Book Review : Swordheart

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher
Series: The World of the White Rat
Published by Bramble on February 25, 2025
Buy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Bookshop.org
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Source: NetGalley

Halla is a housekeeper who has suddenly inherited her great-uncle's estate... and, unfortunately, his relatives. Sarkis is an immortal swordsman trapped in a prison of enchanted steel. When Halla draws the sword that imprisons him, Sarkis finds himself attempting to defend his new wielder against everything from bandits and roving inquisitors to her own in-laws... and the sword itself may prove to be the greatest threat of all.

I am pretty sure I’ve said this exact thing before, but I’ll say it again—I’m a simple girl, when I see a book by T. Kingfisher, I have to read it. Swordheart, a fantasy romance which features a blossoming love between a bodyguard (who also happens to be an enchanted sword), and a widow, is no exception to my Kingfisher reading rule. Like all of Kingfisher’s works, Swordheart shows off her enchantingly unique blend of whimsy and darkness. However Swordheart sacrifices substance for style and I found it didn’t really work for me as well as some of the author’s other works, like the darling and utterly magical A Sorceress Comes to Call.

Swordheart introduces readers to the main character, Halla, as her last remaining relative, the eccentric Silas, dies and bequeaths his entire estate to her. This would be fantastic if it weren’t for his grasping, clammy-handed relatives, who are trying to force her into marrying her cousin in order to keep the fortune in the family. Desperate to escape their clutches, Halla ponders suicide, unsheathing a ceremonial sword in the hopes of falling upon it, only to find that it’s enchanted. This magic sword is inhabited by a warrior named Sarkas, who is not only adamantly opposed to her committing suicide, but also vows to protect her as his new wielder.

 

“It was one thing to remove a woman from a house she very much did not wish to be in. It was another to become a fugitive in a strange land within an hour of meeting.”

I really liked that Halla is an older female main character—a woman in her mid-thirties. Not only is this my own age range, but I feel like it’s very rare to read a fantasy novel featuring, let alone centering on, a female protagonist outside of her teens or twenties. I also delighted in the fact that Halla was open about not wanting children and that Swordheart sees this as a positive thing, instead emphasizing everything else that the woman had to offer.

Despite this great representation of an older woman besmirching societal norms, there is not a whole lot of depth to Halla or any of the other characters. Sarkas, Halla, and the rest of the cast, including a non-binary priest named Zale, feel more like archetypes than actual fleshed out characters with complex motivations. Unfortunately this lack of development meant that the romance also fell flat for me. I wasn’t at all convinced that Sarkas and Halla would have fallen for one another if they found themselves meeting in any other situation and couldn’t help but to feel that their relationship bordered on insta-lust, which is something I don’t personally care for except in small doses.

 

“Respectable widows certainly did not sleep in the arms of their guardsmen, but Sarkis was an enchanted sword, so that didn’t count, did it?”

Plus, their relationship is very basic overall. It boils down to a burly sword warrior who can show Halla, a poor, innocent sex-starved widow with large breasts and childbearing hips, what being with a real man is like. It is a little hard to believe that Halla, a woman in her mid-thirties who has been married before, is so innocent and inexperienced, but here we are, needing a man to introduce her to the mere concept of pleasure. That cringiness aside, I also didn’t enjoy that Swordheart relies on contrived miscommunications for drama.

But to be honest, much of the plot of Swordheart requires some suspension of disbelief. The novel is basically a giant road trip that simply involves the characters just travelling back and forth and dealing with whatever mishaps, magic or not, they encounter along the way. Making matters worse  is the lack of world-building. Swordheart takes place in a world that was already established in other of Kingfisher’s works, so people that have already read that book might see the world-building a little differently than I, a person who hasn’t read the other works, do. I found the framework for the world to be incredibly vague, and the fantasy elements definitely take a backseat to the romance as well, just like the plot.

I really had trouble staying interested in the novel, especially after about the 40% mark. Though Swordheart is a light book, I had trouble staying focused due to the sheer amount of banter and outright silliness. I wish there had been a bit more of a balance between the whimsy and gravity. Even the most tense moments of Swordheart are filled with the flair for the ridiculous, which made it hard for me to take anything seriously. This balance is something that Kingfisher accomplishes with aplomb in Nettle & Bone, in my opinion.

 

“‘He collects rare antiquities. I am, by definition, a rare antiquity.’
‘Oh. Hmm. You Think he’d want to collect you?’

Sarkis shrugged, then remembered she couldn’t see it. ‘He might.’

‘But you’re a person.’

‘A fact that stops surprisingly few people.'”

 

Around 80% of the way through Swordheart, a confrontation takes place between Sarkis and Halla that feels incredibly forced and ridiculous. The entire novel centers around the theme that Halla is different than other wielders of Sarkis’s sword and that she seems him as an actual person, just to toss it out in the eleventh hour for some cheap drama. How they deal with this is also incredibly frustrating and at this point, I was determined to get to the end of the novel as quickly as possible.

After reading a ton of T. Kingfisher’s novels, I am finding that some of her books really work for me, and that others just don’t resonate with me. This is okay because even when the novels aren’t my favorite, I always enjoy the unique story and humor that Kingfisher brings to the table. Swordheart unfortunately falls into the latter category for me, and I much prefer other works of hers, like Nettle & Bone, The Twisted Ones, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, and Illuminations. For fans of her wanting to read a romance, I recommend reading Bryony and Roses.

 

 

 
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