artoo and Threepio feature throughout the story. Luke, Leia, Halla and the world of Mimban feel like the true main characters here.

Despite being the only character illustrated in full on the cover, it takes an excruciatingly long time for Darth Vader to appear when reading. Going into it, I thought he would be leading a mining operation on Mimban to obtain Kaiburr crystals as a way to gain an advantage over the Force, but this was far from reality — the mining operation on Mimban is basically left as a throwaway comment, which was sad for me as I was keenly interested in the purpose of it. What I was interested in was the difference between ‘Splinter’ Vader and the character expansion seen in ‘Empire’, where he undoubtedly shines. Some of his dialogue here feels in tune with his 1977 debut, but a lot of his actions feel the opposite, plus there is a lot of mystique surrounding his character and presence to the point it feels as though his character still isn’t fully thought out. There’s not even a faint hint of the famous “no, I am your father” revelation from ‘Empire’.

So much happens in the final chapter it feels as though, were it made in today’s climate, there would be a huge uproar from fans and mutiny of the franchise. A lot of it goes against the established lore of what we know ‘Star Wars’ to be today, it almost felt like sacrilege reading it. But that isn’t to say it wasn’t interesting or a an enjoyable read, and I was incredibly sad to finish the book. I’d love to expand on my thoughts on the final chapter more, as there’s so much I could say, but I don’t want to ruin it for anybody. So please go and seek out a copy to experience it for yourself. I also learned there was a run of four comics adapting this story released in 1995 and hope to pick a copy of that up to eventually help visualise this story better, and see how much is different in that version. So really, the story isn’t really over for me just yet.

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I have finally finished my first ‘Star Wars’ book! And what’s more appropriate than ‘Catalyst — A Rogue One Novel’ when the parent film is celebrating ten years since its release? The past few years have seen me fall back in love with ‘Star Wars’, deeper than ever before, with ‘Andor’ and ‘Rogue One’ shooting to the top of my list of favourites. After watching the film so much in the last year, and being impatient between the release of different streaming shows, I decided now was the time to give one of the novels from the expanded universe a try. And I’m so glad that I did, because as I progressed through every chapter, it felt as though the book and story was getting better with each one. I’ll try to tell you everything I loved, and didn’t like so much, with as few spoilers as possible.

Okay, so in fairness, there was a little bit of a slow start. But as ‘Rogue One’ starts with Galen, Jyn and Lyra Erso, there’s not much to establish their familial unit. You know they’re in a spot of bother, the Empire has come calling, and Galen’s past has come back to haunt him. But the first chapters of ‘Catalyst’ take us right back to before Jyn was born, when Galen and Lyra were working on Vallt, and the trouble that ensues. Only for Orson Krennic to come to his rescue, helping to establish the friendship and partnership between him and Galen, with added backstory of their time at school together. True, your average Joe and casual viewer would probably not care for stuff like that, but it’s things like this which satisfy the little nerd in me who wants to know everything.

The story begins during the reign of the Republic, and one of my favourite aspects of this was seeing Orson Krennic working under that regime. Krennic is in my top ‘Rogue One/Andor’ characters, perhaps even my favourite Disney era character alongside Dedra Meero, and I could hear Ben Mendleson’s words and cadence leaping off the page so strongly with every line of dialogue I read. Throughout the book Krennic is chasing power and constantly clashing heads with Grand Moff Tarkin, which makes for some delicious conflict between the two characters, and can also be seen in ‘Rogue One’. What I love most about Krennic is how he always flaunts his power to those below him, tries to talk himself out of the many bad situations he encounters, yet all his bombast immediately shrinks when stood before Darth Vader to grovel for his job.

One interaction with Krennic I particularly loved was his interrogation of Poggle the Lesser, Archduke of Geonosis, and their conversation surrounding the plans of a certain battle station. Eagle eyed viewers can see a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in ‘Attack of the Clones’, but reading this made me realise just how far back the plans and ideas for the Death Star were initially put in place. Poggle also proves to be more of a hindrance than a help to Krennic in the book, and just his presence and expansion here helped me to like him more, taking him from “funny alien who speaks weird” on screen to somebody with more depth and intrigue in prose (and his speech being written in English helps massively).

I think where my love for this book really solidified, and what inspired me to write this, was reading ‘Closed Interval’ and ‘Deep Truth’ — Chapter 19 and Chapter 20. Traditionally I’d take to my Instagram page to write shorter reviews with as much depth as possible, but after reading both chapters, I had so much to say weighing on my chest. There’s no way I could fit all of that into a limited word count. I’m able to babble free over here! And like I’ve said, this book has helped me understand characters way more than the little shown in ‘Rogue One’, as incredible as it is.

Let’s start with Lyra Erso, who gets such little screentime in the parent film, and her fleeting moments left me with more questions than answers. Why does she have a kyber crystal to give to Jyn, why is she talking about the Force? Yet after Krennic sends her on a wild goose chase searching for kyber crystals in this book, it all became clear to me. I realised how Lyra and Galen are a perfect example of the classic “religion vs science” relationship, where she believes in the Force, and her husband is more interested in the scientific route to find answers and solutions. As the novel went on I found myself loving and sympathising with her character a lot more, especially after Krennic perceives her as a threat to Project Celestial Power and confronts her at a playground. The back and forth between Krennic and Lyra is a personal highlight in the latter half of the book.

On the other hand you have Galen Erso, who obviously has an incredible talent and skill when it comes to being a scientist. At the beginning of ‘Catalyst’ we see him trying to use his research and skills for good, attempting to develop a renewable energy source. Until his old friend and the Republic — soon to be rebranded as the First Galactic Empire — swoop in. I realised how Galen is a classic example of somebody with good will, talent and intentions being usurped by the enemy, believing in their work so wholly while being lied to and blind to the fact it’s going to end up used for incredible bad rather than the intended good.

One passage which gave me chills was a conversation where Galen confides in Krennic about being on the verge of “coaxing the raw power” from kyber crystals. I remember when I first learnt how the Death Star’s laser was powered by kyber crystals, it changed my perspective on everything entirely, especially as a kyber is what powers a lightsaber which in itself is a dangerous weapon — particularly in the wrong hands. ‘Catalyst’ gives wonderful exposition, insights and questions regarding kyber crystals and their use by the Jedi. But it’s their use in the construction of the Death Star which is most chilling, as the aforementioned passage made me think forward toward Jedha and Skarif. How Krennic’s reaction to the destruction of Jedha is a parallel to Oppenheimer’s reaction to the detonation of the first atomic bomb. It’s like poetry, it rhymes. And reading the inciting moment where the Death Star’s destructive laser begins to take shape, where the idea and concept for it is born, put the events of ‘Rogue One’ and ‘A New Hope’ into entirely new perspectives for me.

It’s not just atomic bombs where ‘Catalyst’ mirrors reality, but in the sad and anger inducing state of the world we currently find ourselves in too. A passage in Chapter 18 highlights this particularly well: “New Imperial regulations regarding travel had required Lyra and Jyn to be scanned, interviewed and subjected to multiple identity checks before being allowed access to the landing zone.” It reminded me of a news story which broke in December 2025, “US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry”, and how travelling from one country to another in our current climate is becoming increasingly more difficult. How interactions with anybody from a corporation of power feels more like an interrogation. How the Empire lies to their citizens, promising to protect a world but instead mines it for all its worth in minerals and oil. Jedha is a great example, seen in ‘Rogue One’ and the ‘Jedi Survivor’ game, as it’s a desert planet being mined for Death Star supplies; a direct parallel to countries in the Middle East being mined for their oil and materials.

It’s like poetry, it rhymes.

As a kid, being a ‘Star Wars’ fan is all about the gunfights and lightsaber duels, but this era of the franchise is practically devoid of all those child-exciting highlights, ‘Andor’ and ‘Catalyst’ especially. Both are much more lowkey affairs, where thrilling encounters and chases rarely come up, with relationships between characters, the unfolding of their personal stories and chess pieces being moved into play are more prevalent. These chapters of the broader ‘Star Wars’ story would have bored me to death — I know I fell asleep halfway through my first watch of ‘Rogue One’ when I was seventeen. Yet becoming aware of the world we live in and the powers that be make stories like these all the more prevalent, real and believable. It’s conversations between people like this, unfolding like this, and lies like these where real world tragedies and events come to transpire. The only real Legacy character the general public would maybe know is Grand Moff Tarkin, with Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine being mentioned by name only. So the entire story is almost wholly lifted and led by these brand new characters — who are now somehow a decade old. I took a moment through reading this to think about how minimal everything seems, how essentially boring everything seems, yet I was having so much fun reading my way through it and expanding on the ‘Rogue One’ era.

Sadly my reading experience wasn’t all good, but I feel my gripes are only little and personal things. My first one, aside from the slow start, is how the return of Has Obitt felt incredibly random. I didn’t have a single care for him, his plotline or story to begin with. But I just knew there was going to be a payoff, and I was right to wait — and not just because he teams up with a freedom fighting legend. So if you read this and too feel frustrated by his story, please just hold in there and wait! Another thing for me was the language. I’m kind of used to it as I spent 19 years as a ‘Doctor Who’ fan, and that show and its expanded media is frontloaded with technobabble, but ‘Catalyst’ has it in droves. And even non-fans of the franchise are familiar with the “Glup Shitto” meme, and while that’s understandable to be present here, it made pronunciation of planet and character names incredibly difficult. Which is fine when you’re in your own head, you can take all the time you need, but reading it aloud or telling people about it verbally might make you feel like you’re going to embarrass yourself with how much you struggle with pronunciations.

Adapting the book into a series or movie would really help with that, and I think the biggest letdown for me is how this is just a book. Well, not to a fan like me, it’s more than just a book. But the story and characters seen across ‘Andor’ and ‘Rogue One’ are incredible, and fans rightfully argue it’s the best ‘Star Wars’ story told since 1977. I would love to see the cast get back together to adapt this into visual media, to slot in neatly before ‘Andor’, or to run parallel with it. When researching the book before making a purchase, I cross referenced it with Ghorman on Wookiepedia, because I feel it’s too crucial an event to keep from the pages of this book. But it came out ten years ago, nine years before chapter 20 of ‘Andor’, so there is sadly a glaring omission of the Ghorman Massacre in here. Otherwise, I have utterly loved this book. Reading it has deepened my love for so many characters and helped me to appreciate the metaphors of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise in much deeper and realistic ways. It’s a perfect companion piece to the best ‘Star Wars’ story told this century. If you’ve not already read ‘Catalyst — A Rogue One Prequel’, I really think you should.

