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kori_dragon's review
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A fun, adventurous story that manages to blend fantasy, romance, and humour into one great read. My favourite line of the book: Clara forgets how to say bath and so says "people laundry" which made me snort with laughter at work.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Gore and Animal cruelty
readinggem's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
The pining went on for too long
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Death, Trafficking, Violence, and Gore
directorpurry's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Gore, and Blood
Moderate: Murder, Vomit, Death, and Xenophobia
Minor: Slavery
kmtaylor002's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, and Sexual content
marsh_mall0w's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Kidnapping, and Violence
Moderate: Confinement, Grief, and Infertility
Minor: Vomit and Animal death
elle_e_d_light's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I may have liked the first book just a bit more, but I still really loved this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Vomit
nimeneth's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Gore, and Sexual content
Minor: Suicide and Kidnapping
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Clara is on the trail of her abducted sisters, and Istvhan is tracking a very strange pattern of headless corpses. They meet abruptly when Clara helps Istvhan navigate a cross-cultural social situation with the potential to go very badly for everyone involved. It turns out they need to go in roughly the same direction, and Clara joins Istvhan's traveling party while she tries to get word of her sisters. Most of the story revolves around the various obstacles in their journey, and the growing rapport between the two of them. The interactions are complicated at times as they're not sure how interested the other person is or how far they can be trusted. Clara, especially, has a lot of reason not to trust anyone with her secrets as they're not hers alone.
Istvhan was a secondary character in PALADIN'S GRACE, and his mission is related to the murderous and undead-adjacent "smooth men" Stephen encountered briefly there. This serves to wrap up that storyline, possibly completely, but it remains to be seen whether there will be further related incidents in later books. I enjoyed the brief anecdote from Istvhan as to more developments in Stephen and Grace's relationship. There's a new storyline related to Clara and her kidnapped sisters of St. Ursa, as well as the romance between Istvhan and Clara. This isn't the last book in the series, but because it appears that each book with have a different protagonist, it's pretty wide open as to what might be open enough to be picked up later. The one thing I can say for certain is there are five more paladins of the Saint of Steel who can be protagonists, and that the White Rat will continue to be relevant. Beyond that, these books are gradually filling in a whole world, and it's open enough that it doesn't feel like anything in particular was left for later, other than the march of time and that people will continue to need help that can be given by broken paladins of a dead god with their shiny swords.
Istvhan feels like he did in the first book, albeit having been filtered through Grace and Stephen's perceptions of him. Clara is an entirely new protagonist. Istvhan and Clara both have secrets they're keeping, and good reasons to be concerned that the other person might not want to stick around once they know. The romance is a slow burn, as even after they start to be physically intimate they don't know if the other person will stay interested once they know more of what's going on.
This would make sense to someone who started here without reading any other books in the world of the White Rat, let alone in The Saint of Steel series particularly, but the loose collection of the White Rat are building a world with each new story, and a few side details will be more impactful for someone who has already read PALADIN'S GRACE, in particular. Sometimes these little details double as updates about characters met elsewhere, other times they just contribute to the reader's growing knowledge of their shared setting. However, the main story and most of the side threads will be understandable and have much of their poignancy for someone who picks this up without knowledge of the other books.
I love the gladiator sequence towards the end. It's a tangle of plans, interruptions, and hoping things go well long enough for them to pull off something just shy of a miracle under terrible conditions.
Istvhan was a secondary character in PALADIN'S GRACE, and his mission is related to the murderous and undead-adjacent "smooth men" Stephen encountered briefly there. This serves to wrap up that storyline, possibly completely, but it remains to be seen whether there will be further related incidents in later books. I enjoyed the brief anecdote from Istvhan as to more developments in Stephen and Grace's relationship. There's a new storyline related to Clara and her kidnapped sisters of St. Ursa, as well as the romance between Istvhan and Clara. This isn't the last book in the series, but because it appears that each book with have a different protagonist, it's pretty wide open as to what might be open enough to be picked up later. The one thing I can say for certain is there are five more paladins of the Saint of Steel who can be protagonists, and that the White Rat will continue to be relevant. Beyond that, these books are gradually filling in a whole world, and it's open enough that it doesn't feel like anything in particular was left for later, other than the march of time and that people will continue to need help that can be given by broken paladins of a dead god with their shiny swords.
