Paladin's Faith: 11/20/24

Paladin's Faith by T. Kingfisher (2023) is the fourth book in the Saint of Steel fantasy romance series. Marguerite Florian is a spy who needs to get the Red Sail off her back. To do this she plans to infiltrate the next meeting and devalue the price of salt. To accomplish this she needs help from the White Rat in the form of two paladins: Wren and Shane.

Although Shane and Marguerite are the destined pair for this novel, Marguerite and Wren have so much more chemistry. I feel that Wren, the minor noble turned berserker paladin gets short shrift in this piece. She is by far the more nuanced of the paladins.

Shane is a shaggy himbo who has let himself go because he's still hurt over his chosen god forsaking him and his second god dying. As introduced, he's grown a massive beard that looks like some creature has died on his face. He cleans up for the trip, meaning a shave and a haircut, and he's really good at the Voice.

Mostly Shane is there to look pretty while being protective. He apologizes for everything. He can also provide healing when needed and he can persuade an entire room of folks to do his bidding. But for 80% of the book he's there wondering why he's there, oscillating between jealousy and shame in regards to Marguerite.

The story itself feels bloated. First there's the long trip to get to the conference. I get it, walking and riding takes time. There's the potential for danger along the way. But given how much court intrigue (think Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) in a fantasy setting), it would have been better to jump right into the thick of things.

The court intrigue, though, is also slow to rev up. There are a lot of scenes of both paladins being awkward in their roles but still managing to find things out. There's Marguerite thinking long and hard about her life as a spy.

Throughout all of this is the story that I think T. Kingfisher actually wanted to tell but maybe didn't have enough content to get there. Or maybe the author felt that it would be too similar to other books in the series. Anyway, in the gossip floating around, there's a demon who is jumping from person to person and wreaking havoc. Unfortunately this page turner of a plot doesn't come into focus until the last third or so of the novel.

Like the other books in the series, this one sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. As with the third book, this one has privileged travelers (00). Their ultimate destination is the wild lands (99) (to confront the demon). Their route there is the labyrinth (99) as represented by the transformation that Shane goes through during the battle to contain the demon.

Three stars

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