Oldies But Goodies
{Put This One on Your TBR List}
Book Review: The Saint of Steel Series by T. Kingfisher
by Karen S. Wiesner
Beware potential spoilers!
To describe T. Kingfisher's medieval fantasy The Saint of Steel series as romance is a bit off the mark. No doubt it has lateral shoots toward it but those tendrils into the genre are anything but conventional. The language and love scenes are unexpectedly crude, the way erotica can sometimes be, though all volumes frequently dip into the (frequently eye-rolling) tender mawkishness of traditional romance offerings. I suspect strongly that the author intended exactly this unorthodox straddling of categories when she was writing it.
Whatever its classification, for the most part, I found it to be a breath of fresh air. Full disclosure: For all intents and purposes, I stopped reading romances (other than the young adult variety) about twenty years ago. I can't really say that was a conscious decision. More that I'd expanded past the romance-heavy books that dominated the reading of my twenties and early thirties. And, admittedly, I no longer cared for the requisite love scenes that were so much a part of this genre. I discovered another nice thing about audiobooks is that you can fast-forward past sections in 15-second intervals. I did that a lot with these. In any case, it was a bit strange for me to take up a romance series--unconventional as this was--again after all this time away.
Once I'd finished with Kingfisher's audiobook of A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (I reviewed it recently on this blog), the only available audiobooks by this author on my library app were these four books in The Saint of Steel series. Weirdly, all of them were available to check out there and then, so I was able to listen to them back-to-back. The fact that they were readily obtainable when none of her others were made me wonder if they weren't any good. Luckily, I found that wasn't the case. I also learned that when something is "DRM free", as I think this series is, it means that unlimited electronic copies are distributed. No waiting lines! Nice for readers, probably not so much for the author or publisher.
The premise of this series is that an order of berserker paladins loses the Saint of Steel they serve when he dies. Unthinkably--to me anyway--in this fictional medieval time period the series is set in, these saints are venerated as gods; in fact, the words "saint" and "god" pretty much mean the same thing here. After his death, his followers go on a mad rampage of death before they're broken. That's covered in a short prologue in Book 1. Years later, the seven survivors have been taken into the service of the (irreverent but amusingly so) Temple of the Rat, made up of lawyers, healers, and other community service workers. Here, they can again do good.
By nature, paladins are selfless, chivalrous, and honest to a fault. However, these knights are forever in danger of losing themselves to the berserker rage (called the black tide) they can't control once its unleashed. I loved how natural the world building in this medieval setting is in the author's hands. She does medieval effortlessly, as if she herself actually lives in that time period.
There are four books in
this series:
Paladin's Grace, Book 1 (2020)
Paladin's Strength, Book 2 (2021)
Paladin's Hope, Book 3 (2021)
Paladin's Faith, Book 4 (2023)
In Paladin's Grace, the knitting paladin Stephen is the focus. Grace is a perfumer he rescues one night and then the two become embroiled in a conspiracy plot against the crown prince as well as investigating necromantic serial killings in which the victim's heads are chopped off; black magic clay heads are then implanted into the corpses to make an army of monsters.
This story had some clichéd romantic elements. Stephen was such a do-gooder he was always worrying about losing control whenever he and Grace found themselves in a compromising sexual situation. Frequently, that led to sex between them being tabled, which got a little stale after a while. Grace is also the victim of a philandering husband who made her believe she was frigid and so she spends a lot of wasted time pushing Stephen away on that premise. The first actual love scene was a little icky for me--as far from romantic as it gets. I wanted to shout, Please, close the door! I believe the author wrote it the way she did to avoid all potential for purple prose or swooning. She may have gone a little too far on that point. I learned after that to fast-forward to get past these excruciating scenes. That said, the rest of the romance and suspense plotlines were, at turns, fun, funny, sweet, and even heartwarming. The happily ever after between Stephen and Grace was, fittingly, out of the ordinary for a romance novel as well, in that the couple didn't have a picket fence and 2.5 kids in their future. They would both continue as they had been, only now they were together. I really liked that Grace's best friend Marguerite was a very avant garde character. The reader didn't know what she might do next. I also liked the introduction of a race of talking badgers that are a part of human society in this medieval world.
Book 2 in the series, Paladin's Strength, takes up paladin Istvhan's (mentioned in Book 1) story. He's paired with Clara, a very large (nearly his own considerable size), capable woman who's a nun from a secretive order. Clara is hiding something shocking and intriguing that really adds something to the story. Her sisters have been kidnapped. She doesn't know why, but she intends to find out. Istvhan's company--that she originally thought was a band of mercenaries--helps her and, along the way, finds out that the necromantic serial killer from Book 1 is still on the loose.