Head over to my Instagram for more ‘Star Wars’ reviews: vickyxleigh

Hear my ‘Star Wars’ inspired song on my Bandcamp: Nightsisters

‘Star Wars’ has returned to the big screen after a seven year absence, and I was lucky enough to see the franchise's latest offering on opening weekend. But going into the film, I truly had no idea on what to expect, a sentiment I feel a lot of the fandom held prior to release. Whether it was Disney or ‘Star Wars’ themselves keeping their cards close to their chest, or there wasn’t really much of a story to be told, was yet to be seen. Despite that feeling though, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see the film at the cinema as a “born again” ‘Star Wars’ fan. I kept an eye on reviews from press outlets and social media accounts who’d attended various premier or advanced screenings before seeing the film myself, careful to avoid spoilers, and I didn’t want these to cloud my own judgement or dictate my own feelings by the time it was over. But I did keep various thoughts and ideas in mind for when the movie began.

My personal highlight of the film is how many of the characters, both main and background, are from the animated shows. I grew up watching ‘The Clone Wars’ and Episode II was my favourite film as a child, so seeing Rotta The Hut (or Stinky as I call him) as such an important central character felt like a full circle moment, taking me back to my childhood and feeling like a kid again ~ something ‘Star Wars’ as a whole has been incredibly good at doing in the past year. I remember seeing the casting of Jeremy Allen White as Rotta and laughed at how ridiculous a concept it was, only for his character to be one of the highlights of the film for me, especially with the bond he shares with Grogu throughout. Rotta is the complete opposite of his father Jabba The Hutt here, with an impactful story of wanting to break away from his family and their history of tyranny, to become his own person and have his own legacy. Something he attempts to forge as a fighter in a Greek-like battle arena, with a lovely Dejarik reference thrown in.

Other stars of the animated shows were various iterations of Battle Droid, modified and used by the Hutt Twins as defence on their home planet of Nal Hutta. Seeing a STAPP in the year 2026 was, in the best way, quite a sight to behold. Another pleasant surprise came from the character Hogsbreath, a member of the Iktotchi species like Jedi Master Saesee Tiin, as I can’t recall the last time I saw their species feature so prominently on screen. I felt Zeb Orrelios, last seen in Chapter 21 of ‘The Mandalorian’, was a great addition to the opening mission where we join Mando and Grogu at the top of the film. I wasn’t the biggest fan of his when first watching ‘Rebels’, but his presence and support here was thoroughly enjoyable, and I wish he was in the movie a little more. If he was however, Bounty Hunter Embo wouldn’t have the opportunity to wreak havoc and terror upon Mando. Seeing Embo featured in this film was one of the biggest driving forces that got me to the cinema, though I feel he was incredibly underused and could have been a bigger or larger threat. Thankfully there’s multiple episodes of ‘The Clone Wars’ I can watch to quench my Embo flavoured thirst.

Sigourney Weaver’s presence in the film was an exciting prospect too, bringing in a huge star of Sci-Fi past to perhaps widen the net of ticket sales. Having a new character debut be so embedded within the story already is something ‘Star Wars’ has done since day one, and Weaver’s character of Colonel Ward isn’t any different, but I sadly feel her casting could have been substituted for almost anybody else. She’s there to give orders and help progress the story, and it felt as though her character didn’t really have a journey to go through or any development outside of just being part of the rebellion. Although you can’t deny that seeing Ellen Ripley flying an X-Wing at the film’s climax was a pretty damn cool sight. And sadly it didn’t feel as though the climax was at the same big screen levels as previous ‘Star Wars’ films, I kept wondering when the Big Thing™ to signify the end of the film was going to happen, and it sadly felt underwhelming when it did.

One thing I saw repeated online prior to seeing the film was it being compared to four episodes of a TV show stitched together rather than a standalone film itself. Something I can agree on, as the previously mentioned climax felt more akin to the mid-series cliffhanger of a TV show rather than the epic scale and proportion of the first ‘Star Wars’ film in seven years. There’s even a point in the film where the screen fades to black after an important character has been captured, and my immediate thought was how it felt like an episode had just ended. But I would say this is at the fault of Disney and/or ‘Star Wars’ themselves, as Mando and Grogu first graced our screens at the launch of Disney+. Despite having Baby Yoda go viral, sweep the nation and be the most recognisable ‘Star Wars’ character of the past seven years, I feel choosing them as the leading characters for your big screen comeback was an incredibly odd choice.

In an interview with Discussing Film though, John Favreau revealed how a fourth series of ‘The Mandalorian’ reached the writing stages when the writers strike happened, meaning production had to be halted. So instead he and Dave Filoni, who does make a cameo in the film, returned to the drawing board and began to create ‘The Mandalorian And Grogu’ instead. As he said, these are familiar characters and I don’t feel like you’d have to have watched all three prior seasons to be able to understand what’s happening. Zeb and Embo for instance, would be new characters for first time viewers, and pretty cool ones at that. It’s easy to understand the connections between Rotta and the Twins when Jabba is mentioned and they all look like him so much. As a whole however, it feels as though you’re binge watching half a season of ‘Mando’ rather than watching a standalone story, or something mildly disconnected from the parent show. But, that’s coming from somebody who has seen it and is extremely familiar with it. If you grabbed a casual or first time viewer off the street and asked what they thought, their reaction would more than likely be extremely different. The good thing about movies, media and art is that we all have our own opinions to form over everything, and all of them are valid. Just because I’m nitpicking this apart doesn’t mean you, dear reader, wouldn’t have the time of your life.

This doesn’t mean it isn’t fun either, because oh boy is it fun. I was so excited to see the opening act as not only did some of my favourite ‘Star Wars’ iconographies return - Snowtroopers and AT-AT’s - and have me feeling incredibly emotional, but Mando got his own hallway scene packed full of action as we join him midway through a mission. The entire opening section felt like a love letter to the opening of ‘Empire Strikes Back’, and we’re even treated to Grogu using the force on a Polar Mouse Droid, although it’s one of the few times we see him flexing his force powers. On that topic, calling the film ‘The Mandalorian And Grogu’ was a very apt choice, as the screentime is weighed massively in favour of Mando. When Grogu does get a chance to shine, it feels like another ‘Empire’ loveletter as he’s trying to survive on Nal Hutta by himself. You can easily imagine Yoda doing the same or similar things on Dagobah after his self-imposed exile there. And while it is evident and important how Grogu is a force sensitive Mandalorian, I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel a little disappointing or underwhelming that he didn’t flex his abilities a little more. Even when he suited up in his Beskar armour, the payoff felt underwhelming too. It’s like they were trying to come up with different iterations of the character to sell more toys, because let’s not lie to ourselves here, Grogu is a money making machine. You could say Disney shot themselves in the foot by conceiving and releasing ‘The Mandalorian’, but it’s got money out of me, so who am I to say anything?

It’s not just Rotta who Grogu had a great relationship with throughout the film, but the Anzellan’s too. First seen in the last ‘Star Wars’ movie, they thankfully returned in ‘The Mandalorian’ and continue their story here. I think their relationship with Grogu is one of the biggest pieces of character development in the film, which is a little crazy to think about considering it’s the first big ‘Star Wars’ movie in so long. They’ve gone from being scared of Grogu to teaming up halfway through the film, and have taken my vocabulary and for You page by storm. Seeing Shirley Henderson’s name during the opening credits made me incredibly happy, and I knew I would be in for loads of Anzellan goodness. On that front, this film didn’t disappoint at all. But I would say Rotta, Grogu and the Anzellan’s are perhaps the only characters whose stories and relationships really go anywhere. Although the love, care and bond Grogu and Mando have for each other are constantly on display. The old protect the young, and then the young protect the old.

In a franchise renowned for such bizarre names and creatures like Figrin D’an and the Eopies, I did find it incredibly hilarious - and not really in a good way - how the mysterious Imperial bad guy Mando was tasked to hunt for was… literally just a guy. Surrounding his character was some incredible work with CGI and prosthetics however, with the creatures in the film being a standout for me. Not only has the Grogu puppet never looked or seemed so lifelike, but the Dragonsnake Din Djarin has to tackle was one of the most awe-inspiring moments on screen, with how it towers over him. Gatori was another standout character for me, right from his debut in the trailers, as his movement is a massive throwback to how I imagine creatures from media like ‘Labyrinth’ would have been made with stop motion or puppetry. And it was fun trying to work out in real time whether he was a good guy who was going to help Grogu, or be a bad guy who’d sell him out at the first chance.

As soon as I left the screening, I knew this was the best ‘Star Wars’ film since ‘Rogue One’. Looking back on the history of the franchise's recent film releases, I don’t think that’s too hard to accomplish. You can take my declaration as a compliment or an insult, that’s up to your own interpretation, and everything I’ve said here is coming from my one and only viewing so far. While watching it I was thinking to myself how I will be buying this on blu-ray as soon as it’s released, and I can’t wait to watch it again. I feel like I’ve sadly ripped the movie to shreds and picked it apart, but I promise it’s a whole lot of fun! I don’t think every single movie that’s released has to be groundbreaking or Earth-shattering, and films made purely for the fun of it are so valid in their existence. There’s even films out there that are box office bombs upon release that get picked up later to become cult classics or beloved by the fandom they generate. As an action packed and easy watching movie to ease ‘Star Wars’ back into cinemas, full of a wide range of references like Battle Droids and Yuzzem’s for hardcore nerds like me, and cute little guys like Grogu and the Anzellan’s for newer/casual viewers, this definitely does the job. Don’t forget that every ‘Star Wars’ movie is somebody's first one, and seeing this one has made me incredibly excited to see ‘Starfighter’ next May.

It was an incredible experience to have seen it with my girlfriend too, on the day before her birthday, which made it all the more special. Despite living in a small town, which is where we saw it, I love the little display Cineworld had made up for it, front and center of the concessions counter. We obviously had to get a drinks cup each as a little memento, and despite the painfully steep prices of the popcorn buckets, they did look like extremely fun designs - though I have seen online discourse recently about movie specific popcorn buckets becoming another variant of a toy or collectable rather than something you’d use to hold food in, but that’s another story.

Burger King also had a promotional tie-in meal available surrounding the film’s premier, seeing restaurants decked out with Mando and Grogu standees. While I didn’t get to sample any of their products, I did like how varied the menu was, offering patrons a main, side and dessert all themed around ‘The Mandalorian And Grogu’ — Mandalorian Double Whopper and Chicken Royale, Force Loaded Fries and a Grogu Sundae. It also made me happy to see the promo push was inclusive for vegans too, with a meat-free version of the burgers available too. In terms of merch there were glow-in-the-dark puzzles for kids, which I learnt about far too late and would love to have owned, colour changing cups for adults and Grogu themed paper crowns for everyone. Thanks go to my girlfriend who surprised me with a cup and crown when she came to see me, so I have a great slice of memorabilia from this film’s release.

