Book Review: Paladin's Grace

T. Kingsfisher's Paladin's Grace is not a new book (released in 2020) but it's been on my to-read list for ages. I picked up my copy on the spur of the moment, when waiting to meet with a friend, and I don't regret my choice. I read this thing in just over a day, and it only took that long because my partner objects to being ignored for a solid 24 hours.

The story is about Grace - a perfumer - and Stephen - a berserker paladin - as they get entangled in an assassination attempt and struggle to get to the bottom of a series of murders. It's somehow a cosy fantasy and a romance and a political courtroom drama and a murder mystery thriller. It shouldn't work. But somehow it does. In the author's own words:

I had it in my mind that I was going to write a fluffy romance. I am a great fan of fluffy romance. I am told that there are generally fewer severed heads and rotting corpse golems in fluffy romance.

What I loved about this book (OK, I got way too over-excited about it) is that Grace is an older FMC (easily mid-thirties) who is a little weird and unhinged, is far from perfect, and loves to wear her comfy pants around the house whilst she works. She's also obsessed with her cat.

In a fantasy book, this feels like the holy grail. I feel like I have found myself in book form. It's so rare to find an FMC who is not 18 to 21, model thin, and unfairly beautiful (but probably doesn't know it). Instead, Grace comes to the table accepting that she's older and that her past life experiences have made her a little rough around the edges. She feels like she's earned her own home and her own space and her own weird little ways, and if others can't accept this, then she doesn't have time or patience for them.

"All women are beautiful," said Istvhan, dismissing this. "It is the job of their lovers to make them feel that way if they do not already."

This is still a greatly enjoyable romance, but it's refreshing to read something that's not an insta-love. Grace and Stephen are gloriously awkward with each other, and frequently get things wrong. I hate second-hand embarrassment (it gives me the ick), but the book completely avoids that. Their awkwardness is utterly adorable.

Normal people flirt. I think. Apparently we just exchange terrible life stories.

Grace and Stephen spend the book learning to navigate their own past traumas and flaws, and to start communicating with each other. It is amazing how few fantasy books actually stress the goddamn importance of communication. You can't have a healthy relationship without it!

And then there's Stephen. He is adorably respectful of women, honourable, and lives for duty. When we first meet him, he's struggling to get out of bed, and he knits socks to help him deal with what is (ultimately) clearly depression. T. Kingfisher is not afraid to address some big themes.

Look, if you can't laugh about the homicidal fits that make you a menace to society, what's even the point?

I personally want to give Stephen a big hug. The book is beautiful, because you see him slowly reconnect with his life and friends, and learn to laugh again. Although everything is dealt with in a light-hearted way, the story is about finding hope. It's about learning to live again.

Grace's point of view is definitely refreshing and helps lift some of the darker themes; she has a habit of just getting on with things, with minimum angst-ing.

Grace had no idea what being wistful entailed, but she was pretty sure that you had to be younger and thinner and possibly have consumption.

Although I won't spoil anything, both characters have traumatic pasts they need to work through. The book's main theme is about getting back up after you're knocked down, and although both characters do so on their own, only together do they begin to figure out that their coping mechanisms might not be the only way.

In a time when everything is a lot right now, this is a really fantastic read that reminds you there's light and hope at the end of the tunnel. T. Kingfisher somehow managed to write a book that's funny and cosy and suspenseful and tackles some pretty damn big themes.

Did I immediately buy the next one in the series? Yes, yes, I did.