Path of Deceit is another young-adult Star Wars novel set during the early High Republic era. It is set sometime before the events depicted in the book, Battle of Jedha. In the early chapters, it seems like the book is just going to be another ancillary side story, with a bunch of new characters that are pretty uninteresting. However, by the end of the book, a lot is revealed, including exactly what the monster is that the Path of the Open Hand, and later the Nihil, use to kill Jedi (and how it actually kills them).
The story is set on the planet Dalna, in the Outer Rim where the Path has their compound. A Jedi named Zalla Marci and her Padawan named Kevmo Zink travel to Dalna to find stolen force artifacts that they suspect the Path is hoarding. During the mission, Kevmo falls for one of the Path members, Marda Ro. They each try to convince each other that their respective views of The Force are correct while falling in love. Over the course of the book, we learn more about the Path's leader, The Mother, and get a bit more insight into her plans.
Overall, the story is good, but it takes a long time to get to the good parts. For the first 2/3 of the book it seems like it is just going to be a love story between Kevmo and Marda, and then in the last handful of chapters, the story picks up a lot, and unexpectedly. It ends up being one of my must-read canon novels, but I do only give it 4-stars because it takes such a long time to get to the good part. The book is just under 350 pages. If you read quickly, it can be finished in a day or two, even though you do have to slog through the first part of the book to get to the really good stuff. If you are tempted to stop reading it in the beginning, definitely keep going because it is worth it.
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