To see photos of all the merch I’ve spoken about, plus more ‘Star Wars’ reviews, head over to my Instagram: vickyxleigh

In the early hours of June 4th 2026, longtime Prince contact Dr Funkenberry broke the news that a new album of unreleased music will be released this year, along with the second single. The album is called ‘Timeless’ and runs for ten songs, with a release date of August 28th. But while the prospect of new unreleased Prince music is extremely exciting, how exciting is it in actuality? Since hearing ‘Stone’ the morning of release, my head has been swimming with so many thoughts I need to share. Because like Prince said, there’s two sides to every story.

Groundwork for ‘Timeless’ was laid on April 20th 2026, when the unreleased song ‘With This Tear’ was released a day before the 10th anniversary of Prince’s transcendence, accompanied by a press release stating it’s “the beginning of a number of unreleased Prince recordings scheduled for release this year, as part of a never-before-released Prince album project”. Hardcore fans immediately started to speculate as to what the project could be, seeing as ‘With This Tear’ had recently leaked among the bootlegging community and was one of thirty nine unreleased songs left over from the last major vault release (‘Diamonds And Pearls Super Deluxe’ from 2023). The speculation mill had also been running wild over the prospect of ‘Originals 2.0’ or something similar, as ‘With This Tear’ was a song Prince submitted to Celine Dion — who recently made a performing comeback around the time of release, and commented on the track and her memories of it.

Other speculation in the purple circles looked to hopes of ‘Parade SDE’, as 2026 is the 40th anniversary of the album and this year’s Celebration has been marketed with a photo of Prince from the ‘Parade’ era. Though fans have been left worrying about the release after the anniversary release of ‘Around The World In A Day’ in late 2025, as the release was absent of any unreleased songs. While that album feels more like a transition period housed between ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Parade’, it’s known there is a whole wealth of unreleased songs from the latter era waiting to be released. Like ‘Others Here With Us’, ‘Evolsidog’ and ‘Empty Room’ for instance. Then there’s the projects Prince was actively working on in his last months, such as the ‘Piano & A Microphone‘ live album, which Prince played a portion of to fans at his last public appearance. Plus ‘Black Is The New Black’, the studio album he was working on with his new band, with the songs ‘Ruff Enough’ and ‘Free Urself’ being released as singles and performed live in early 2016.

Thanks to Dr Funkenberry, we know none of those — as of right now — to be true. A new compilation album is being released instead which, as of writing this, has received no official announcement or pre-order information. The release date itself was already changed within an hour of the second single being made available on YouTube. From the outside, ‘Timeless’ appears to be a “greatest hits” or compilation of unreleased songs akin to something like ‘Xscape’ released by the Michael Jackson Estate in 2014, with no thematic ideas connecting the songs other than the tracklist seemingly running in order of the songs being recorded. Here is the full tracklist:

The ten tracks cover a period of at least 28 years, with ‘I Am You’ being recorded in 1979 and ‘The Guilty Ones’ being recorded in 2007. PrinceVault, a wonderful tool which records every slither of Prince information known to man, doesn’t even have ‘Bestest Friend’ listed on the site, but its place on the running order suggests it dates to 2007 or later. Final song ‘How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?’ being a live song, and placed last on the album, is perhaps most interesting. The song itself dates back to 1982 but seeing it placed last suggests, or implies, it’s a live version from the ‘Piano & A Microphone’ tour from 2016.

What’s most exciting to me personally are how four tracks here, possibly even five, are ones I’ve not heard before. ‘Calabama’ is my most anticipated one as it was one of the ten unreleased songs played at Celebration 2024, and is rumoured to be the title track of an album Prince was working on before his #1 “comeback” album ‘Musicology’ in 2004. One of the most painful things about the Celebration events is how the fans who attend get to hear a small portion of the supposed 8,000 unreleased Prince songs housed in his vault, with us in other countries who are unable to go missing out on all the fun. The inclusion of ‘Calabama’ hopefully means these Celebration Xclusive Trax will one day make their way out of the gates of Paisley Park, with this being the first of what I hope to be many.

Tracks 7, 8 and 9 are the most interesting to me as they’re from Prince’s later career, a period where not a lot of unreleased songs manage to escape into the bootlegging community — and if they do, they’re held captive by the upper echelons of the bootlegging community, where you can only hope somebody is kind enough to post a song like ‘The Streets Of Panama’ on a random Thursday evening. Half of the album, tracks 2 to 6, have been circulating to some degree for a little while now, and ‘With This Tear’ is the most recent of those. For instance, the second single ‘Stone’ has been available to hear on YouTube since 2016 before its official release now. The folks over at Prince.org have pointed out how ‘Heaven’ is an edit, missing three minutes of music, while ‘I Wonder’ runs half a minute longer than the previously circulating version.

Once again I want to mention, or theories on, the closing track. It seems incredibly weird to include a live song on an album composed of studio songs, and if it does hail from the ‘Piano & A Microphone’ live album, why not leave it off and include it on that? Rather than dangling the prospect in our faces and giving us just a tease. The Estate should know how special and how much care the release of a ‘Piano & A Microphone’ live album should be, with this year being the tenth anniversary of the tour and Prince’s transcendence. Something like this should not be relegated to an afterthought on a compilation of outtakes, no matter how popular or well known the song is. If there was intention to release it, I personally would have saved it for the lead single for that live album, which would have then made way for another studio outtake like ‘Turn Me Loose’ and kept this release way more consistent.

Day three of this year’s Celebration event at Paisley Park had a ‘Vault & Future Plans’ panel, and luckily there have been tweets across my Twitter feed to keep me updated across the pond. And sadly, it doesn’t look so great. Many fans have been critical of the current holders of Prince’s Estate, highlighting a huge contrast between the quality and output from the previous holders and the current. According to attendees and their tweets, there was little discussion in terms of the music planning on being released, and another tweet alledges Londell McMillan admitted ‘Timeless’ is merely a placeholder set while something more significant is being prepapred. Before it has even been released, it looks and feels like ‘Timeless’ is being used as an example to contrast the two Estate holders. But the admittance of this release being a “placeholder” does hold some answer as to why the release seems so incoherent.

That being said, the inclusion of so many previously circulating songs, especially ‘With This Tear’ being from the recent ‘Love Symbol Outtakes’ leak, does give me hope that the Estate doesn’t really care for these songs being released among fans and bootleggers, and still has intentions of releasing them officially for the masses. It’s always the hardcore fans like eye who are constantly refreshing YouTube and messaging other fans to see what has leaked and where to get a link for the latest song. Whereas this would hopefully bring in the masses and the casual fans, giving them a peek into Prince’s vault and showing them he is more than just ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Raspberry Beret’ for instance.

When it comes to releasing a new Prince album, especially one composed of so many previously unreleased songs, it’s an extremely tough line to walk. Because there will be people going through everything with a fine toothcomb, comparing the official release to leaks from ten or twenty years ago, plus the quality and running time of each song to what they’ve already had for years. I know this because I’m guilty of it myself. But you also need to market it to non-fans and casual fans too, who may have just got into Prince from his songs being used in ‘Stranger Things’ or who may glance the album in passing at their local Wrecka Stow and want to pick it up, snowballing into becoming a fan for life. Every new album could be somebody’s first album, or even their favourite album, and that is a beautiful thing which is extremely valid.

With an album like this, for an extremely talented and prolific artist like Prince, there’s going to be just as many fans who are unhappy as there are over the moon. I can’t express how excited I was to wake up to this N.E.W.S and to hear ‘Stone’ — a song I’ve had for years but never listened to before — with the knowledge I’m going to be ordering a new Prince album of unreleased music soon. Especially one with a small portion of later era songs on, as his later career is so special to me and I have a whole lotta love for it. This release may not be ‘Parade SDE’ or ‘Black Is The New Black’, but it is something. And it shows that now the vault is free, hopefully songs we know exist will stop being held behind paywalls like Celebration and bootleggers who can’t (or won’t) share the goods with the wider community. Like I said in my review of ‘The Vault… Old Friends 4 Sale’, as long as the music keeps flowing, eye’ll B happy.

‘Timeless’ is due for release on August 28th.

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I want to make it clear up front that I’m not a Lily Allen fan. Growing up as a kid in 2000’s Britain means I obviously know ‘Smile’ and ‘F You’, but that’s where my knowledge of her artistry ceases. Oh, and I remember seeing her Vogue house tour with David Harbour on Tiktok when it dropped. So why am I reviewing her latest album? It’s because my close friend, who’s now my girlfriend and is celebrating her birthday the day this article drops, wouldn’t shut up about the album when it came out. She mentioned the drama within it as a large selling point, but being such a hardcore lover of music and somebody who’ll try anything once, I thought “why not?” And boy, am I so glad I gave this album a chance. This is so much more than just break-up drama after being cheated on.

Before delving into the music itself, let’s start with the album cover, as it’s something I found myself really deeply analysing once the album finished and really spoke to me, for some reason. The boring beige, if not olive, wall in the background with a bright blue jacket in the fore. It’s like she’s turning her back on the murkiness of what’s happened and looking towards a brighter future, shrouding herself in a summer sky with what looks like polkadots, stars and clouds all at once covering her torso. Yet the jacket itself is blue, and looks like a puffer jacket, symbolic of the sadness she’s been wearing, carrying and weighed down by. And how it’s not a photograph as is so often tradition with an album release, but a painting of her, something which takes so much time and effort to craft but is also a great way to hide the emotions which might be on your face.

Paintings are often done for or commissioned by royalty too, so it’s almost as if she’s putting herself up on a pedestal and crowning herself as a queen for her man to grovel at her feet. And while the album cover itself is cropped on streaming platforms, the full version shows more ways Lily is communicating and revealing herself to us. She’s wearing almost knee high white heels with black polka dots, a perfect compliment with her puffer jacket, ready to strut off into a lighter future while still having spots of the past on her mind. The lower portion of the portrait shows her sitting on the most basic of chairs, not an actual throne, atop what looks like boxes covered in brown paper. All of this combined gives the impression of somebody ready to move on with their life, packed and ready to go, or having just moved into a desolate room, ready to make it her own and snapping a quick portrait in the process. Wonderfully crafted by Nieves González.

West End Girl: Is our opening and title track. What really spoke to me here was the use of strings and how there was a fake fade out during the song. Not being a fan of her work, it struck me how I immediately started to feel sad the song was ending so soon, giving me the impression I was in for a ride I was going to thoroughly enjoy right from the off. The inclusion of the voice note was a great touch too, adding an air of casualty to it, like she’s speaking directly to her listeners and opening up from the very start, breaking down the barriers of a professional façade to really open and welcome you into the mind, thinking and existence of a broken hearted woman.

Ruminating: Is chaotic and full of electronics with its sound, a perfect mirror for the titular ruminating Lily is doing. It perfectly depicts all the chaos and anger swirling around your head during sleepless nights after discovering you’ve been cheated on, with questions being pointed at her partner as to why he wasn’t able to wait for her instead of finding somebody else. Both the vocals and music build as you progress through the song, with the use of a vocoder being my biggest standout for this song, reminding me of Matty Healy of The 1975 and his use of it on songs like ‘I Like America And America Likes Me’.

