“I’m sorry,” said Piper. He wanted to apologize for all humans everywhere, even knowing how foolish and futile and self-centred it was, but it would do no good. And what right do I have to inflict my need for absolution on him? “What can we do?”

After flying through Paladin’s Strength in three days, I had to get back into this world as quickly possibly, with Paladin’s Hope, the third book in T. Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel series. I don’t know what Kingfisher has laced these books with but it’s safe to say I am hooked. I can’t put them down.

Grace followed paladin Stephen, and Strength followed Istvhan; Hope has followed the pattern and picked up the tale with a side character from Strength, Galen. Hope is set some months after the events of Strength, and Galen has returned to the Temple of the White Rat in Archenhold to discover that Bishop Beartongue has been shaking things up in the city, and in doing so has planted the seeds of dissent between the City Guard and the Temple, and by association, the paladins. I had wondered where the series would go now the previous murder mystery had been solved, but Kingfisher clearly isn’t short on plot ideas for her intricate world, and Galen is sent to advise when bodies begin to be washed up from the river. Also involved in this investigation are the gnole Earstripe, and the quietly handsome and graceful lich doctor Piper.

Paladin’s Hope is a much slimmer book compared to its two predecessors, and I felt this quite keenly in just how quickly Galen and Piper fell for each other. I’d enjoyed the build up in the other two books of the characters discovering their feelings for each other, coming to terms with their inner issues and dismantling their inner walls to allow themselves to be liked in return. Hope was very different in that feelings, and events in general, escalate quite quickly. Kingfisher packs a lot into this slimmer tome, so by necessity the slow burn getting-to-know each other is absent and instead, Galen and Piper are forced to rely upon each other in a dangerous life-or-death situation before one can say yay this one’s a queer romance this time! Having said that, there’s still plenty of misunderstanding, Galen still throws a paladin poody/paddy (“I’m not good enough and I’ll just hurt him etc”), they fall out, they kiss and make up… Incidentally, I loved Piper so much and the way he dealt with Galen’s rebuttal. He’s a “you will never see what this costs me” kind of person, and I relate hard to that. He has plenty of strength, but it’s got this brittle feel to it, like he could be dying from internal bleeding and you’d never know.

Despite feeling that this was a shorter book and so things felt rushed as a result, there was still a great deal that went on in terms of a new murder mystery, socio-political issues in Archenhold, and a glimpse into the history of this world that readers of Kingfisher’s previous books might be more familiar with than what I was. Her storytelling is such that I didn’t feel I’d had to read those books previously to this one though. In fact, I wouldn’t think you’d need to read the previous Paladin books to pick this one up either. We see a lot more of the gnole community this time round, and there were plenty of interesting commentaries surrounding prejudice and privilege, the difficulties Earstripe faces because he is a different species, and Galen and Piper’s attempts to challenge their privileges and learn how to respectfully communicate. These are the kinds of issues that are applicable to so many different groups of people (race, neurodiverse, disabilities, gender, sexuality), I thought it was clever therefore that Kingfisher chose to represent them through speciesism, and so widen the scope of allegory.

All told, as much as I enjoyed Paladin’s Hope, it didn’t quite hit the same notes for me as Grace and Strength. There was still plenty to love, there’s plenty of action and spice to keep you turning the pages, and it was wonderful to have a non-hetero relationship represented in this series of courtships and romance. If you like forced proximity, I can’t exist without you kind of romances, and I have to have you now because we could be dead tomorrow kind of spice, then this one is definitely for you!

Paladin’s Hope is available now, you can order your copy HERE