Book 1 in the Swordheart Trilogy | Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 4.25/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 📖
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Swordheart yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
OPENING HOOK
I read this in just over a day, and considering the opener has our leading lady contemplating suicide, I did not expect to be laughing this hard. The banter in this book is a delight, and it’s set in the same world as the Clocktaur War duology, so if you’re a T. Kingfisher fan, you may already know what to expect.
THE FULL STORY SUMMARY — SPOILERS INCLUDED
As we begin, we meet Halla, a mid-thirties widow who has just inherited the estate of her great-uncle-by-marriage, Silas. Silas collected antiquities and the unusual, and his extended family wants every coin of it. Malva is a horrible awful person, and her son Alver, with his cold clammy hands, is her puppet. By day three of being locked in a room until she agrees to marry her late husband’s cousin (Alver), Halla has decided the only way to get the money to her young nieces instead of her late husband’s family is to take herself out of the equation. She takes the ornamental sword off the wall to do it, and as she unsheathes the sword, out pops Sarkis, a warrior of a man, just appearing out of nowhere in a flash of blue light in her locked room.
Sarkis has been trapped in that sword for 400-plus years, bound to defend whoever wields it. He can’t die permanently, because if he does he goes back into the sword, and he vanishes whenever it’s sheathed. He’s used to being drawn in battle, so he’s pretty confused to find a startled, half-dressed woman in a tiny room. She’s confused too, since (obviously) nobody expects a guy to appear out of a sword. He gets the quick rundown on her situation and decides they should just break out. He kicks down the door, or actually the whole door frame if we’re being specific, and they head for the stairs.
To the surprise of no one, things get messy. Malva’s guardsman Roderick is waiting at the bottom, and despite Sarkis trying to talk him out of the fight, Roderick says she pays well and he would like to keep his job, so they duel. In the scuffle further up the stairs, Alver lets go of Halla to save his own skin, leaving her to fall down onto Sarkis, getting him stabbed. That’s the end of Sarkis’s patience, so he stabs Roderick back and they run. Good ol’ Malva with an impressive set of lungs on her, races outside after them screaming for the constables of Rutger’s Howe. Halla knows a way to escape by the cemetery near Silas’s vigil, where they’re able to talk their way out to freedom.
From there it’s half fleeing half adventure through ditches and woods, trying to follow the roads without being seen. This world has swords, horses, oxen and wagons and a few different religious orders scattered throughout the land, but the people seem mostly peaceful. Sarkis keeps calling the region “the decadent south, with their “many gods” since he’s from the Weeping Lands with only one true God. Halla doesn’t recognize any of what he says, so it’s pretty clear his homeland in this time is no longer as he remembers.
Halla’s overall plan is to get to Archon’s Glory and present her case to the Temple of the White Rat, a religious order that also specializes in practical problem solving with legal experts. The road is full of pit stops with a short delay in Amalcross to see Silas’s old friend Bartholomew, and being robbed by a nice woman she meets at an inn who lured her to partner waiting to rob her on the edge of town. The sword comes partly unsheathed during the robbery and Sarkis pops out he tells them to get lost. There’s no real harm done, but it does give us a look into how curious and trusting Halla can be.
At the Temple they meet the priest Zale, who does their initial interview and asks for a demonstration of the sword’s magical properties. Watching Sarkis appear and disappear is a big hit, as I’m sure you can imagine, so they agree to take her case to their superior. Their superior takes over, agrees to send a priest back to handle the estate and legal issues, then separates Halla and Sarkis to ask him if he’s being mistreated and wants to be freed. She also asks Halla if she would like to sell the sword to the temple, even though Sarkis assured her she would not. Probably. It seemed like it was done with good intentions, and after everything Halla has been through it’s nice to see someone who appears to be looking out for them. While waiting for everything to be arranged, they stop by the library so Sarkis can ask the history department about his people before they head out on the return trip to Rutger’s Howe. They meet up the next day with Zale, who happens to be the priest accompanying them, and Brindle, a gnole creature who will mind the wagon and the ox (Prettyfoot is his name, and I love it). Getting back to Rutger’s Howe behind an ox that walks slower than they would be on foot is a plot and a half in itself.