Sleepwalking: We’re only on the third song here and there are really no holes barred with the content, with a bluntness and vulgarity to them which I love, discussing how her man refuses to take responsibility and pushes the problems onto her instead of owning up to them. And it perfectly follows on from ‘Ruminating’, a song about your head keeping you up all night, as this mentions being awake at 3 AM and has a dreamy quality at the beginning of the song. And more power to Lily Allen here, and for the entire album, for taking something so scandalous and soul destroying and not making light of it per se, but turning it into a poetic exposè.

Tennis: Feels like a song about excuses and lies filtered through sport imagery, coming from lines like “I just tell myself he’s jet lagged / And I’m glad to have him here” and “I can’t get my head round how you’ve been playing tennis”. You could argue it’s a confessional song too, with the admittance of “so I read your texts”, a guilty move I’m sure a multitude of women have pulled to seek clarity on their suspicions. But it’s also brave with the line “if it was just sex / I wouldn’t be jealous”, showing she’d feel entirely more appreciative of the truth of the situation instead of playing all these games. ‘Tennis’ then ends on a sing-song coda while repeatedly questioning who Madeline is. My girlfriend told me about the memes surrounding the character of Madeline on the album, and it’s since become a little joke we have between ourselves.

Madeline: Almost becomes a character in and of herself on this song, and the American accent for her reminds me of the 2013 ‘American Psycho’ musical where British people (like Matt Smith) are doing an obviously fake/borderline terrible American accent. And it’s even funnier if this is Lily, a woman with a very British accent, pretending to be an actual American woman in Madeline here. As for who she is in reality is unknown, obviously it’s the person Lily has been cheated on with, but her name has been changed for legal/privacy reasons. She may not feel any, or as much, animosity toward this person either, as I suspect it was the man who initiated the cheating. But I would hazard a guess Madeline could also be the culmination of all the people Lily was cheated on by her husband.

Relapse: Continues the sonic soundscape established in ‘Ruminating’ with its trap-sounding drum pattern and filtered vocals, yet gives a feeling of something churchy with a keyboard which sounds like an organ. The vulnerability goes to a new realm here with the subject matter being about using drink and medication as a way to pull through, cope and get her mind off the situation, which pairs well with the music in a twisted way, as it feels kind of dreamy. As if the substances have put her mind on autopilot to help navigate her new reality.

Pussy Palace: Is where I really started to gel with the album and is, I think, my standout track. Once this started playing there was a huge shift change for me on my first listen. I went from making small notes on songs to properly contemplating them, and I feel like this song launched me into a flow state. This article is made up from the notes I took on my first listen, combined with new thoughts on my second listen. I tried my best to avoid hearing anything from the album between writing my initial thoughts and adapting them, but that was a little hard to do when me and my girlfriend were in Fopp and this song started playing over the speakers. But we both looked at each other and smiled.

Concerning the song itself however, I think it’s simultaneously heavenly and heartbreaking. Lily initially likens the shared space of her and her husband’s house to a dojo, traditionally a place for learning and meditation, to now equating it to a pussy palace. Turning it from a place of spirituality into one of sexuality, like a church becoming a whorehouse. I really couldn’t get enough of the chorus, and feel the mention of sex toys and butt plugs only accentuate this feeling of sullied transformation rather than destroying or dragging the tone of the album and song down. I also don’t own a physical copy of the album (yet), but I’ve seen how the inner sleeve of the album is illustrated with a butt plug, and her references to sex toys here found themselves as a question on ‘Big Fat Quiz of the Year’ in December 2025.

4chan Stan: Is the second song in a run of three incredible ones that really stood out to me on my first listen. One thing I really love and appreciate with this album is how it’s constantly switching up genres with every song or two, rather than sticking to one repetitive sound which outstays its welcome. Whereas ‘Madeline’ felt like a Western style song, making me think of Wild West shootouts and two people pitted against each other, ‘4chan Stan’ is incredibly dreamy in its music and vocals. It feels like Lily is reaching obsession or hypnosis with this Madeline character too. And the reference of 4Chan in the title immediately made me think of the kind of men who use the website, combined with the constant and justified digs at her husband.

Nonmanogamummy was probably the biggest surprise on the album as the last thing I was expecting was for the album to tap into the Reggae genre, and features the only vocal collaboration with Specialist Moss closing the song out. Whereas Just Enough is more toned down with its sound, perhaps the most soft and bare song on the album, with Lily’s vocals being scored by a musical bed of an acoustic guitar and strings as she sings some incredibly sad, vulnerable and raw lyrics.

Dallas Major: Has that 80s Electro-Funk, especially toward the second half of the song, which really surprised me as a newcomer to her music who loves artists like Prince, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. It’s like she’d crossed over into the music I love and am most used to for this song. Lyrically it feels as though she’s taking on a new persona, or experimenting with her new life and future under a new name, as she hits the town and dating apps in search for a new love — or replacement for her old one. Being open to being a mother of teenage children and referencing her previous career to the people she meets, seeing if they’re open to being with a woman who’s already got kids, seeing if they recognise who this woman is under the pseudonym.

Beg For Me: is another heartbreaking song as it feels like she’s begging her own husband to desire her, support and love her while questioning why he doesn’t. And when I heard ‘Let You W/In’ for the first time, I thought it was spelt ‘Let You Win’, not realising the correct spelling until my second listen. This mistake and realisation interested me as it makes me think of her surrendering to her husband and letting him win, coming out as the victor through all the hassle he’s caused, whereas ‘Let You W/In’ makes me think of Lily coming to terms with everything that’s happened and deciding to come out as the victor herself. While simultaneously letting the public, her fans and the tabloids in on the truth of what’s been happening. Exposing the truth through her lens, career and talent.

Fruityloop: contains drums that feel almost tribal, or militant, playing throughout it all like she’s marching off to war. Which is especially poetic when I realised it’s the closing song on the album and a great one at that. The gorgeous vocals juxtapose the heavy, repetitive drums wonderfully, and the lyricism is some of my favourite. I love the visual the line “stuck inside your Fruityloop” was giving me, as it made me think of the American cereal fruit loops, which are probably so synthetic and sugary, but also circles, with the imagery of a penis being stuck inside the vagina of a fake woman who’s addictive in the way sugary sweets and food so often are. Perhaps that’s why he kept going to other women, rather than returning to his wife and remaining dedicated to her?

Final Thoughts

I went into this album incredibly scared I was going to hate it or that I wouldn’t vibe with the music. I live inside my own bubble, listening to the same artists and albums I’ve listened to since before I was a teenager, and stepping outside of my bubble is something I so rarely do. But I was brave, felt curious, and wanted to bond with somebody so incredibly important to me over something she was obsessed with. And it really paid off. I felt a wide range of emotions and genuinely enjoyed a whole lot of the album, if not the whole thing. Like I say, I wanted to hold off on hearing it again until I got around to actually writing this, so now I can make up for lost time and have it on repeat until I’m sick of it.

I think being an ex-English student at Uni really paid off here, as normally I’d surround myself obsessively with an artist or era to really delve deep into a musical project. But I went in blind here, with the most basic and bare bits of context, and found myself really diving deep into the album — especially once stepping foot into the ‘Pussy Palace’. I’m honestly so proud of myself for everything I’ve been able to get and take from this album, and if die hard Lily Allen fans come across this, I hope I’ve done her album justice. I’ve done this with so much interest and respect, for an album which is a shining example of how to publicly shame your man and reclaim the narrative, turning something so bad into something so great. No wonder my love is so obsessed with it.

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Prince came back to the spotlight after a 4 year silence in September 2014 by dropping two albums on the same day, his solo album ‘Art Official Age’ and the debut 3RDEYEGIRL album ‘PlectrumElectrum’. The event was commemorated with a Yahoo Live stream, hosted by actress Maya Washington, as she took us on a tour of Paisley Park. Viewers got to hear glimpses of brand new tracks for the first time, with Joshua Welton telling us that “the next record is almost done”, before the livestream ended with a performance from Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL where Kendrick Lamar joined onstage to rap over their playing.

Fast forward to October 2014 and Jay-Z announced his new streaming service TIDAL, where a number of all star singers and musicians sign contracts with the brand, such as Daft Punk, Madonna and Jack White III. Prince wasn’t in attendance, but a few months later it was revealed he had privately become a member of the service. Prince then kicked off a string of concerts in 2015, not under any tour moniker, but playing all over America until June 14th. One of these concerts included the famous Rally 4 Peace show, which was live streamed in part on TIDAL up until Prince started playing his staple sampler set. Another famous concert from this string was when Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL performed for the Obama’s at the White House in June, where the album was played in full, followed by a concert whose setlist is unknown (‘Kiss’ and ‘Purple Rain’ have been rumoured to have been played) and Stevie Wonder joining 3RDEYEGIRL on stage.

Hannah and Joshua Welton were then interviewed by BBC 6 Music in July 2015, and announced that a brand new Prince album would be coming soon, which would premier as a TIDAL exclusive on September 7th 2015; the album was then later released as a CD and download to the public the following week. Prince also kept his individuality with this release, as the public release was put out on a Monday as opposed to a Friday, which is when new music is traditionally released. The album featured a cartoon cover portrait of Prince that bore resemblance to ‘Art Official Age’ cover from 2014, shot and edited by Maya Washington, whereas the ‘PHASE ONE’ cover was created by English artist Martin Homent. ‘HITnRUN PHASE ONE’ took Prince in a similar electronic direction to his previous album.

“CAN’T HEAR JACK IN THE BACK OF MY PLANE”

‘MILLION $ SHOW’ — Looking at Prince’s setlists from concerts prior to this album being released, you’d see how the shows would all open with an audio collage introduction of previous Prince songs ‘For You’, ‘1999’ and ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ strung together. It would then go into a section of lyrics sung by protogee Judith Hill over a steady beat and funky guitar riff before Prince would come in and sing himself: “Welcome 2 the million dollar show/U’re about 2 see something U never seen b4/Don’t listen 2 the people saying “fear the fro”/Welcome 2 the million dollar show”.

This tour intro would then end up as the opening track to ‘HITnRUN PHASE 1’, but in a slightly edited form. The song stretches for 3 minutes and has Judith Hill take on the entirety of the vocals on the track. Prince’s vocal section was sadly removed, and replaced with a completely different verse to end the song off. The song is musically laced in funky guitar, hand claps and has a percussive breakdown that fully hypes you up for the tracks about to ensue.

‘SHUT THIS DOWN’ — Is one of many songs on the album that was produced in collaboration with Joshua Welton, who is married to 3RDEYEGIRL drummer Hannah Ford-Welton, and worked on ‘Art Official Age’ too. His production can really be felt in a lot of songs because they add a new sound and flavour to this era of Prince’s music, making the songs sound completely different from anything he’s done before, which some fans may not like and struggle to enjoy.

