Paladin's Faith is the fourth book in award winning fantasy author T Kingfisher's (aka Ursula Vernon) Saint of Steel series of fantasy romances. For those who have not read the series before, the series is a series of stand alone fantasy romances, each of which follows one of seven Paladins who once served the god known as the "Saint of Steel" as the god's berserkers....until the god mysteriously died and all but those seven Paladins went mad and had to be cut down. Each book features a different Paladin, who all have been taken in by Kingfisher's amazingly great religion, the Temple of the White Rat, as they meet up with a different romantic partner in an adventure and, despite their own traumas (and those of their partners), manage to find love in a very slow-burn (sometimes infuriatingly so) but occasionally steamy romance. And through the first three books they've all been incredibly good - they contain Vernon/Kingfisher's amazing wit and creative imagination and incredible dialogue as well as characters who just really sing and have incredibly chemistry together (and deal with serious themes as well in these books, like justice, trauma, abuses of power, and more). Paladin's Grace, the first such book, is one of my favorite romances ever, so yeah I was super excited to tear through this fourth book in the series.
Paladin's Faith is another pretty good book in this series, even if it's probably my least favorite of the four books (which mind you, isn't a condemnation given how much I love books 1-3). Our non-Paladin protagonist, Marguerite, is the spy we last saw in book 1 (Paladin's Grace) and she is tremendously fun to follow as she does spy things in an attempt to well....destabilize the world's economy to prevent a shipping magnate from continuing its agenda to have her killed. The other protagonist however, Paladin Shane, didn't quite appeal to me as much as the other 3 Paladin protagonists - Shane's big thing is guilt and a lack of belief in his own self worth due to having been first denied by a different god and then having gone through the death of the one god who did take him up. Shane's arc is totally fine, and the chemistry between the two of them works, but he's the most stiff-necked Paladin so far and that wasn't quite as much fun for me...but it probably will be for other people, and the romance still works pretty damn well. More specifics after the jump:
Note: As I said above, each of the books in this series is stand alone and can be read without having read the other books, but the books do reference events that have gone on in prior books so readers who started from the beginning will have a small advantage. This book in particular features as a protagonist a major side character from Paladin's Grace, so starting here will make you miss some context: you'll be okay doing so, but Paladin's Grace is fantastic so I'd still recommend you start there if you have the choice.
Plot Summary:
Three years ago Marguerite took steps to help her friend Grace and the seven remaining Paladins of the Saint of Steel, who now work for the Temple of the White Rat, not get killed as the seven of them found themselves on the wrong side of a political assassination plot. And then she ran, leaving Grace behind, so as to not get the only person left she actually cared about killed by the killers she had just realized were still on her tail. What she didn't know then was who was behind the assassins hunting her...and now that she does know the killers are working on behalf of a powerful merchant fleet company known as the Red Sail, Marguerite realizes that her only chance of survival is to destroy the Red Sail itself. And for that, Marguerite regretfully knows she needs help....help she can only get from the Paladins and the White Rat itself.
Since the Saint of Steel died, Shane has served the White Rat as best as one can as a kind of lost berserker paladin. Unlike his fellow Paladins, Shane has always been the strong, silent and handsome type - well he'd be handsome if not for his hideous beard - and he tends to keep his own inner thoughts to himself. And what those inner thoughts tell him frequently is how unworthy he is, as a person who was first rejected for service by the Dreaming God and then was cast adrift when the god who did chose him died mysteriously. And so when Bishop Beartongue of the White Rat assigns him and another Paladin (Wren) to work with Marguerite in rescuing an artificer who can upend the global economy, Shane finds himself beset with worry about whether he is truly the one who should be handling such a job. It doesn't help that Marguerite is clearly beautiful and he can't stop having feelings of want towards her, or that her methods of getting things done involve Court intrigue such as eavesdropping, politiquing, thieving, and full-on seduction.
Marguerite meanwhile is just as attracted to Shane, but finds the stoic Paladin incredibly hard to read or to make crack a smile. But when her spywork finds what she's looking for and once again puts her, Shane, and Wren on the run, the two of them will need to figure out how to deal with each other quickly, or they could meet a very permanent end...
Every Paladin romance book in this series features the story alternating perspectives between its two romantic partners, in this case Shane and Marguerite, as the story goes on, so we get to see how the two of them begin to pine for one another as things go to hell around them, and this book is no exception (in fact, in a series first I think, this book actually includes a few segments from the perspectives of two other Paladins before the epilogue). Usually that results in a very often infuriating slow burn romance, as we see two characters who are very attracted to one another but who both cannot spit it out and who both are very afraid to either make the first move or don't think the other person could possibly feel the same way towards the other. And well this book definitely does the slow-burn bit, although the guilt and confusion on this one is entirely one-sided perhaps for the first time.
For Marguerite is a very different type of protagonist than any of our six prior protagonists: she's confident in her own abilities and worth and where she has doubts that's mainly in whether her desperate plot is achievable without getting killed because it's a desperate plot, not because she's incapable of pulling it off. Marguerite is an operative who knows what she's doing: whether that be kibbitzing with other operatives and court folk; knowing what persons are worth talking to, aren't worth talking to, or are too dangerous to be involved with; and in doing what it takes to get the information she needs. That includes doing things that might be considered immoral to others, like breaking in, blackmailing, or openly using her sexuality to seduce targets (and even to drug them before they might go too far sexually). Marguerite is attracted to Shane and her lack of bedding him isn't due to prudishness (although she can certainly be emotionally hurt once she grows to care for him) as much as practicality and her own being unsure of what Shane is really thinking and whether he actually wants it - once they get their heads together TO want it, she's a driving force in a way other prior protagonists haven't been and it's a lot of fun to read. She's great, basically is what I'm saying, both as a propeller of the plot and as a romantic partner.
Shane on the other hand...kind of feels similar to some of the other Paladin protagonists - he's a guilt-ridden man who struggles with his own self-worth without the god inside him. It's not the exact type of guilt as the other Paladins - both Galen and Stephen for example struggled with their inability to control their own berserker rage, whereas Shane actually has as much control as any of the Paladins. Shane's feeling of unworthiness stems from his growing up trying to become one of the Dreaming God's warriors - the Paladins who fight demons and look gorgeous and handsome - and being rejected by the Dreaming God...only to be accepted by the Saint of Steel before the Saint's demise left him once again driftless. That combination of events has left Shane with the incredible ability to use his voice as a means of authority or comfort - both to hamper demons and to command or comfort humans, depending upon the situation, which is an incredible talent that really makes him alluring to Marguerite. On the other hand, it also makes him less prone to smiling or making jokes and really dour, like a more stern and less fun version of Stephen. He's written...well, but well, he's also just kind of uninteresting to me in comparison to his brethren, especially the two other paladins who get part of the spotlight here: Wren (who gets a major role) and Judith (whom we've basically never seen before and gets a part in this book's ending).
Again these are really minor complaints and ones of personal taste, and even with me not caring too much for Shane there's a ton of fun here. The chemistry between him and Marguerite is great, especially the romance, the side characters are excellent as is the plot, and there's a lot of trademark T Kingfisher weirdness that makes this series remain super unique. There's even lots of callbacks to the first works in this universe, the Clocktaur Wars duology! It's a fun fantasy romance, is what i'm saying, even if it's not the one I'm likely to reread in this series.
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