Istvhan feels like he did in the first book, albeit having been filtered through Grace and Stephen's perceptions of him. Clara is an entirely new protagonist. Istvhan and Clara both have secrets they're keeping, and good reasons to be concerned that the other person might not want to stick around once they know. The romance is a slow burn, as even after they start to be physically intimate they don't know if the other person will stay interested once they know more of what's going on.
This would make sense to someone who started here without reading any other books in the world of the White Rat, let alone in The Saint of Steel series particularly, but the loose collection of the White Rat are building a world with each new story, and a few side details will be more impactful for someone who has already read PALADIN'S GRACE, in particular. Sometimes these little details double as updates about characters met elsewhere, other times they just contribute to the reader's growing knowledge of their shared setting. However, the main story and most of the side threads will be understandable and have much of their poignancy for someone who picks this up without knowledge of the other books.
I love the gladiator sequence towards the end. It's a tangle of plans, interruptions, and hoping things go well long enough for them to pull off something just shy of a miracle under terrible conditions.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Excrement, Murder, Gore, Body horror, Suicide, Sexual content, Grief, Blood, Death, Confinement, and Child death
Moderate: Mental illness, Torture, Alcohol, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
Minor: Medical content, Cannibalism, Vomit, Genocide, Pregnancy, and Slavery
wilybooklover's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
4.5
I think I have a bit of a crush on Clara after reading this book. She’s such a badass!
T. Kingfisher has a real knack for describing desirable characters that don’t fall into the usual ‘gorgeous and chiselled’ romance character archetypes. Not just the women, but the men as well. Her characters are older, less conventional looking, maybe even have a little bit of fat padding their bodies, but they find each other sexy all the same. It’s so refreshing and I love it. I also loved that both Istvhan and Clara had sexual pasts and were unapologetic about it.
I did think that it dragged a little bit in the middle. This book is longer than the previous one and it felt like it at times. But the plots of Clara’s missing sister-nuns and the smooth men were engaging, and it was really interesting to see how they tied together. As always, T. Kingfisher balances the contrast of humour and sweet romance with creepy horror perfectly.
Overall, another winner in the Saint of Steel series and once again I’m dying to dive into the next book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Murder, Sexual content, Blood, and Violence
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Gore, Grief, Slavery, Torture, and Trafficking
Minor: Abandonment and Infertility
wardenred's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Welcome to Morstone, Paladin Istvhan. We hope that you survive your stay.
This was a pretty enjoyable read with a great, twisty adventure-and-investigation plot unfolding alongside the central romance storyline, set in a quirky, inventive fantasy world. At the heart of it, the romance felt similar to the first book in the series: to people struggling with their own demons and the sense of not being good enough, but still ultimately coming together. However, Isthvan and Clara are rather different from Stephen and Grace, and their story takes a different spin.
Put into the spotlight, Isthvan initially felt somewhat different from how he appeared in his side character position in Paladin's Grace. A bit blander, perhaps, and less confident? It seemed like he could benefit from some of the same pep talks he gave Stephen in the first book. Still, the longer I spent in his company, the more I connected to him, and the weaker that feeling of "difference" became; eventually I've come to feel the way he's perceived by friends and what's going on in his head are two perfectly logical sides of the same coin. I enjoyed reading about his perception of what all the paladins of his Order had gone through. In the first book, Stephen focused mainly on the trauma from their god dying and the immediate aftermath with its awful events. Isthvan digs deeper, examining the times when the Saint of Steel was still alive and all the paladins were holy and righteous and always knew what to do—or so they perceived themselves. These small differences make me especially curious to read the next installment and to see what angle Galen brings to the table.
Clara captivated me from the very first page, and my attachment only kept growing throughout the book. She's such a strong, brave, and determined character, and she never stops being any of that when she deals with her very understandable insecurities. There was something highly compelling about her thought process regarding all the challenges the plot threw her way, and how she clearly strived to remain honest with herself even when she kept secrets from others. I was also enchanted by her relationship to faith and the way it subtly evolved throughout her journey.
As a couple, I felt these characters worked so well together. That one scene where they openly talked about their pasts, finding common ground to relate to each other's pretty unique situation, is going to stick with me. I loved the banter between them and the way they so clearly lifted each other up.
The one thing that perhaps didn't sit well with me was the uneven pacing. The first half of the book was perfect, with a very steady, very gradually increasing pace. By the middle, there was a clear slog, though, and once things started picking up again, it was kind of patchy. The last few chapters felt somewhat rushed. That made the plot a bit harder to follow than I would've liked.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Death, and Gore