This song in particular comes across as one of those, as it sounds more like an electronic club track, which Prince didn’t really touch on before. I know he’s such a diverse artist, but he sticks more within the perimeters of funk and rock. It does seem like Prince was calling in a more modern producer to help him blend his vision with what’s current, that being the heavy electronic production of the track. But I personally think the pair managed to flawlessly mix EDM music with dark funk, as there’s a lot of bass playing on the song; if anything, people should take away that Prince was still an amazing bass player at this point of his career.

The lyrics of the song talk about how Prince is about to “shut it down”, show that he’s the best; talking about how he’s so funky being a mystery and that he gets people “all sweaty and hot” before launching into a massive bass solo. The song ends on one of the many humorous moments of the album, with Prince commanding somebody to “sit their ass down” because there’s “grown folks working”. The voice he puts on is reminiscent of Jamie Starr, kind of like the resurrection of Camille on his 2009 album ‘MPLSoUND’.

‘AIN’T ABOUT 2 STOP’ — While this song wasn’t released as a single prior to the albums release, it was heard before, as this is the Rita Ora collaboration that was played during the 2014 Yahoo Live stream. In fact, this was the second song that Prince and Ora worked on together- the other being a song ‘The Single Most Amazing’ that was teased on her social media around July 2014. Both songs were to be included on her sophomore album, which had multiple delays for its release, and eventually became her 2018 album ‘Phoenix’. This means that Rita Ora of all people is sat on an unreleased Prince track…

The song continues the electronic style of the last track, but this time being a bit lighter and having a middle eastern melody repeated throughout it. It also has a breakdown with Ora on lead vocals with her saying “if you’re not a Ritabot you’re a blood clot”, which is no doubt a reference to her fanbase; in this context, calling somebody a “blood clot” expresses annoyance or disgust toward somebody. In it’s chorus, Prince can be heard saying that he comes from Minnesota and he’s never run from nothing. Across the entire song, the pair trade vocal duties and express that nothing is going to stop them.

‘LIKE A MACK’ — Danielle and Charli Curiel offer their vocals and rapping for this song, being one of the many female features on the album beside Prince and Joshua Welton. The song is another that sounds ready for the club/dance floor, and for the first half, carries on the same elements of the previous songs: sampled vocal clips, claps and the addition of a deep synthetic bass.

There’s also some bursts of funk guitar through the chorus and an extended brass section during the song’s outro, again blending EDM and funk elements together. But the reason I love the song the most is because of the lyrics Prince sings as clear as day over the minimalistic arrangement prior to the final Horn solo. I never thought that Prince would be using the word thots, but this is one of many instances of Prince throwing immense shade.

“WHAT U SUPPOSED 2 DO IN A CLUB FULL O’ THOTS?”

‘THIS COULD B US’ — Was issued as the albums final single on August 28th 2015 prior to the album being released, and is a remix of the song of the same name from Prince’s previous album. This time the song had additional recording and was likely remixed by Joshua Welton, then chosen by Prince to give his ability some spotlight: a similar thing happened in 2014, when a more electronic styled remix of the 3RDEYEGIRL song ‘FUNKNROLL’ appeared on Prince’s own solo album released the same day as the bands first and only album.

When I first heard the remix, I didn’t like it at all and thought it offered nothing more than the album version. After hearing it in sequence with the album, I feel the context added a bit more to it, but it still didn’t add much for me personally. But I eventually grew to like the song a few years after the album was released, and really appreciate the extra guitar work from Prince in it. Coupled with Welton’s production is a lot of Prince playing real instruments, proving he’s still a master musician.

‘FALLINLOVE2NITE’ — Way back in February 2014, Prince and his entourage all appeared in a ‘New Girl’ episode where Prince helped Zooey Deschanel’s character tell her boyfriend that she truly loves him. The episode ends with the ‘New Girl’ cast on stage as Deschanel’s character Jess sings a brand new, never heard before song with Prince as 3RDEYEGIRL, Joshua Welton and Demaris Lewis all dance on stage. The song was then issued as a single in March 2014, making this the first official single from the album.

Except nobody knew this was ever going to end up on a Prince album and when it did, Deschanel’s vocals ended up being omitted, making the album version a solo Prince track. It would have been cool to have Deschanel amongst the many female guest vocalists on the album, but there are probably contractual issues surrounding her inclusion as she is a singer in her own right (as part of the band She & Him). For the solo Prince recording, we’re treated to a brass heavy, dreamy electronic love song that’s full of Prince’s falsetto.

‘THE X’s FACE’ — Back on the release party live stream, this was one of the three songs that were premiered, with fans mistaking the songs title as being called “The Excess Space”. It’s also one of the funniest on the album as Prince can be heard saying that “black don’t crack” and “beige don’t age”, which seems a self-aware reference and answer to his youthful appearance. He also manages to rhyme this with “Go take that banana/Then get back in your cage”, delivering more humour to the track before taking it to the next level with making monkey noises.

The lyrics of the song describe a breakup, with the woman then turning to cheating as an act of revenge. In the second verse Prince reassures that broken hearts will mend and “who needs enemies when U got friends?”, before ending with something that sounds like him saying that we can try to move on but our ex’s will come back to haunt us. It’s another of the many electronic compositions on the album, and gives an air of darkness purely from its arrangement and sound. Thankfully Prince is there sounding like a monkey to add some light and humour to the track.

‘HARDROCKLOVER’ — I remember the first time I heard this song so well. I came back from school one day, and was scrolling through Facebook to see that Prince had dropped another new song out of nowhere. In his last couple of years, this is something he grew fond of and did frequently; it’s also one of the things I miss most about Prince. I remember sitting down and was ready to except a sexed up, funky love song similar to ‘Stare’. But instead I was blown away; my words stolen, my expectation destroyed.

If I could say anything about the song, it would be “who gave Prince the right to create something so good?”. It starts with a Prince singing softly over dreamy synth chords, and he even disses Kanye West with the line “ain’t no rapper tryna b a singer”. The song then goes into a chorus filled with orgasmic distorted guitar, accompanied by Prince’s screaming, giving us a concoction of raw and emotional hard rock. There isn’t really another Prince song like it, and it goes to such intense, crazy levels.

Anyone trying to preach that Prince never did any good music past 1988 has probably never heard, or fails to appreciate this song. In the 2000’s era of Prince’s music, very few songs come anywhere close to the levels that ‘HARDROCKLOVER’ are on. It is essential listening and one of the most emotional he did in the late stages of his career… I can only imagine him playing this live, feeding the audience with his live screams and dragging the guitar solo out to three times its original length. This is a highlight of not only the album, but his entire career.

“TURN MY GUITAR UP SO EYE CAN MAKE THIS WOMAN SCREAM”

‘MR. NELSON’ — Is another remix, no doubt coming from the hand of Joshua Welton. It’s similar to ‘This Could Be Us’ in the sense that it’s a remix of a song from ‘Art Official Age’, and also features sampled vocals of Lianne La Havas, who played an integral part to that album. The song is basically a remix of the song ‘Clouds’ with added bass pops, sampled vocals and an amazing signature Prince guitar solo that perfectly segues into…

‘1000 X’s & O’s’ — While there may be many songs on the album from 2014 that could be considered “old singles” or songs that have “already been heard”, this one takes the cake on that. Prince is well known for his vault and the songs he hides in it, and this song comes straight from it. The song was originally titled ‘A Thousand Hugs And Kisses’ and was recorded in April/May time in 1992, when it was considered for inclusion on an album for protege Rosie Gaines. It was then re-recorded in late 1993, where Nona Gaye recorded lead vocals for the song.

It was finally released on this album, after being performed for the first time in London 2007 at one of the 21 Nights In London piano sets. The songs is dreamy and sensual, with Prince talking about how he has a “thousand hugs and kisses for when you come back home”, before detailing what he’s going to do to this woman. It starts out romantic, before taking a sharp turn and the 90s era Prince pops out as he says he’s “Gunna give U love like U never had/Blindfolded, gagged and bound”.

‘June’ — Ending the album is a very ominous, confusing track. It seems soft and dreamlike, with Prince opening it by talking about pasta simmering on the stove in June and how “It makes no sense yet/But it will soon”. It seems like such a random, almost laugh worthy remark, but the song delves into a much more personal and dark realm. He talks about how “somebody famous had a birthday today”, perhaps a reference to his own birthday on June 7th? Before saying how he wishes he could have been born on the Woodstock stage.

His voice is soft again, but this time contemplative, and the song stays on the same minimalistic plane. There’s a little bit of a synth solo in the song, but there’s nothing really too crazy going on. The song then ends with Prince saying how he smells burning, and that it “must B the pasta”, where his voice seems to trail off and the album soon follows, coming to a close.

Final Thoughts

I really wanted to highlight this album, because I feel its so overlooked and ignored in the Prince community. Most people ignore it as a whole, some people only pick out ‘HARDROCKLOVER’ from it; which is understandable because it is one of the greatest late Prince songs, but there’s so much more to the album.

It showcases Prince as a master guitar and bass player on tracks like ‘MR. NELSON’ and ‘SHUT THIS DOWN’, which also bring an opus displaying he is a master mentor and loves working with women of colour, giving them a time to shine. There’s so many female artists on this album who guest that are respectable artists in their own right, the most well known being Rita Ora, but here Prince gives them all a time to shine while working beside Joshua Welton.

He also proves that he still has the ability to be incredibly sensual and romantic with ‘FALLINLOV2NITE’ and ‘1000 X’s AND O’s’, and teases us with the fact he has dipped into his vault material; following this album, he would release another song from the vault as a single on TIDAL as his Purple Pick Of The Week- that being a re-recorded version of the 1994 song ‘If Eye Could Get Ur Attention’. But as a whole, this album is an experimental collection of talent that blends humour and love beside electronic stylings and funk music. It may be totally different to anything he’s ever done, but it’s still composed of great songs that all offer so much.

Ten Years Later

It’s incredible, in the most bittersweet way, to meditate on everything which has happened since this album was first released and Prince transcended. Not just in my own personal life, but as a Prince fan. All the new music we’ve got, the leaks, events, disappointments and surprises. And ten years on, this album and its sister release ‘HITnRUN PHASE TWO’ have finally landed on vinyl! Although they did land a couple of months late, as the true 10th anniversary was in September 2025. Attendees at Celebration ’25 fed back to the internet how there were intentions to get Prince’s final two albums on vinyl, but they weren’t announced until January 7th 2026, with a release date of January 30th 2026. Once the physical copies of both arrived, they had hype stickers advertising the tenth anniversary. Only four months late!