There's also a gnole in this story, as there was in Book 1 (I don't think it's the same one) who accompanies Istvhan's company. I loved this interesting, unexpected character. Additionally, we got to revisit Stephen and Grace's happily ever after, which was nice. I liked the main characters, their amusing repertoire, and the romance that seemed joyfully inevitable despite their circumstances. However, as in Paladin's Grace, the angst that Istvhan and Clara go through about whether they should be allowed to fall in love and have sex with each other gets really annoying with such a long book. Teenagers are less angsty than Kingfisher's couples in this series. At one point (64% into the 16-hour audiobook), Clara thinks to herself, What's wrong with me? I should have been riding this man until we both walk funny. That about sums it up. Just do it already! The author also has far too many albeit plausible (but still annoying) interruptions getting in the way of sex. The overwhelming build-up tends to make the actual event disappointing when it finally comes. I'm beginning to fear the entire series might suffer from this particular malady.
In general, I enjoyed this story and its characters very much, though it was far too long. There were two external plotlines and both got the full treatment. While I think they were both well done, the book seemed nevertheless excruciatingly endless. The angst could have been blessedly cut and taken with it a good one or two hundred pages.
The gay paladin, Galen, mentioned in Book 1 and having played a large role in Book 2, is in the spotlight in Paladin's Hope. In the first book, we learned that he's struggled more with survival after the Steel Saint's death than the others. His nightmares used to end in a berserker rage, but he's found that being on the road helps temper the bad dreams quite a bit. He now goes weeks or longer without having one.
In this story, Galen is paired with a lich-doctor (a physician that works among the dead, determining causes of death for city investigations) named Piper. Piper has a useful, intriguing skill that aids him in his profession. He calls it "wonder working"--when he touches a dead body, he can see what happened the last few seconds of their life before death. When a tenacious and brave constable gnole decides there are too many mysterious bodies piling up, he enlists Piper and Galen's to help him find the source. That's the only suspense plotline in this book, and that made it a lot shorter to get through, which was nice. Unfortunately, Galen and Piper are just as tormented with worry as the previous couples, so fast-forward, fast-forward, fast-forward!
Side note: The Saint of Steel series books are also associated with some of Kingfisher's other titles set in the same medieval fantasy world. The umbrella series is referred to as "The World of the White Rat" and includes The Saint of Steel as well as Clocktaur War (with two books) and the novel Swordheart. I intend to read all of those soon and maybe review them here. The reason I mention this is because, in this story, Galen talks about how he'd had some experience with "wonder" (mechanical and possibly magical) doors and machines. The two stories in the Clocktaur War may tell this story Galen references. I'll have to see. Early in Paladin's Hope, Galen, Piper and the gnole are forced behind a wonder door, into a labyrinth filled with deadly traps they'll have to get through to escape.
In the course of the book, readers briefly get to see the happily-ever-afters of the two previous couples, which I enjoyed. I liked the fully-fleshed out characters and the new mystery plot in this tale that's nicely focused without too much expansion from that point.
The final book in the series, Paladin's Faith, features Marguerite and paladin Shane, her bodyguard. She's trying to escape a former employer who's part of a powerful organization that wants her dead. Along the way, the couple have to dodge a demon-led cult that's out to get them. Additionally, Marguerite, Shane, and another paladin--a female named Wren--go undercover to hunt for an artificer who's crafted a devise that could devastate the world. Also, though I never really thought about it before, the suspicious death of the Saint of Steel that all these paladins served is brought up in this book as yet another suspense angle.
Again, this story was far too long and overburdened with subplots upon subplot. Combine this with yet another angsty romance between two people who spend far too much time telling themselves they can't anything with the other, and it's a surefire recipe for overload. Sigh. The female paladin Wren, who's like a sister to Shane, added an interesting viewpoint to this tale. Besides the negatives, I did enjoy the overall story, the compelling cast of characters, and the multi-faceted mysteries were capably handled from start to finish.
Note that according to the author, though there are seven surviving paladins, these are the only four stories she intends to write (well, Wren is a paladin and a good chunk of her story was told in this last book, so perhaps we can say five stories were told within the four books, leaving potentially two untold), though further entries aren't out of the realm of possibility in the future. I expect Kingfisher didn't initially anticipate writing more than a trilogy with The Saint of Steel but Marguerite probably got a lot of requests for a story of her own. I for one would have felt disappointed without finding out what happened to her after Book 1.
To sum up, if you're looking for something unusual and unconventional in your romance reading, this series is certainly worth your time. Beware the teenager apprehension you'll get around every corner between the couples, but, alas, that's what audiobooks and fast-forward buttons are for.
Karen Wiesner is an award-winning,
multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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