Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher

11 reviews

ritabriar's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I adore how Istvhan and Clara are built for each other, how their deep, dark secret flaws are exactly what makes them perfect for each other. As always, the main characters are kind and humorous. Sigrid, Galen, and Brindle are all vibrant and each charming in their own way. 

The story is a quest and a mystery braided together with a romance on a road trip. It really has everything.

We get to visit a new city, with problems the Temple of the White Rat

can't really solve, but tries to manage anyway.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Sexual content, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Mental illness, Murder, Blood, Grief, Slavery, Body horror, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Trafficking, Xenophobia, Animal cruelty, and Violence

Minor: Body horror, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, and Animal death

There are gladiatorial pits and a

group of women

forcibly taken to them. Creepy dolls make an appearance, in a way, associated with the

return of the smooth men

.

ariep's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I loved loved loved this book! I love the way T. Kingfisher writes, and I think her characters are so fun. The dialogue is spectacular, and the voice actor for this audiobook is a new favorite of mine. I loved how mysterious, adventurous, and often wholesome this story was! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to reading the next one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Murder, Sexual content, Confinement, Death, Grief, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Classism, Violence, Kidnapping, and Trafficking

maryellen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

My God, but I love this series so much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Blood, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Murder, Sexual content, Animal death, Body horror, Grief, Death, and Kidnapping

astropova's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Animal cruelty, Grief, Kidnapping, and Murder

Minor: Sexual content

marsh_mall0w's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Kidnapping, and Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Grief, and Infertility

Minor: Vomit and Animal death

booksthatburn's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Clara is on the trail of her abducted sisters, and Istvhan is tracking a very strange pattern of headless corpses. They meet abruptly when Clara helps Istvhan navigate a cross-cultural social situation with the potential to go very badly for everyone involved. It turns out they need to go in roughly the same direction, and Clara joins Istvhan's traveling party while she tries to get word of her sisters. Most of the story revolves around the various obstacles in their journey, and the growing rapport between the two of them. The interactions are complicated at times as they're not sure how interested the other person is or how far they can be trusted. Clara, especially, has a lot of reason not to trust anyone with her secrets as they're not hers alone.

Istvhan was a secondary character in PALADIN'S GRACE, and his mission is related to the murderous and undead-adjacent "smooth men" Stephen encountered briefly there. This serves to wrap up that storyline, possibly completely, but it remains to be seen whether there will be further related incidents in later books. I enjoyed the brief anecdote from Istvhan as to more developments in Stephen and Grace's relationship. There's a new storyline related to Clara and her kidnapped sisters of St. Ursa, as well as the romance between Istvhan and Clara. This isn't the last book in the series, but because it appears that each book with have a different protagonist, it's pretty wide open as to what might be open enough to be picked up later. The one thing I can say for certain is there are five more paladins of the Saint of Steel who can be protagonists, and that the White Rat will continue to be relevant. Beyond that, these books are gradually filling in a whole world, and it's open enough that it doesn't feel like anything in particular was left for later, other than the march of time and that people will continue to need help that can be given by broken paladins of a dead god with their shiny swords.

Istvhan feels like he did in the first book, albeit having been filtered through Grace and Stephen's perceptions of him. Clara is an entirely new protagonist. Istvhan and Clara both have secrets they're keeping, and good reasons to be concerned that the other person might not want to stick around once they know. The romance is a slow burn, as even after they start to be physically intimate they don't know if the other person will stay interested once they know more of what's going on. 

This would make sense to someone who started here without reading any other books in the world of the White Rat, let alone in The Saint of Steel series particularly, but the loose collection of the White Rat are building a world with each new story, and a few side details will be more impactful for someone who has already read PALADIN'S GRACE, in particular. Sometimes these little details double as updates about characters met elsewhere, other times they just contribute to the reader's growing knowledge of their shared setting. However, the main story and most of the side threads will be understandable and have much of their poignancy for someone who picks this up without knowledge of the other books. 

I love the gladiator sequence towards the end. It's a tangle of plans, interruptions, and hoping things go well long enough for them to pull off something just shy of a miracle under terrible conditions. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Excrement, Murder, Gore, Body horror, Suicide, Sexual content, Grief, Blood, Death, Confinement, and Child death

Moderate: Mental illness, Torture, Alcohol, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Minor: Medical content, Cannibalism, Vomit, Genocide, Pregnancy, and Slavery

wilybooklover's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

4.5

 I think I have a bit of a crush on Clara after reading this book. She’s such a badass! 

T. Kingfisher has a real knack for describing desirable characters that don’t fall into the usual ‘gorgeous and chiselled’ romance character archetypes. Not just the women, but the men as well. Her characters are older, less conventional looking, maybe even have a little bit of fat padding their bodies, but they find each other sexy all the same. It’s so refreshing and I love it. I also loved that both Istvhan and Clara had sexual pasts and were unapologetic about it. 

I did think that it dragged a little bit in the middle. This book is longer than the previous one and it felt like it at times. But the plots of Clara’s missing sister-nuns and the smooth men were engaging, and it was really interesting to see how they tied together. As always, T. Kingfisher balances the contrast of humour and sweet romance with creepy horror perfectly. 

Overall, another winner in the Saint of Steel series and once again I’m dying to dive into the next book.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Murder, Sexual content, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Gore, Grief, Slavery, Torture, and Trafficking

Minor: Abandonment and Infertility

notthatlibrarian's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Kidnapping, and Grief

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Slavery

buttermellow's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Kidnapping

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, and Violence

Minor: Vomit

bookbuzzard's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Another classic 'A sad paladin meets a strong woman and they each think the other doesn't want them so they spend an awful lot of time staring longingly at each other while on a long journey before they finally confess their feelings, and also a gnoll is there' from T. Kingfisher, but I love it so much. She knows what I crave and she delivers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Violence, Trafficking, Torture, Kidnapping, Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Gore, Murder, Death, Physical abuse, Cursing, Confinement, Body horror, Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, and Slavery

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Abandonment, Colonisation, Antisemitism, and Vomit

Undeath Antisemitism explanation -

Enemy constructs described as 'Golems'