But one good thing did come out of this release, as Rolling Stone Germany announced a memorial package to celebrate/mark the 10th anniversary in their own way. For £19.99 you were able to buy two Xclusive singles, accompanying an issue of Rolling Stone Germany and Musik Express. The records themselves feature artwork from their respective albums, rather than their own unique designs. It would have been interesting to see what was created for them both, but it’s nice to have shrunken down copies of Martin Homent’s artwork to sit alongside the parent vinyl pressings. The songs chosen for the releases were ‘FALLINLUV2NITE’ and ‘HARDROCKLOVER’ on one single, with ‘Baltimore’ and ‘Stare’ on the other. All four of the songs were released as digital singles in Prince’s lifetime, so I was happy to see his history and activity be accurately replicated. Plus these four songs are some of my favourites from his last two albums, and will hopefully be a gateway for new/casual fans to dive deep into the likes of ‘LIKE A MACK’ and ‘2.Y 2.D’.

October 2025 gave Prince fans a huge purple present, as 29 songs from the abandoned ‘Diamonds & Love’ box set leaked from the upper echelons of the bootleg world into the public stratosphere. Among these was Prince’s original demo for ‘1,000 Hugs And Kisses’ which runs an epic 8 minutes long and, after hearing this original take, I can honestly say I prefer the more electro-futuristic presentation Prince and Joshua Welton crafted together for this album. Which may be an extremely controversial take, and I can only imagine the eye rolls I’ve got by announcing this, but I feel as though I’m the only person on Earth who genuinely loves this album.

You could argue it’s blind nostalgia talking, but I don’t think that’s the case. I love this album so much, and as the decade has rolled on, my love for it has only grown exponentially. I’m always saying “STREAM HITnRUN PHASE ONE!” at any opportunity I can, because I’d rather those interested in Prince hear something more than the hits and something more recent from him. I love the electro-futurism soundscape, the organic guitar and bass mixed with electronics, how Prince went back into the vault while simultaneously lifting up the voices and talents of his successors — Judith Hill, Rita Ora, Curly Frys and Joshua Welton.

This is something he’s always done, like working with The Time or Jill Jones in the 80’s. And let’s not forget 2015 saw Judith Hill release her debut album which was written, recorded and produced under Prince’s guidance. There’s funk, sass, humour, sensuality and melancholy all over the album. It truly has something for everyone, and it’s so much fun! I always leave this album with a huge smile, groove all the way through and feel the solos on guitar and bass so deep within me. It only runs for 38 minutes too, which isn’t long, especially for Prince considering his history of 3–5 CD box sets. But despite it being one of his shortest albums, I always leave it feeling full and satisfied.

Plus it feels like a natural progression and extension of ‘Art Official Age’ from 2014, which seemed to be the debut of Prince’s more experimental and electronic music. It reminds me of his attempt to capture the Hip Hop and Rap genres in the early 90’s with ‘My Name Is Prince’, but instead of copying what was already out there, he filtered the genre through his lens and did it his way. This is Prince, after all. And with the album cover resembling that of ‘AOA’ so much, combined with two songs on ‘PHASE ONE’ being remixes from that, it truly does feel like this is a natural progression for me personally. Playing around in the studio, having fun, experimenting with the artists he believes in and wants to work with. So if you’ve never heard this album before, or if you’re a ‘HITnRUN PHASE ONE’ hater, I beg you to approach this album with a new perspective.

Thank U.

Peace N B Wild!

May U live 2 C the Dawn.

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I’ve reached that level of hyperfixation where the franchise is fully consuming me. I’m watching the ‘Star Wars’ saga with my mum, I’ve just got ‘The Princess Diarist’ to read, and I decided I wanted to further surround myself with the galaxy far, far away by playing a video game too. The only real ‘Star Wars’ video game I’ve played in my life is a couple of the Lego ones, including the most recent ‘Skywalker Saga’, but that wasn’t really going to butter my crumpet. That’s a “Star Wars” game, not a ‘STAR WARS’ game, so I set to researching the highest rated games from the franchise. I remember seeing stuff like ‘Battlefront’ and ‘Force Unleashed’ but was somehow reminded ‘Fallen Order’ exists. So I checked it out the Xbox store, found out I could play it for free (thanks EA Play) and installed it. I also usually watch people do a Let’s Play of the game I’m about to play myself, like I’ve done with every ‘Resident Evil’ and ‘Batman: Arkham’ game I’ve played, but this was the first game in a long time where I went in 100% blind. I knew absolutely nothing about the game, but having now finished the main story, I feel like I have a lot to say about it — in the way of a scattered conscious stream of thoughts. I’ve reviewed the odd game here and there but it’s not my standard, so please be patient with me. And beware of spoilers! I hope you enjoy the read.

Cal Kestis & BD-1

Let’s start up top with our main character Cal, played and motion captured by Cameron Monaghan. He’s best known to me as the not-Joker in the ‘Gotham’ TV show, a defining show of my teen years which I spoke about at length in this video from last year. Seeing somebody from a media universes I love in another ones isn’t new to me, I could name 10+ ‘Star Wars’ actors who have also been in ‘Doctor Who’. And let’s not forget Mark Hamill is the Joker to Kevin Conroy’s Batman, so Cameron isn’t the first Joker in ‘Star Wars’. But because that’s all I know him as, I feel like it was a barrier to get past at the beginning of the game. Hell, when I saw this game around release time, I wondered if they only got him because he was the not-Joker in ‘Gotham’. That being said however, he did pull of an incredible performance as Jerome/Jeremiah and stole EVERY scene he was in. Except he was playing bad then, and it didn’t even register until writing this right now how he was playing good in this game.

After I got past the affiliation of my teenage past, I feel I came to really bond with him and his droid companion BD-1. I wanted to play a ‘Star Wars’ game because I wanted to feel like a Jedi, wield a lightsaber and mow down masked enemies, which this gives you in droves. As you progress through it you see Cal go from a humble scrapper to wanting to rebuild the Jedi Order and fight the Galactic Empire, a storyline and character intention which isn’t new to the ‘Star Wars’ universe. Through this journey you also get flashbacks to Cal’s time as a padawan, which help build up your force abilities and help unravel the events and trauma which lead Cal to where he is today. It’s great to see him grow from somebody hiding himself and his abilities away to then become a Jedi Knight ready to take on Stormtroopers and Inquisitors, while also facing this traumatic past.

The addition of BD-1 feels like a ‘Star Wars’ rite of passage; every Jedi needs their trusty droid companion, from R2-D2 to BB-8, and now we have the addition of BD-1. During your companionship he carries the data needed on your mission, helps you scan environments and enemies into a collectable database for all the completionists out there, uses his droid capabilities to help you progress and throws heal items at you when you need them. It’s safe to say you’d be dead and extremely lost without BD-1, and when I was playing I found myself constantly talking to him, or blaming him as a joke when things go wrong, almost like a pet — which I think droids are the ‘Star Wars’ equivalent to when you don’t have a Loth Cat like Sabine does in ‘Ahsoka’.

Planets & Environments

‘The Clone Wars’ has been my favourite ‘Star Wars’ series and output since I first saw it as a kid, with the Nightsisters and Dathomir playing a key role in a few of the episodes and storylines. Before playing this I also watched ‘Tales of the Empire’, who’s opening episode helped provide key context to what Nightsister Merrin was saying during your final visit there toward the end of the game. This wasn’t intentional, by the way, I just watched the series on a whim and ended up really appreciating Episode I. Due to my love of ‘The Clone Wars’, I ended up having a very certain and specific image of Dathomir in mind: really dark with so many shadows, drowned in a deep red fog. So when I arrived on the planet and it was basically a desert wasteland, I sadly felt a little disappointed. But I feel like this was kind of made up with the architecture with all the ornate doors and statues of heads, plus the occasional skeleton really made me happy (being a huge horror fan and macabre person). I remember saying “that’s so cool” out loud when Merrin casts her dark magick toward the end of the game, causing one of the head statues to glow green, with the incantation flowing from its mouth and eye sockets — that’s some incredible imagery.

I wish I could be more enthusiastic about Kashyyyk however, planet of the beloved Wookies. What was really tripping me up here was the amount of natural enemy types, not Stormtroopers or Scout Troopers but the in universe equivalent of a big slug and spiders. As somebody with arachnophobia, the Wyyyschokk made my skin crawl and had me quite literally running for the trees. Kashyyyk is perhaps the most alive a planet has ever felt in a video game, to me at least, with its deadly creatures and plants that either want to kill you or help you traverse the terrain. On the flipside of this though, there were some things that I totally loved. Like the opening of the first arrival of the planet, where you steal an AT-AT and help the resistance fighters mow down Imperial troopers. ‘Empire Strikes Back’ is my favourite of the Original Trilogy, so to be controlling one of the most iconic vehicles born from that film was a childhood dream. You also get to explore the Imperial base that has been established there, which felt incredibly ‘Star Wars’. The design mirrors that of a Star Destroyer and Death Star, making you really feel like you’re stomping around among the enemy. Speaking of which, there are plenty of them who want to see you dead, with a variety of enemy types which I found to be incredibly challenging to navigate.

The planet Ilum also played on my ‘Clone Wars’ nostalgia. As soon as I arrived I had this sudden flashback to watching ‘The Gathering’, an episode where Jedi Younglings travel to the same planet to seek their own Kyber Crystal to assembled their own lightsaber. Even the opening of the crystal cave got me, because it felt like I was following in the footsteps of the characters from that episode. Once I solved the puzzle to open the cave door, I said to BD-1 how I hope Yoda is proud of me (see, fully immersed in this world). At this point in the game you’re without a lightsaber and wrestling with your own mental demons, so the journey to get the Kyber crystal calling to you is a fairly tranquil one. You don’t have a weapon to defend yourself so the enemies are minimal, until you pick yourself back up thanks to BD-1 and assemble your own new lightsaber. As you’re escaping the planet you have, as Cera says, everything thrown at you — basically every Imperial enemy type you’ve encountered so far. On one hand it was frustrating, on the other it was super fun to make your way through all of them, with many opportunities to try out a variety of learned moves from your journey thus far.

Our story climaxes at Fortress Inquisitorius, serving as an underwater base for the Inquisitors, who are force sensitive beings tasked to eliminate any remaining Jedi after Order 66 was executed. I remember watching the ‘Kenobi’ series before falling back in love with ‘Star Wars’ all over again and I vaguely remember a Third Sister, Grand Inquisitor and their base being underwater, so I’m guessing this is the same location? I didn’t really get the deal with the Inquisitors back then but now I really understand them and love their designs, particularly the Second Sister and her backstory. The Purge Troopers and their variations are really refreshing alternative takes on the classic Stormtrooper, and they even have their own Astromech droids zooming around! Although they sadly get caught in the crossfire, ending up sliced in half. Much easier to take out than the tank of a Security Droid. And much like the Imperial Base on Kashyyyk, pottering around this place made me really feel like I was in the universe and part of the action.

