Paladin’s Faith by T. Kingfisher – Review

Published: December 5, 2023

Publisher: Red Wombat Studio

Series: The Saint of Steel #4

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 517 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

Synopsis:
Marguerite Florian is a spy with two problems. A former employer wants her dead, and one of her new bodyguards is a far too good-looking paladin with a martyr complex.

Shane is a paladin with three problems. His god is dead, his client is much too attractive for his peace of mind, and a powerful organization is trying to have them both killed.

Add in a brilliant artificer with a device that may change the world, a glittering and dangerous court, and a demon-led cult, and Shane and Marguerite will be lucky to escape with their souls intact, never mind their hearts…

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I am completely delighted to be returning to the world of the White Rat, this time with the fourth installment in the Saint of Steel series. We get several returning characters, most notably Marguerite Florian, spy and dear friend to Grace the perfumer from the first book, Paladin’s Grace. 

Marguerite is running for her life thanks to repeated assassination attempts by a merchant organization known as the Red Sail. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, so while the whole organization isn’t out to get her, enough people are that it’s become a serious problem. Couple this with an artificer’s invention that might destabilize the world economy, and you’ve got the set up for quite an interesting story. Marguerite needs bodyguards and who better than two paladins who can’t be bought – the achingly handsome Shane and the young and somewhat unassuming Wren. The trio go to a summer gathering of nobility called the Court of Smoke and here Marguerite will put her spying talents to their maximum effort. She’s trying to track down an artificer named Ashes Magnus, who invented a device that handily extracts salt from seawater which would completely disrupt the current trade patterns and wreck the economy. 

The Saint of Steel series is somewhat predictable in that the paladins always try to avoid falling in love (and fail abysmally) with their respective love interests and Paladin’s Faith is no different. It always comes back to their own personal brokenness and the risk of being taken by the battle tide and harming their loved ones. Though an oft repeated theme, it continues to work fairly well for me and I enjoyed this installment in the series just as much as all the previous ones. I do think this one was made more interesting thanks to the presence of Wren, who is somewhat of a little sister figure to Shane. It also breaks away from the Clay Men issue since that plot thread was resolved in the previous book if I remember correctly and moves on to some new and promising information about the Saint of Steel. 

Overall, another respectable installment in the series with spice, angst, and adventure. I can’t wait for the next one, though I can’t begin to guess which character it will follow next!