soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2021-10-22 07:54 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2021-10-22 07:54 pm
Paladin's Hope, by T. Kingfisher
Latest in Kingfisher's series of paladin romances! I love the worldbuilding in this series, and I always love Kingfisher's no-nonsense characters who do the things that need to be done. So even though paladins aren't my jam, this was an auto-buy for me, as Kingfisher under any name always is (except when she writes horror).
In a pleasant turn of events, this is an m/m romance, so I didn't have to deal with more paeans to the attractiveness of large breasts, lol. Kingfisher does continue to be a very allosexual writer of romances regardless though, with her characters evincing strong sexual attraction to each other's physical appearance before they even know each other (and also after). It continues to be a fascinating (and uncomfortable) look into a very different experience of the world than mine.
Anyway!
I love mortician Piper, and I continue to love the gnoles and how different their culture is from humans, and I love the weird horrible trap that they all have to navigate (and the things it says about the ancients!), and the not so subtle hints about how corrupt police organizational structures will eventually affect even decent people who join it, and.....I continue to just barely tolerate Kingfisher's obsession with paladins. And unfortunately yet another paladin is the other half of the romance, and I had to suffer through his enormous weight of guilt and self-flagellation which all of Kingfisher's paladins have in spades. SIGH. Hanging a lampshade on the paladins' tendency towards needless guilt does not actually make it any more interesting to read about, imo!
The OTHER thing is that the epilogue ends with a CLIFFHANGER, dangling tantalizing new information about the dead god and sharing NONE of it, and dangit I really need this series to continue asap because the through-line about the dead god is riveting even if the paladins aren't.
In a pleasant turn of events, this is an m/m romance, so I didn't have to deal with more paeans to the attractiveness of large breasts, lol. Kingfisher does continue to be a very allosexual writer of romances regardless though, with her characters evincing strong sexual attraction to each other's physical appearance before they even know each other (and also after). It continues to be a fascinating (and uncomfortable) look into a very different experience of the world than mine.
Anyway!
I love mortician Piper, and I continue to love the gnoles and how different their culture is from humans, and I love the weird horrible trap that they all have to navigate (and the things it says about the ancients!), and the not so subtle hints about how corrupt police organizational structures will eventually affect even decent people who join it, and.....I continue to just barely tolerate Kingfisher's obsession with paladins. And unfortunately yet another paladin is the other half of the romance, and I had to suffer through his enormous weight of guilt and self-flagellation which all of Kingfisher's paladins have in spades. SIGH. Hanging a lampshade on the paladins' tendency towards needless guilt does not actually make it any more interesting to read about, imo!
The OTHER thing is that the epilogue ends with a CLIFFHANGER, dangling tantalizing new information about the dead god and sharing NONE of it, and dangit I really need this series to continue asap because the through-line about the dead god is riveting even if the paladins aren't.