Star Wars: The Acolyte: Wayseeker
Decades before Star Wars: The Acolyte, Vernestra Rwoh must rediscover her place within the Jedi Order.
Jedi Master Vernestra Rwoh has spent years exploring the Outer Rim as a Wayseeker, answering to no authority but the Force itself. When the Jedi Council orders her to return to Coruscant, Vernestra ignores the summons, feeling that her priority is the beings she’s already serving.
So the Council dispatches Jedi Knight Indara to track down Vernestra to deliver the urgent message that a Republic senator has formally requested Jedi assistance, asking for Vernestra’s aid by name. Intrigued, Vernestra quickly finds herself pulled back into Coruscant’s complicated world of Republic politics and underworld crime.
The two could not be more different: Vernestra, a Jedi Master who has known conflict and loss during her decades in the Order, and Indara, a young Knight just coming into her own as a Jedi in a galaxy at peace. Trust is slow to develop as they clash over their views on serving the Jedi Order, the galaxy, and the Force.
But they must work together to decipher the connection between the senator and a trail of dangerous weapons threatening to wreak havoc on the Republic. As the two delve further into their investigation, the lines between Jedi and Republic business blur, and Vernestra must rediscover what it means to serve for Light and Life.
Author: Justina ireland
Editor: Tom Hoeler
Release date: May 6, 2025
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9780593874431
Novels set in the worlds of the Star Wars galaxy are a tradition. Between the novelizations, comics and series like the X-Wing books there has always been a bridge between the stories on screen, and the stories on the written pages.
Star Wars: The Acolyte: Wayseeker is a novel that continues that tradition, but is also a novel that is very unique. The High Republic publishing initiative is a three-phase event that has crossed multiple genres. This era has been a highly successful, and the Disney Plus show The Acolyte – set in the last stages of that era – caught the imagination of the fandom, and two of the featured characters in that series are the leads in this novel.
Wayseeker has connections to the Lucasfilm publishing initiative and the recent live action series. For those of us that have been with The High Republic from the beginning, this book is a bridge to the Vernestra we have journeyed with since Justina Ireland’s 2021 novel A Test of Courage. Master Rwoh has become a Wayseeker. This is a tradition where a Jedi leaves the traditional routines and missions of a Jedi and lets the Force leads them to where they are most needed. Vernestra has been doing this for over a decade, not so subtly ignoring the messages from the Jedi Council to return to the main Jedi temple on Coursant.
Master Yaddle decides to send Jedi Knight Indara to track her down and bring her back. My favorite part of this novel is the internal narrations by Vernestra. There is so much that she has experienced in her life as a long-lived Mirialan. Justina Ireland really gives us the weight of those years on her as well as the people who meant the most to her, and the one person she feels she has failed.
There were some choices made in The Acolyte by Rwoh that I found heartbreaking but also in alignment with what the Jedi Order is on the path to becoming by the time we reach The Phantom Menace. Indara was also a revelation in this novel. She quickly became a fan favorite in The Acolyte and in this novel, seeing her decades before the events of The Acolyte we get a deeper feel for what shaped her to be the Master she becomes.
Vernestra and Indara are very different but Yaddle’s instincts to pair the two together are solid. Each of these Jedi will have difference experiences over time. Centuries lay on Yaddles shoulders, but there is much a young Knight can stir in her. Rwoh faces some hard truths of her past as the pair are joined in a mission to track down devices that disable lightsabers. Indara shares and confronts her past traumas, as well as learning that the boundaries of Jedi rules can and possibly should bend.
Overall, this novel contains so many elements that make it an enjoyable read. Justina is a master at balancing cameos and easter eggs from both The High Republic books and the characters she created in the Marvel Star Wars comics. These moments succeed in laying down the foundations for what is coming for both women.
I also loved the team-up of Rwoh with one of my favorite Jedi that if I mention here will be a spoiler for their path in Phase 3 of The High Republic. Seeing all these characters together was especially heartfelt for me because Justina has brought so many wonderful black women to the Star Wars galaxy. Seeing her seed mentions of the Starros family in this reminded me of the legacy Avon has made on the galaxy, and continue to make in the future.
I loved the heist feel of the story, the nods to both The Acolyte and The High Republic, the humor and the bits that inevitably made me cry, like the name of Vernestra’s ship and the mention of noodles (if you know, you know). There is also a three-chapter sampler of Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule which is how the whole initiative started, so come join us in The High Republic era.
For Light And Life.