Paladin's Faith

by T. Kingfisher

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 449
Series: The Saint of Steel #4
Rating:

Synopsis:

Marguerite Florian is a spy with two problems: a former employer wants her dead, and one of her new bodyguards is a far too good-looking paladin with a martyr complex. Shane is a paladin with three problems: his god is dead, his client is much too attractive for his peace of mind and a powerful organisation is trying to have them both killed. Add in a brilliant artificer with a device that may change the world, a glittering and dangerous court and demon-led cult, and Shane and Marguerite will be lucky to escape with their souls intact, never mind their hearts...

I was really hoping T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Faith would pick up the threads from Paladin’s Hope — you know, that epilogue! It did reference it, but the impact was relatively low, and instead Marguerite, Shane and Wren are teaming up to handle some courtly intrigue, maybe help get a world-changing invention out there, and of course, fall in love and feel intensely guilty about it (in Shane’s case, at least).

As ever, Kingfisher’s paladins are all running pretty much the same software, and Shane’s particularly self-hating. It took me a bit to gel with him as a character because of his intense self-doubt, but… I stopped noticing it so much partway through the story, so it did even out a bit. I wasn’t as into the relationship between him and Marguerite, but that also felt somewhat less of the focus than in other books.

There’s a lot going on here with the courtly intrigue, and I wouldn’t want to do too many spoilers, but I did get really into this after about 20-25%. There’s a fun cameo from the Clockwork Boys books, there’s some more stuff about how the gods work, a really epic moment for Shane…

And at the end, well, there’s another epilogue with an “oh shit” moment. Less so than Paladin’s Hope, because I wasn’t as invested in what happens there, but… yeah. I really wish there were more books now.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)