Hello people and happy Monday! I hope your week has started in the best possible way! Today I am pretty excited because finally, I am here to share with you all a review for a book that I loved! It was my best reading in March, and I am so looking forward to the other books in the series, it is just so good!
Title: Paladin's Grace
Series: The Saint Of Steel #1
Author: T. Kingfisher
Pages: 366
Publication Date: February 11th, 2020
Stephen's god died on the longest day of the year…
Three years later, Stephen is a broken paladin, living only for the chance to be useful before he dies. But all that changes when he encounters a fugitive named Grace in an alley and witnesses an assassination attempt gone wrong. Now the pair must navigate a web of treachery, beset on all sides by spies and poisoners, while a cryptic killer stalks one step behind…
From the Hugo and Nebula Award winning author of Swordheart and The Twisted Ones comes a saga of murder, magic, and love on the far side of despair.
To be honest I wasn't planning on reading this one when I started it. It's not that I plan all my reading but I was more oriented towards the books for SPSFC2 or something not fantasy, but then I read Maddalena's review of one book by this author and she reminded me that I really wanted to read more books by Kingfisher, and sure this particular book is not the same Maddalena reviewed (and I want to read that one, too!) but it is one book by the author I had waiting for me, so the choice was pretty easy. Also, for once I was pretty happy because nothing new and shiny distracted me and I went back to read something that was on my TBR for some time. It was really satisfying, even more so because this book is quite amazing!
Stephen is one of the seven Paladins of the Saint of Steel that survived the death of their God, because yes, apparently Gods can die in this world, and if you are a conduit for their power here on Earth, well... things are not looking rosy for you, then. Sorry, pal! All the Paladins went berserk when they felt their God die and things went even worse for the people around them at the time. Completely berserk war machines all around and nothing to stop them does not make for a nice picture, right? And a lot of the ones who survived this first crisis (how politically correct here, but you get what I am saying!) committed suicide afterward, so now only seven of the Paladin are still alive. And they are not the cheery bunch, sadly. They all are deeply scarred by this, and they are still at risk of going berserk, too. Also, they are struggling to find their place now that their old life is gone forever, and they are all quite lost and broken. But they are not completely out of luck, because the Order Of The Rat has taken them all in, giving them a new home and a kind of purpose, since they now have jobs to do: they escort healers around the tow, do bodyguard service for the Bishop of the order and so on...
And, as I was saying, Stephen is one of them. And, please sit down before reading my next words because they can be shocking, he knits socks. How cool is that???????????? And he is pretty chill about that, too.
He wished that he could break out his knitting, but for some reason, people didn't take you seriously as a warrior when you were knitting. He'd never figured out why. Making socks required four or five double-ended bone needles, and while they weren't very large, you could probably jam one into someone's eye if you really wanted to. Not that he would. He'd have to pull the needle out of the sock to do it, and then he'd be left with the grimly fiddly work of rethreading the stitches. Also, washing blood out of wool was possible, but a pain. Still, if he had to suddenly pull out his sword and fend off an attack, there was a chance he'd drop the yarn, and since he'd been feeling masochistic and was using two colors for this current set of socks, there was absolutely no chance the yarn wouldn't get tangled and then he'd be trying to murder people while chasing the yarn around. And god forbid the tide rose and he went berserk. You never got the knitting untangled after that; you usually just had to throw it away completely
And I am sooooo feeling him!
But he is not the only MC here. Let's not forget about Grace. She is a perfumer with the cutest civet ever, Tab. He may not be as interesting as the dog made of bones and the possessed chicken in Nettle and Bone, but he is a lot present in these pages and he is important to Grace. And I appreciate it when we get to see some really well-portrayed pets! To be completely honest, we have a lot of characters besides the two MCs, and all of them are amazing (and I would talk about them in a moment), and Grace is the character I liked the less. I do not dislike her, and there are a lot of things I appreciated: she is a perfumer and even if she is not the most confident person out there (she really really is not) she knows what she is doing, and she is competent in her work. And she takes pride in it. And this is a thing that I am always happy to see. And she is socially awkward, and her running commentary in her mind is a constant of "normal people don't do like this" or "what should a normal person do in this case?" and I sympathized with that. A lot! And she, like Stephen, is a broken person. This book is full of broken people, all in different ways and for different ways (because life can suck in so many different ways), and yet is full of hope and also joy. It is rather beautiful.
And, as I was saying before, we have a lot of secondary characters that steal the scene, really. They are just marvelous. We have Marguerite (I hope I wrote this right), for example. She is Grace's best friend and she is a spy. She is loud, she is full of life and, in some ways, she is the opposite of Grace, and the two of them complement each other is so many ways! Marguerite is a whirlwind! And then we have the other Paladins, and some of the dialogues between them are pure genius. You need to read this book just for those scenes.
"Istvhan, you ever kill someone with an ice swan?" he whispered. "I clubbed someone unconscious with a frozen goose once. That's similar?" The Bishop suffered a mysterious coughing fit. "No, you had to use the goose as a bludgeon, didn't you? For the swan, I figure you'd snap the head off and try to stab with the neck." "Hmmm…" Istvhan eyed the ice sculpture speculatively. "It's pretty big. And not well balanced." "I figure you'd have to go two-handed with it." "I think I'd grab one of the candelabras instead. Some of those are nice and heavy." "Far too unwieldy. I could take you apart with the ice swan while you were still trying to get the candelabra off the ground." "Gentlemen," said Beartongue, "I forbid you to smash the Archon's decor and try to duel with it." "Yes, your holiness." "I'll have you both excommunicated." Stephen coughed. "Technically we're not in your church, your holiness." "Then I will have you confirmed so that I can excommunicate you even harder." "Yes, your holiness." He and Istvhan traded smug looks. Shane gazed into the distance, perhaps imagining a place where he had suitably serious colleagues."
And I want to know more about all of them! But there is one that has a lot of screen time, as to say, and he is Istvhan:
"All women are beautiful," said Istvhan, dismissing this. "It is the job of their lovers to make them feel that way if they do not already."
If I am not mistaken, the next book in this series is more about him, and I can't wait to read it. Because he is an amazing secondary character, it is one of the best, and I need more of him! Then we have Zale, who is the less well-portrayed in there, but this is just because he does not have a lot of space in the story, but the little you see of them is enough to let you see that they have a lot of potentials (and from the reviews I read it seems like they are an important character in the other series set in this same World, so, obviously, I'll have to read that one, too), and last but not least, my favorite character of the whole book (and it is a feat because Stephen and Istvhan are amazing!): Bishop Beartongue. You'll love her. Her aplomb is amazing. And she is an older woman who is a force of nature. She is amazing, and you need to meet her. You just need it. My new goal in life is to be more like her!
As you can guess, I think that the best feature of the book is its characters, and it is. But the plot is also interesting, we have a mystery and some political intrigues to spicy things up. And the writing and the humor that are everywhere on these pages help create a solid book, highly enjoyable that would keep you company for quite some time, even after you finish it.
and half!
And this is all for today! Have you read this book? What do you think?? Let me know!!
Happy reading!
S.
No comments:
Post a Comment