Book #51 of 2024: Swordheart

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher.

Quick synopsis: Halla is a woman too smart for her world. Sarkis is a man trapped in a sword. Will the two of them find love? What kind of question is that, this is a T. Kingfisher book, of course they will and in the most angsty way possible.

Brief opinion: First 80% of the book: I loved it, but the nonstop angstfest romance typical of Kingfisher's books annoyed the hell out of me. Final 20%: So stupid I wanted to toss my Kindle out a window. Overall this book left me questioning if I would ever want to read anything by her again.

Plot: Halla's (asexual) husband died, and his family is scheming to marry her off to a cousin to keep husband's money in the family. While cleaning up dead husband's things, Halla unsheathes a magical sword, summoning Sarkis, the (sexy) swordsman trapped inside it and binding him to her.

Halla and Sarkis, along with a trans priest Zale, go on adventures across the land repeatedly up and down the same road between two cities.

Various bad guys tried to steal the sword/Sarkis, her evil family makes multiple returns, all up and down the same road. Really, the whole story takes place with the three characters traveling up and down that same road through the book.

In the end there's enough angst to choke a moose, but (SPOILER!) of course Halla and Sarkis end up in bed together happy together.

Writing/editing: Technical-wise, the writing was fine and the editing was mostly good (I spotted two small editing errors). But style-wise... I love her plots and writing so much, but this author uses the SAME EXACT RELATIONSHIP in every single one of her books. "Oh he could never love me because (stupid reason)." "Oh she could never love me because (stupid reason)." So much stupid, pointless angst for hundreds of pages. Same as all of her books.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: In addition to the relationship issue mentioned above, at the 80% point of the book the author used the most stupid, contrived plot point ever. Halla, a very smart woman, finds out that 500 years ago Sarkis switched sides in a war to save his men. Not for money, not for himself, but to save men he had been working with for decades. What does Halla do? (Keeping in mind, she's already deeply in love with him by this point and he showed her how to have fun in the bedroom since her husband had been asexual.) She tossed him out. Ignoring that Sarkis had literally been killed for his "crime" (killed so that his soul could be trapped in the sword) and has been paying for that crime for literally 500 years now. It made no sense and the only purpose it served was to add more angst to the story.

While I have no issues with trans people, using they/them in a book just does not work. I really liked Zale's character, but using they/them as pronouns makes for some rough reading. (This is more a complaint about the English language than with the author or story.)

All that being said, I love this world that the author writes in. I love the religions. I love the creatures. I love the paladins. I just wish we could get some books set in it without this godawful pointless angst that is the same in Every Single Book she writes. (Seriously, do some readers actually like reading the same thing in every book?)

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: I'm so torn on what to rate this. If I rated it based on the first 80%, I might go as high as "liked", even though the romance annoyed me. But the last 20% was so pointless and bad... ⭐️⭐️ - Two stars / disliked.