The trip back is not smooth. Priests from the Hanged Mother priesthood, (the Motherhood, as they’re not-so-affectionately called) keep harassing them, trying to interrogate them and search the wagon. Through each encounter, Zale keeps their calm and reminds them they’re on White Rat business and the Motherhood has no authority over them, until Sarkis at one point reacts a bit enthusiastically and the two priests end up dead. The problem quickly goes from “why are they harassing us” to “what do we do with two bodies”. Oops. Zale is surprisingly diplomatic about the difference between sanctioning murder and recognizing that the priests were being the aggressors, so when Brindle sniffs out a pond a little off the main road, they decide to crack open the ice to slide the bodies in, hoping nobody finds them before spring. Sarkis rides the priests’ horses in the opposite direction, strips the tack off of them and lets them go, knowing the sword will pull him back to Halla when he goes too far. Theoretically, none of the evidence should point to them.
Once they’re on the trail by the pond they realize that there’s no place to turn the wagon, so they continue to follow the path through a tunnel-like spot looking for a place large enough, and quickly realize that they’re not in Kansas anymore, so to speak. It appears as though the legendary wandering Vagrant Hills have moved far off of their usual path to the south, which is strange and unexpected because the stories have never put them this far north. It isn’t long before green Rune people with deer faces and antlers show themselves and hold up a hand to stop them. A human woman comes out and asks Sarkis right away if he wants to be freed from the sword. He looks at Halla and doesn’t know if it would mean his final death, so he says no, and they’re left to continue on. Shortly after that they see weird clear jelly blobs in the trees. They’re curious about them until one drops on Sarkis and tries to ooze under his clothes and into his mouth. Halla sheathes the sword, saving him from who-knows-what, although it isn’t long before they understand when a deer being drained and puppeted/controlled by one stumbles across the road. Everyone agrees the Vagrant Hills are not to be fucked with and that they need to get their asses out of there asap. There’s weird shit in there they don’t even want to understand, and eventually they can breathe a sigh of relief when they find themselves beside the body-pond again, continuing to Amalcross.
Upon their return visit, Bartholomew has changed his tune about helping with Halla’s problem. He agrees to come to Rutger’s Howe and attest to the fact that Silas was in his right mind when the will was written six years ago. There’s another scholar there too, Nolan, which was a bit of a surprise, but they brush off his questions and don’t think much of it, since Silas and Bartholomew are so heavily into artifacts and antiques. They continue on ahead of Bartholomew and Nolan since their dear ox is painfully (but reliably) slow, and the hits keep on coming as the girl who tried to rob Halla comes back into the picture. She has told her bandit friends that Halla can wield magic that makes people invisible, since she didn’t realize Sarkis came out of the sword, bringing the bandits after Halla. Zale, Halla and Brindle get tied up, but that’s sorted out easily when one of the bandits unsheathes the sword and Sarkis is released.
Back in Rutger’s Howe, Zale kicks ass; his background as legal priest shines as he presents their case (that his client was imprisoned and improperly accused of attacking Roderick so the in-laws could take her fortune). It goes before a little council, and the verdict is given in Halla’s favour: it was witnessed and Silas was in his right mind, so everything is hers. The constables remove Malva and Alver from the house, and Bartholomew and Nolan stop by before they leave town to say goodbye. While there, Nolan recognizes the writing on the sword. He reads it aloud, and it tells the tale of the traitor Sarkis, who was imprisoned in the sword and enchanted to defend the wielder as punishment for not defending who he’d sworn allegiance to in life.