Gameplay & Difficulty

I don’t really know what I expected going into this game, but I would say what I got was far from it. As previously mentioned, I just wanted to swing a lightsaber into Stormtroopers. Before playing the game I got warned it has puzzles, which I thought would be a walk in the park as several previous games I’ve played (‘Resident Evil’, ‘Silent Hill’ and ‘Tomb Raider’) are all littered with puzzles. There was also four levels of difficulty with a brief description of each, and I chose the one which was for players experienced with games like this — adventure, combat, puzzles. But I soon came to realise this game was not like any other game I’ve played. While I think it’s an incredible way to immerse yourself in your favourite galaxy far, far away…. it’s fair to say dual wielding pistols in tombs and fighting Lickers in Racoon City are not ways to prepare for this game.

Using a lightsaber and the Force were two things I was most excited about when going into this, but at the beginning you’re so out of touch with using the Force and have basic lightsaber capabilities. These can be changed in two ways, with one of them being an upgrade tree, which gives you some incredibly satisfying moves to pull on enemies. My favourite is the one where you throw your lightsaber at an enemy and pull it back, or when you throw it around in a circle. I managed to get a rare achievement taking out three enemies with one throw doing this, totally by accident. The skill tree can be upgraded via skill points, earned from a variety of interactions and defeating enemies. But the lack of Force thing really bugged me, until I picked up what it was throwing down — Cal had practically separated himself from his training and Force abilities due to his past trauma, but as you progress through the story and interact with different environments, you’re thrown into Padawan training flashbacks to (re)learn new skills to help you progress. A super interesting and unique way of building your skills and abilities from the ground up while simultaneously telling a story, and giving the player character development at the same time.

With the skill tree comes so many different button combinations for different abilities, to the point I was getting either confused or forgetful. I forgot most of what I could do and had learnt during the Ninth Sister boss fight and was feeling a little overwhelmed, combined with the fact that — and I’m not afraid to admit this — I sucked. Hard. To the point I had to lower the difficulty to Story Mode, hanging my head in shame for a little while. Then I realised I’m literally only playing this to be a Jedi and mess around with a lightsaber, so the easier enemies were to take out and the less damage I took was better. I did try bumping the difficulty back up but the natives of Dathomir were making it incredibly stressful and difficult. Not only did I suck but those enemy types were way harder to go through. I think I gave battling three Night Brothers three or five attempts before saying “fuck this”, turned it back to Story Mode and made a meal of them. So many of the enemy types, from Imperial troops to creatures and even Tomb Guards, are incredibly frustrating. But I put this down to my own fault, in the fact I was perhaps trying to zoom through it too fast and not letting myself breathe — not trusting in the force. But then again, I think I’d rather be a Mandalorian than a Jedi. This is the way.

Perhaps one of the biggest things that irked me was the game in and of itself. And by that I don’t mean it’s a bad game because I don’t think it is. Yes I was having to redo so much because of how bad I was at the initial difficulty I chose, but despite my frustration, I still soldiered on. But I feel so many games these days are going for the whole “hyper-realism” aspect when I see no need to it? I took a moment to really appreciate the graphics when I was replaying the 2006 ‘Tomb Raider’ game because I think they’re great, a nice balance between cartoon and real, whereas games like ‘Fallen Order’ feel too… real? But that may just be my inner uncanny valley talking here. I don’t get why so many recent games feel the need to look so real and play out like a movie. Sometimes it felt as though I was trapped in cutscenes, like I was playing an immersive movie. So many locations looked like action set pieces, which are great and immersive on the one hand, but on the other I was sat thinking “why don’t you just make this a spin-off movie?” For real, if they adapted ‘Fallen Order’ into a movie I would go and see it without a second thought. This would have been the perfect tie-in game, to play the film you’ve just seen beat by story beat. But instead it felt as though you’re confined within it, which is great for immersion during battle sequences, but story sequences and the overall graphics felt like they were too much. Which is not indicative of just this game, there are so many culprits I could name. I guess I’m just nostalgic for 2000's era video game graphics.

Another thing I didn’t really like was level traversal. There’s only a few different planets, chapters and levels in the game, but it feels like quite a lengthy one — like one level/world could last sixty or ninety minutes to get to your objective. And after that you have to traverse all the way back to the beginning of the level, more often than not after enemies have been reset. It was so annoying having to retread your steps after completing a main goal, and even more annoying to be bouncing between the same few planets. The ‘Star Wars’ universe is so expansive but here it feels so restrictive, there’s so many more planets and places you could have included over the same handful. And fast travel, have the developers ever heard of that?

Story

I had zero knowledge or expectations going into the game, as previously mentioned, and didn’t really care for the story at the beginning. It wasn’t until the Second Sister turned up looking for a Jedi when I started to feel some kind of interest. The bad guys in media always interest me and, having seen ‘Kenobi’ and knowing some lore on the Inquisitors, both made this run deeper. It also gives immediate context as to when and where ‘Fallen Order’ takes place, between ‘Revenge of the Sith’ and ‘A New Hope’. Except I feel this is partly to the stories detriment, as the execution of Order 66 is a massive event with so much weight in the ‘Star Wars’ universe. Sticking to Episode I through VI makes you believe only a select few Jedi made it out of the Great Purge alive, whereas expanded media like this and ‘The Clone Wars’ makes you realise “actually no, it’s not just Obi-Wan and Yoda who survived”. It personally feels like the more Jedi I find survive the Great Purge, the lesser the blow of the entire ordeal.

It feels like the ‘Star Wars’ universe is prone to re-treading the same old ground. Jedi survives Order 66, is hunted by Inquisitors, happens upon a Jedi who’s turned to the dark side who tries to persuade them to join them to rebuild the Jedi Order or conquer the Empire for themselves. And before anyone who’s a ‘Star Wars’ die hard comes at me, I know a lot of these instances are intentional mirroring or parallels. But this doesn’t feel like it to me. Where this game takes an interesting turn for me is when you discover just who the Second Sister is, and how it ties into the backstory of Cere, one of the two characters helping you on your journey and was once a Jedi herself. I didn’t really pay Cere much mind at the top of the game, but as her own past and trauma began to overlap with the Second Sister, it helped pull me in a little more too. For most of the game she’s static, only interacting with you via cutscenes or staying aboard the Mantis — the ship you travel between worlds in, piloted by Greez, who is essentially the comic relief pilot (another totally original part of the game). One of my favourite moments of the entire game comes at the end, when Cere finally leaves the Mantis, joining you in your fight through Fortress Inquisitorius and facing her own trauma at last. Wielding an Inquisitors lightsaber and helping you in your fight against the ultimate foe.

Trauma has been mentioned frequently through this review, and perhaps my favourite moment has it sat at the heart of it. Because while the game itself is set after ‘ROTS’, the Padawan flashbacks occur during the Clone Wars, with the final one being the moment Order 66 is executed. Cal and his Jedi master have to fight through their personal army of Clones aboard their ship to get to safety, except Cal’s master doesn’t make it. Like so many of his Jedi brothers and sisters, he’s shot down in cold blood, but what makes this even more heartbreaking and terrible is the fact it’s performed in front of his own Padawan. I had tears in my eyes when this was happening as I still feel the weight and tragedy of Order 66, something this game really pulls off well. And it’s this trauma which haunts Cal for the rest of his (off-screen) life, pushing him away from the Force which we, the player, need to help him recover as we join him on his healing journey.

Another moment I really felt the weight of came right at the end when Darth Vader himself appears, walking slowly into shot while his mechanical breathing plays out steadily, to deal with the Second Sister after a recent turn of events. I know the story of Anakin Skywalker and feel the tragedy within that, but I’ve also never been scared or menaced by Darth Vader. Which all changed playing this game, as you’re thrust into a confrontation with him and need to escape with your life still intact. You have no choice but to run as you’re not strong enough to fight him, and feeling him on your tail is entirely menacing. Once you reach the end of the level you see him try to break Cere, getting her to channel her inner dark side, something she seemingly struggles with throughout and also feels haunted by. Even the choice to have her wield an Inquisitor’s lightsaber was poetic, seeing as they’re often donned by the bad guy, but Cere is one of the good ones. Right?

Final Thoughts

Despite my struggles with the gameplay and wavering interest in the story, I had a lot of fun playing this game. I soldiered on to complete the story in half a week even though I found myself getting incredibly frustrated with it. It played on so much nostalgia, making me relive my favourite memories of ‘The Clone Wars’ while feeling the in-universe trauma these characters and important events have all been through and caused. It made me feel like the Jedi I’ve wanted to be for almost two decades, even if a few of the story beats feel too similar and the graphics trigger my uncanny valley. I was telling a friend of mine I was writing this review, who then asked me if I recommend it, and in the middle of Cambridge High Street I let out a very loud “YES!”

It wasn’t until I heard my voice and excitement rebound off the brick walls and glass windows surrounding me when it hit me, just how much I enjoyed this game. So I’m sorry if I painted this game in a bad light, and I’m sorry about all the things I undoubtedly left out — I’m not trying to write an essay here. But I am surprised at just how much I had to say about this game I played on a whim. Which, even though I had a few bad feelings, didn’t detract from the overall experience. Nothing is perfect, we all have our flaws, and this is just my opinion so please don’t send an Inquisitor after me! But through all of that, I can now say I have quite literally played my part in attempting to rebuild a fallen order. And the next task on my agenda is to be a survivor.

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Check out my Letterboxd account as I make my way through the ‘Skywalker Saga’ as I watch it for the first time in forever and introduce my mum to the ‘Star Wars’ universe: Vicky Leigh Letterboxd

Even though you may not be familiar with her name, you may be more familiar with her most notable work, ‘Girl On The Train’ — either in print or seeing it at the cinema upon release. It was my introduction to Paula Hawkins, much like the rest of the world, and solidified her as one of my all time favourite authors (beside Lisa Gardner). What I mean by that is, as soon as I saw she’d released a new book, I’d immediately rush to Waterstones or hunt around Sainsbury’s looking for it. I’ve read ‘Into The Water’, which I found incredibly complex but may benefit from a re-read; I enjoyed ‘A Slow Fire Burning’ a lot more, with small details of the edition and content standing out to me — orange pages, a map of the area at the front and a character who lives on a canal boat. Before going into ‘The Blue Hour’, I think ‘Slow Fire’ was my favourite, but her latest release is a new beast entirely. And my favourite so far.

