Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

Paladin's Grace (The Saint of Steel Book 1) by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)
Paladin's Strength (The Saint of Steel Book 2) by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)

Paladin's Grace
This would have been the best book I read in a long time if I hadn't read Clockwork Boys and The Wonder Engine right before it. The problem is the author used a lot of the same narrative beats in both stories. For example:

In Clockwork Boys/Wonder Engine, the female main character was described repeatedly as a "brown wren", plain, easily overlooked.

In Paladin's Grace, the female main character was described repeatedly as a "grey mouse", plain, easily overlooked.

In Clockwork Boys/Wonder Engine, the male main character was a paladin full of guilt. Beautiful to look at, a perfect body, but crippled by guilt because his god had turned His back on him.

In Paladin's Grace, the male main character was a paladin full of guilt. More muscular than almost any other man, a perfect body, but crippled by sorrow because his god had died... and guilt because as characters repeatedly say through all these books, paladins are always full of guilt. It's their main defining trait in this world (because they try to be perfect all the time).

Both had the same in-story barriers to the romance (in both stories, the paladin said "stupid" (awkward) things that hurt the woman by mistake).

If I hadn't read Paladin's Grace immediately after Clockwork Boys/Wonder Engine, I think I would have enjoyed the romance part a heck of a lot more. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the story or the romance, I read the book in three days (and it's nearly double the length either Clockwork Boys or Wonder Engine were, I read each of those in two days).

Like those two other books, this book had plenty of plot, though in this case it took more of a backseat to the romance. Lots of things happened, but the focus seemed to be more on the romance.

Interesting. An amazon review said:

"The couple in Paladin's Grace and the couple in Swordheart [a third book by this author set in the same world] felt, for a while, like they were exactly the same couple under different names"

So I guess it's not just me, it's something the author does (probably unknowingly).

Issues aside, I really, really enjoyed this book. Between this one and the two previous ones, I've been taking so many extra hours out of my day to read. I had to go shopping today, and all I could do was thinking about getting back home so I could read more.

Paladin's Strength
Take everything I said about Paladin's Grace and repeat it here, only worse.

I wonder if the author realizes that she all of her relationships are the same from book to book? Or as a Goodreads review described them, "samey".

Two characters meet, fall in love. Then they spend most of the book both saying "I love him/her, but we can't be together because of X" where X is always a stupid misunderstanding. The. Whole. Book. Clockwork Boys/Wonder Engine both did it. Paladin's Grace did it. And Paladin's Strength did it.

I was happy to see comments about it on Goodreads, so I know it's not just me.

Paladin's Strength was even worse than the first book, because somehow the female main character/love interest was boring. How could a 6+ foot tall werebear be boring? And the male main character/love interest was even worse. In book 1 he had been funny, but the few jokes he told in this book weren't funny at all.

I'm sad to say I didn't enjoy this one, and basically forced myself not to DNF it. By the halfway point I was just skimming over all the angsting (which was most of the book). What plot there was around the romance didn't interest me, since I didn't care about any of the characters involved.

I have the third book, Paladin's Hope, on my Kindle already, and another book by the same author and set in this same world (Swordheart) as well, but I'm going to move on to something else instead. I can't take more of this same relationship. Maybe by the time I get back to these books I will have forgotten how the romance goes in all these books.