Swordheart

by T. Kingfisher

November 27, 2018 · Red Wombat Studio

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Swordheart was originally published in 2018. Luckily for me, Tor is republishing it with a gorgeous cover and pretty green edges, so I have an excuse to review it. I was charmed by the characters and the dialogue, but less so by the fact that the book Would. Not. End. for the longest time.

The book opens with Halla, our heroine, a 36-year-old, slightly stout widow, being locked in a room by her relatives, who want to force her into marriage with a man who Halla detests. It’s an inheritance thing. Her uncle (whose house she is locked in) was a collector of antiquities, so when Halla decides to end it all, she spots an old sword and considers how best to fall upon it (it’s harder than it sounds, apparently).

When she pulls the sword free of the scabbard, a man appears. His name is Sarkis, and he is trapped in the sword for all eternity and must serve whomever draws it. There was a magical curse long ago, it’s a whole thing. So now he is pledged to Halla’s service and rather confused as to how to help her solve the inheritance drama without killing all of her relatives (she’s against it).

Swordheart has a strong sense of place and exists in a clearly carefully built world, but the plot is fairly lightweight.

Will Halla get her inheritance back?

Will she have to marry that creepy guy with clammy hands?

Will Sarkis resolve his whole sword problem in some kind of satisfactory way?

Will Halla and Sarkis stop staring at each other and have sex already?

As a reader who has read T. Kingfisher’s horror novels, I’m aware that she is fully capable of wreaking havoc on her characters, but this book does not have a horror vibe. It is more of a “Everything will be fine, luv, why don’t you sit down and have a cuppa” vibe. This is not, overall, a high-stress or high-stakes book, despite having some stressful and violent scenes. I was never in doubt of a happy outcome.

What makes this book delightful is the attention to fine characterization and dry, witty dialogue. Halla, Sarkis, and their companions Zale and Brindle are finely realized and developed characters who are given time and space to develop their relationships with each other. Every new plot development shines because of the authenticity that the characters bring to each challenge. Every conversation is a delight.

I especially enjoyed the attention paid to Halla’s survival tactic of befuddling her enemies by appearing to be foolish and/or ‘emotional.’ This tactic is fully validated and is highly entertaining to see in action. Indeed, for every time that Sarkis is forced to save the day through violence, there are many more in which Halla and Zale accomplish goals and avoid confrontation by using their wits. It’s not just fun to read, it’s also gratifying to see how a woman with very little resources is able to weaponize her opponents’ assumptions. Halla isn’t the first woman to do so and won’t be the last and it’s lovely to see these kinds of tactics get some recognition.

The romance between Halla and Sarkis is lovely, but honestly I felt that Sarkis and Halla were so clearly established to be perfect for each other with their very first conversation that I never worried about them. If not for literary convention they could have been married by Chapter Three and I’d not have batted an eye. Halla’s optimism and matter-of-fact approach to the world balances nicely with Sarkis’s “kill it with fire” jaded and cynical approach to life, and he does a good job of keeping her focused and not dead. If you are looking for steamy sex, you won’t get much of it – I’d say this book is around a PG-13, maybe a soft R at one point.

This book did lose a lot of points with me for having a completely out-of-character fight towards the end. We’ve been leading up to a big secret, but honestly it’s not that terrible of a secret and it refers to something that happened centuries ago. I do not believe that Halla would be upset by this revelation. We have to waste many, many, many chapters on the repercussions of Halla’s out-of-character and illogical reaction to this secret.

For most of the book, Halla and Sarkis travel in a cart pulled by an ox. We are frequently reminded that “An ox is slow.” So is the pace of the book. I was fine with that for much of the journey. All of the characters got to know one another, romance had a chance to develop, and enough things happened along the way to keep me entertained. I regret to inform you, however, that this book has a terrible case of ending fatigue, as referenced above. Even I, patient as an ox, felt that maybe the book could have ended several chapters before it actually does.

I went into this book blind and didn’t realize that it is part of a larger series. I thought it worked fine as a stand-alone, although I can see that some additional world-building would have been useful. For T. Kingfisher completists, it sits between the Clockwork Boys Duology and the Paladin series in the world of the Temple of the White Rat. Whether you enjoy this as an audio, an ebook, or a shiny new copy with pretty edges, I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did. I try not to guess at the author’s motives when writing on this site, but perhaps I can get away with it just once. I like to think that the book is too long simply because the author enjoyed the characters as much as I did and did not want to say goodbye.