You could call this “recency bias”, or chalk it up to the fact I was lucky enough to meet the author and have my copy signed to me (an unreal experience which you can read about here). But I think this comes down to the simplistic intricacy of the way ‘The Blue Hour’ is written. Just typing that feels confusing, so let me explain: Like her four previous works, ‘Blue Hour’ is written from different points of view from different characters. But being brutally honest, writing her prior books in this way, and especially ‘Into The Water’, made me lose track of times, places and people. I left ‘Into The Water’ scratching my head, wondering what had happened to who. Whereas ‘Blue Hour’, despite being written from three different perspectives again, was much easier to follow. It feels like a two hander, between Grace and Becker. Two characters I could immediately picture in my head, with their characterisations reminding me of people I know, either in passing or from the TV. It’s like I was casting a film adaptation while I was reading through it. The third voice comes from (fictional) artist Vanessa, who passed away five years ago, given to us via extracts of her diary and letters she’s written to herself and her many past lovers.

One of the standout points of this book in comparison to her others is how it feels as though it’s assembled from found pieces of writing and objects. Materialistic, in the sense I feel as though I’m holding the letter I’m reading in print; can picture Vanessa working her clay or Grace moving a canvas around. There’s also these natural senses of wood, clay, the sea and bone. I can picture myself on the island of Eris or standing in an art gallery, admiring Vanessa’s pieces. And with how sensory my experience was, it helped suck me into this world even more, managing to read the 310 pages in two days. I was in need of a distraction, of a new world to be absorbed into, and ‘The Blue Hour’ delivered. Even when I put it down after reading the first 108 pages, calling time for bed, I wanted to read through night and day. While this isn’t really anything new for me, a fast reader, it was the first of Hawkins’ works where I just wanted to read, read, read.

I should probably talk about the premise, shouldn’t I? Before attending the In Conversation event for the book, I knew nothing about it. I went into that evening blind and ordered myself a copy purely because it was her latest offering. As she was explaining the premise to us, it seriously piqued my interest. Vanessa is an artist who lives on the island of Eris, which is only accessible for 12 hour a day — for the other 12 hours, you’re totally cut off by the land being covered by the sea. A perfect setup for a murder mystery. In addition to being the central character of the story, Vanessa’s art piece ‘Division II’ is what kicks everything off. It’s a sculpture comprised of many different elements and pieces, one being a broken bone with its who halves joined by gold. After being viewed by an anthropologist though, the featured bone begins to worry him. He emails those running the exhibition of Vanessa’s work to let them know that, in his professional opinion, they are openly, and unknowingly, displaying human remains.

An incredible way to start the story, even better as this conversation is present via (the only) email within the book, adding to this feeling of it being a “found collection” rather than just three different character POVs. The conceit of the bone and whether or not it’s human sucked me in and, after a while, that really seemed to get lost — in the best way, for me personally, because we then go from mystery to relationships. Between Becker and his pregnant partner, the people he’s employed by, Vanessa and her carer Grace, and how Becker and Grace either get along or butt heads. I remember thinking to myself at one point how it felt like I was just reading a book about characters getting along or having conflicts, and honestly? That was okay to me. I was entertained and engrossed. But recounts of death are scattered through the book in the background, plus allusions to abusive and manipulative relationships, until everything starts to come to a head toward the end. Secrets and lies are exposed, the past is explored, and the origin of the mysterious bone slowly begin to trickle in. We go from a quaint little story about people to scandal, exposure and death upon death — the latter being classic Paula Hawkins.

Not only does this feel like she’s doing what she does best, it also feels as though she’s treading new ground, quite literally as (if I remember rightly) the island of Eris is an original construct of hers. Even though it’s taken me a while to get around to reading the book, which came out in October ’24, I’m thankful I finally got around to it. I delved deep into this world at the right time, serving as the perfect macabre distraction I needed when reading it. I was able to better grasp the characters to a point that, after the climatic ending, I felt sad for the secondary characters, which I don’t think a book has ever made me feel before? I want to know what happens next, how they all react! But I don’t expect or want Hawkins to write a sequel anytime soon. We can fill in the blanks, I’m sure. It was incredibly difficult for me to put ‘The Blue Hour’ down because of how warm, cosy, intriguing and thrilling it was. Plus the cover — a bone white background with drops of dark blue smoke — is really gorgeous. If you’re a lover of Paula Hawkins and/or psychological thrillers, I highly recommend this book. Or if you just want a damn good book to read, go and pick yourself up a copy NOW!

If you haven’t already, click here to read about the In Conversation event I attended, to learn some more about the background and inspiration behind the book. And if you enjoy what you’ve just read, please consider following my Instagram to keep up to date with my future reviews and creative endeavours: vickyxleigh.

Last decade, I feel like one of the most popular names in modern writing was Paula Hawkins. In 2015 she released the psychological thriller ‘Girl on the Train’ which took the world by storm, debuting at #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list. One million copies were sold in under two months and in October 2016, a movie adaptation landed in cinemas, fronted by Emily Blunt. Like most, if not all of her fans, it was ‘Girl on the Train’ which got me into her work (and the film was my favourite film of all time, before sadly being demoted to a comfort watch).

Since topping the charts, she has since released two more crime thrillers, ‘Into The Water’ in 2017 and ‘A Slow Fire Burning’ in 2021. Both of which I have read as Hawkins is one of two authors I genuinely closely follow and keep up to date with, the other being Lisa Gardner. I remember being so excited about ‘A Slow Fire Burning’ being released, which coincided with a family holiday, leading me on a hunt around shops in Yorkshire to find the variant with orange pages. Dedication! And this year she has released another new book called ‘The Blue Hour’, this time taking me to an outlet of Waterstones in Chelmsford, as she’s currently touring the UK to promote and discuss her latest release. After seeing about it on Instagram, I was desperate to attend, and was lucky enough to get a ticket to do so.

The last time I went to an “in conversation” book event was in October 2022, when Richard E. Grant did a similar thing to support his latest release, which you can read my review of by clicking here. As I was sat in the audience, conversing with another audience member called Emma, I foolishly thought this was my first one! Absentmindedly, I didn’t know what to expect of the evening. I was sat among a small crowd with a direct view of Hawkins herself, who sat atop a raised area of the shop with B.P. Walter, our host and lead conversationalist for the night. One thing I have to mention is I loved how Waterstones had heavy stock of both Hawkins’ and Walter’s books; there was a display in the outside window and the “stage” was decorated with their respective releases, split down the middle and arranged where they both sat.

After Hawkins read us all a short extract from her latest book, conversation started flowing, with the first topic being ‘The Blue Hour’. I’ll be 100% honest and up front here by saying I haven’t read this new book yet, as my to be read pile is about fifteen books high, and I’ve been so busy attempting to finish writing my own book. So I was going into this blind which, I must admit, felt like an advantage. As she was discussing various features and characters from the book, it felt as though I was being given little snippets which enticed me and drew me in. Making me wonder how they all fit and slot together, with a mention of a human bone here and a dead artist there.

In addition to this, hearing about the inspirations and formulation of the book was insightful. To learn that a trip to Paris and a different trip to an art gallery were two key features of the genesis of this novel were intriguing and, as I know being a writer myself, proved the most random and disconnected things can set a creative off running. I wish I had the brain capacity to remember just who this artist was, but Hawkins mentioned one who was so underwhelmed with her own art, she tore it all apart. A few months later she returned to the fragments and built a collage from the torn up pieces. Hawkins then likened it to her own work, saying she was working on a story set on a remote Scottish island that wasn’t working, but returned to it at a later date and made adjustments that became ‘The Blue Hour’.

Another intriguing point of the book, from the outside, is the setting of Scotland itself. As soon as I read it was set there, I immediately thought of the TV show ‘Shetland’, which me and my mum both love. Within ‘The Blue Hour’ though, this remote island houses a single occupant in a single house, where access is only available for 12 hours a day. It’s got all the trappings of a horror story, with B.P. Walter even likening it to ‘The Woman In Black’, though Hawkins (sadly) confirmed it’s very much a crime thriller. She even joked about how you can just imagine murders taking place on a remote Scottish island, making me think to myself “they do!! Just watch Shetland”. There was a real point made about the feeling, atmosphere and even the weather of this Scottish island during their conversation. One thing I love is imagining, or writing, the setting of a story as its own character, and it sounds like ‘The Blue Hour’ may have that going on.

Conversation then steered away from the new release and toward her history, which made me aware that she had written four books prior to ‘Girl on the Train’, though these were “rom-coms” commissioned by a publisher and released under a pseudonym. B.P. Walter aided us through the journey from there to here, as he highlighted the fact of them getting darker as they progressed, which lead us to her debut novel (under her own name) with ‘Girl on the Train’. Hawkins spoke of her particular fondness of her book ‘Into The Water’, saying how it was being written before ‘Girl’ was even published, but she found it difficult to disconnect from touring one book while writing another. The film adaptation even got a mention too, though I did notice a certain look on Hawkins face, making me wonder if she wasn’t entirely satisfied with it. I mean, the question did concern the executive decision to move the setting from the UK to the US, and I can only imagine the level of dissatisfaction of a film company tweaking a key element of your story — possibly in the hopes to boost sales. But this is purely just me spit balling and speculating here.

The floor was soon opened up to questions, where I asked about her penchant for writing from the perspective of more than one character in each book, and in a non-linear fashion. I loved her answer, it was so brilliant, rich with thinking points. She said that everyone is an unreliable narrator because we all come up with different versions of the truth, “our truth” if you like, so she lets different characters recall their version of the truth as the mystery unfolds. She also likened it to how she thinks her brain works, and I must admit her version of storytelling is some of the most interesting I’ve ever read, if not a little confusing at times. That doesn’t stop me reading and loving them though, and I think there’s a little influence of her writing in what I’ve been doing myself.

After question time it was signing time, and I’m still in a little bit of disbelief that I’ve got a copy of her latest book signed to me, so thank you Paula. I remember sitting on the bus to Cambridge with my dad in 2017, reading ‘Girl on the Train’ after loving the film so much — fast forward seven years and I’m talking to the author of that very beloved, famous book? Absolutely incredible, a pinch me moment I’m honoured to have experienced. Though I couldn’t help but wonder when it’s going to be me up there, doing my own “in conversation” for my own book. There’s another daydream I’ll be having for the foreseeable.

And finally, I want to give a special mention to B.P. Walter, our host for the evening. He did an incredible job leading the conversation, which felt so natural and flowed greatly. Not only was he sharing his own writing process with us, but before the floor opened up to questions, Hawkins practically demanded he speak on his own latest release (called ‘Scuttle’) a little — which I have to admit sold me, even though it features a huge spider and I’m the biggest arachnophobe you’ll ever meet. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re both friends outside of this, as they seem to know and have huge love for each other’s work. And I think it goes without saying that I had a wonderful time here, getting insights and hearing stories from the writer who was once the talk of the world. I hope to get stuck into ‘The Blue Hour’ as soon as possible, and may even do a separate review on it once I’ve finished. And before I go, shoutout to the wonderful and lovely Emma for being so kind and keeping me company throughout the event.

Follow my Instagram to stay up to date with all my creative endevours: vickyxleigh ~ and keep an eye out for my review of the book itself! All being well, it should be dropping next week.