General Leia's Backstory to be Explored in Star Wars: Bloodline

Leia Organa has gone from nascent Rebel Alliance member, to leader of the entire Resistance. She's been a princess and a general. She was a daughter and a sister and a mother.

So how did she get from one point to another? Part of that story will be told in Star Wars: Bloodline, a new novel hitting May 3, 2016 by Claudia Gray. The book takes place a few years before the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and starts with Leia once again playing the role of Senator, but this time in the New Republic "a few decades" after the fall of Darth Vader and the Emperor.

"The novel isn't fundamentally about Leia as a wife, sister, or mom," Gray told USAToday. "This is about the role she's created for herself since the fall of the Empire, and the one she takes up by the time of the film."

The book will include characters from the newest movie, and also brand new characters, as The New Republic is fleshed out. After reading this, we might have some context to some of those nameless people being blown up on balconies when the Starkiller Base fires its mighty weapon.

Check out an excerpt of the new book over at USAToday, and look for it on store shelves in a few months.