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Swordheart: A Review

New T. Kingfisher? New T. Kingfisher!

Okay, new-ish. Swordheart was first published back in 2018, but it’s getting a shiny new reprint courtesy of Tor’s Bramble imprint. So, new!

Halla doesn’t have a lot in her life. Her husband died years ago, and she’s been living in her great-uncle Silas’s home, caring for him and the household in his old age. She describes herself as a respectable widow, and while she is infinitely curious, she’s also relatively content to live has she has been.

Silas’s death changes everything. Due to Halla’s having cared for him, he left her (and her alone) all of his possessions in his will, and his other relatives are livid at the perceived slight. Her great-aunt Malva and cousin Alver vow to lock Halla up in her room until she agrees to marry Alver, so that Silas’s house and things will remain in their possession. In her desperation, Halla decides to kill herself, drawing a sword that was in Silas’s collection. Her attempt to stab herself is cut short when a man appears in the room with her. His name is Sarkis, and he is bound to the sword that she just drew. Remove the sword from the scabbard, and you can command him, a la a genie in a lamp. With a duty to protect Halla, as she is the rightful owner of the sword now that Silas has died, Sarkis sets about freeing her from her imprisonment.

After breaking out of what is, by all rights, Halla’s own house now, she and Sarkis flee the small town of Rutger’s Howe (and I can’t help thinking that T. Kingfisher is a Blade Runner fan). They set off on a journey to secure Halla’s inheritance so that she has something to bequeath to her own nieces, having no children of her own, but there are many obstacles in their path. Soon, they have to face off against brigands, lawyers, priests, and unspeakable horrors. With the assistance of Zale (a representative of the Church of the White Rat) and a gnole named Brindle, the adventurers journey from Rutger’s Howe to Archen’s Glory. They need not only to prove that Halla is the rightful heir to Silas’s house and the sword that contains Sarkis, but also solve the mystery of Sarkis’s entrapment in the sword almost 500 years prior.

And what’s an adventure in a medieval-inspired fantasy world without a little romance? This is a Bramble title, after all. Halla is a respectable widow, and Sarkis is an ancient soul bound to an iron blade. That’s not about to stop either of them from developing feelings toward each other. They might be able to eventually tell each other the truth, but truth is often more complicated than it should be. Is Halla attracted to Sarkis only because he saved her life? Is Sarkis only attracted to Halla because he’s been barely able to live as a man over the last few centuries of sword-dwelling? Is it right for a widow to fall in love with her bodyguard and vice versa?

Set in the same world as Kingfisher’s Saints of Steel series, Swordheart will delight fans who will recognize elements of Halla’s journey (and maybe several of the characters she meets along the way). For me, it was my first foray into the world of the White Rat, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Halla is delightfully disarming and has much to learn about the world outside of her small home town, while Sarkis is brusque and harsh but slowly comes to understand the people of the “decadent south” as time passes with her. The influence each has on the other is slow-building, but masterfully written. The reprinted version of Swordheart hits shelves Tuesday, February 25th. Check it out.

My utmost thanks to Tor/Reactor/Bramble and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

Thornhedge: A Review

I love fairy tales. I’ve got a special spot in my heart for Sleeping Beauty (I mean, the prince’s name in the Disney version is Philip, after all). So imagine my joy when I learned that T. Kingfisher’s newest novella, Thornhedge, was a retelling of one of my favorite fairy tales.

Thornhedge is the story of Toadling, a fairy who has a limited amount of magical ability and a very important task. There is a tower, and within that tower lies a sleeper who must never be permitted to awaken. Toadling keeps watch from a distance, ensuring that none who pass by ever realize that anything could be found at the center of the field of briars, let alone the remains of a castle. For over two hundred years, Toadling does her job. However, she underestimates the power of stories.

Stories have spread, filtering down through the generations. Stories of a lost tower, and an enchantment waiting to be broken. A young Muslim knight named Halim arrives, having heard the tales. Unlike the people who have come across the thorns before, Halim is not discouraged or distracted. Instead, he spots Toadling and recognizes her for what she is. Halim’s arrival disrupts everything that Toadling has come to know over the last centuries, and forces her to face the truth about the sleeper in the tower.

T. Kingfisher, as I have mentioned before, is an incredible writer. This is the second novella that I’ve read from her this year, and I’m absolutely thrilled to have been given the opportunity to go through Thornhedge ahead of its public release. My utmost thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. Thornhedge will be out in stores on August 15th. I hope y’all like it as much as I did.