Paladin's Hope

by T. Kingfisher

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 254
Series: The Saint of Steel #3
Rating:

Synopsis:

Piper is a lich-doctor, a physician who works among the dead, determining causes of death for the city guard's investigations. It's a peaceful, if solitary, profession... until the day when he's called to the river to examine the latest in a series of mysterious bodies, mangled by some unknown force.

Galen is a paladin of a dead god, lost to holiness and no longer entirely sane. He has long since given up on any hope of love. But when the two men and a brave gnole constable are drawn into the maze of the mysterious killer, it's Galen's job to protect Piper from the traps that await them. He's just not sure if he can protect Piper from the most dangerous threat of all...

I absolutely sped through Paladin’s Hope, perhaps because it’s fairly self-contained and feels tighter than the previous books (with a lower word-count, too). It’s a romance for Galen and Piper, who’ve both appeared in the story before, and while there’s a samey-ness to the brooding and suffering nobility of Kingfisher’s paladins, overall it was still cute and effective (and honestly I found Galen’s worries about it among the most realistic, compared to Istvhan’s and Stephen’s).

I really enjoyed the monster-of-the-week nature of this book, somehow: Piper and Galen help out a gnole, Earstripe, in trying to get to the bottom of a bunch of dead bodies that have some kind of undefinable sameness about them. In so doing, they get themselves into a trap, a labyrinth that they have to work their way out of by handling what is basically an obstacle course — and of course the close proximity stirs up the chemistry between Piper and Galen, and the situation stirs up Galen’s nightmares…

Earstripe is a great third for their merry band; we get quite a bit of time with gnoles in this one, which for people who liked The Wonder Engine should be a draw (unless you’re a monster and find them annoying or something). Piper’s scientific fascination with all kinds of things is lovely, and particularly his interest in gnole anatomy and gnole culture.

As ever, Kingfisher’s storytelling is fun and her ideas fascinating. I wasn’t very happy about that epilogue, though, just because… how could you end there?! This big mystery that’s hovered around each book, and that’s where you end this one!? Is there going to be more about this?!

Yes, I just used up my entire quota of question marks and exclamation marks for the day.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)