Reading Wednesday: Swordheart by T. Kingfisher

[chomiji]

After I blogged Kingfisher's Clockwork Boys, lydy recommmended Swordheart enthusiastically. Thanks, because I really enjoyed this.

Halla is a widow Of a Certain Age, well-endowed in the bosom department but otherwise not remarkable in appearance. She has been working as her late husband's great-uncle Silas' housekeeper and has learned to hide her intelligence under a mask of twitterpated idiocy, because (as she explains at one point), no one pays much attention to a stupid woman.

As the book opens, Silas has died, and he has left all his decent-sized fortune to Halla. Unfortunately, her late husband's aunt is quite sure that the house and the money should be hers instead: after all, Halla is not even a blood relation! The aunt's solution to this is that Halla should marry the aunt's moist-palmed mother's boy son, and the two barricade Halla in her room, to remain a prisoner until she submits to their plans.

One reviewer on Great Big South American River made a big deal of the fact that Halla should have simply escaped and called the law on her offensive in-laws. Clearly this person is not in touch with the lives of women in this sort of medieval setting, real or fantasy: Halla has no reason to think that such a course of action will put her anywhere but the madhouse. So she decides instead to kill herself by using the impressive sword that hangs on the wall of her room, which is overcrowded with part of Silas' collection of antiques.

After a horrifyingly funny planning session in how to use the sword on herself, Halla draws the weapon—and a scarred, heavily muscled man appears in a flash of light. This is Sarkis, the servant of the sword, and our second narrator.

Sarkis is magically bound to protect the wielder of the sword, but none of his former wielders had Halla's type of problems: Sarkis is far more used to having to make mince of dragons. Soon the two of them are off on a very strange road trip, and over time, they become more than a little fond of each other. And Halla's self-doubts and Sarkis' very dark past are every bit as much of a threat to the two of them as are the clerical inquisitors, legal entanglements, and greedy traitors they encounter along the way.

There is no getting around the fact that this is a romance, so if you are allergic to such, you have been warned.

Comments

[lauand]

Well, romance or not, be it your own style in the review or the actual plot of the story, it does sound interesting and funny.

[lydy]

It is SO FUNNY! Also moving, wrenching, entertaining, a bit horrific, and immensely affirming. It has a character who uses they pronouns, and it is done with ease and grace. Halla is the kind of protagonist you don't see often. The world is interesting and odd, and the whole thing is beautifully put together.

[lauand]

Ok, you guys are selling it really well... I'll definitely put it in my "to-read" list!

[telophase]

I adore this book.

[oracne]

That sounds EXCELLENT.

[undomielregina]

This sounds like a blast. Thanks for the review, because now I very much want to read it.