Halla’s horrified, since she thought he was a heroic defender. In a fit of anger she throws the sword on the table and yells at Sarkis that she doesn’t want the sword; he can be his own wielder. Unfortunately, that’s not how the magic works. He can’t wield it himself, so it no longer belongs to anyone as far as the magic is concerned. That works out for Bartholomew and Nolan it just so happens, since they were trying to figure out how get the sword from Halla all along, seeing as it can only be given away or claimed in death. Halla leaves to cool off, but when she comes back, she finds Malva and Alver are back. Dear Bartholomew helpfully told them he’d disposed of Sarkis so Halla was on her own again, and available for them to swoop in with the forced marriage to Alver. This ends with her being tied up alongside Zale, with Malva and Alver in control of the house again, and Bartholomew as the new wielder of the sword leaving for Amalcross. It’s a bit of a mess.
Halla and Zale have a good chat while they’re escaping and manage to get out of town racing after Bartholomew and Nolan. Well, racing isn’t quite how it works with Brindle and the ox, (it’s painfully slow, in fact) but the urgency is there. Nolan, is a priest of the Order of the Sainted Smith, a very small sect, not one of the main priesthoods, but it turns out that they want Sarkis because he’s the only person who has met their founder, the Sainted Smith, the enchantress who bound him to the sword. They want to question him, and he agrees to answer if they will send a letter to Halla. It’s a sad letter, since he doesn’t know what to write. Mostly comprised of “I’m sorry, and stay safe.”
Halla and Zale are on the road and being harassed by the Motherhood priests yet again, but this time bandits have accused them of using invisibility magic and killing their two missing priests. Everyone’s trying to pin those two bodies on somebody, and Halla helpfully points out that bandits aren’t overly trustworthy witnesses. Zale pulls the “you can’t harass us” defence again, until three paladins of the Dreaming God ride up to save the day. They’re big muscular great-looking (men and women) demon slayers in armour, and it just so happen that Halla patched one of them up at the inn earlier, so they’re pretty much best friends now (she has that effect on people). They tell the Motherhood to take off, leave their injured paladin on the wagon with Brindle and Prettyfoot, and escort Halla and Zale on a much faster ride to Amalcross. Aren’t they dreamy?
The paladins leave them at the gates where they race to Bartholomew’s and find him dead. Nolan has killed him for the sword because Bartholomew reneged on his promise to sell it to their order and he was desperate to have it. Halla shoots Nolan in the leg with a crossbow, and the constables take him away, unconscious. Nolan is identified as Bartholomew’s murderer by the much-respected Zale, leaving Halla to reclaim Sarkis and the sword. They head back to Rutger’s Howe, and Sarkis and Halla decide to be together as long as her life allows.
BEST PART OF THIS BOOK
The relationship between Zale and Halla. Their banter is fantastic, and it’s just as great with Sarkis and even Brindle too. They’re both curious and they take everything as it comes, like “well, guess we’re tied up again” that you can’t help but love them. The whole crew is amazing, and it’s incredible how easily friends can become family when you’re trauma-bonded and forced into long term proximity with one another. The conversations and banter between all of the characters is definitely what I loved most about this book.
WORST PART OF THIS BOOK
The unresolved immortal-in-a-sword thing. Although Alver and Malva compete for the worst, so I’m not really sure who wins. The in-laws are relentless, but leaving us hanging with an immortal and human relationship left me wanting; I have high hopes that it will be addressed in the next two books. Very high hopes.
THE STEAM RATING BREAKDOWN — 🔥🔥🔥
- Sex scenes? Yes. Not overly plentiful, but they’re there.
- Fade to black or explicit? Explicit and open door.
- How central is the romance? It’s one of the main plotlines but not the major focus. The main plot is the adventure to secure help from the Temple of the White Rat and get the in-laws out of Silas’s house, with a lot of other storylines woven in.
- Content warnings: murder, death and body disposal. The book opens in a very dark headspace, with Halla contemplating suicide in great detail, though she never gets to attempt it. There’s also a lot of threatening and bullying, overbearing religious orders that think they run the place, and overbearing in-laws who force and confine her.
THE ENDING Explained — SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED?
Mostly satisfied, with one big problem. Sarkis and Halla deciding to be together as long as her life allows is a sweet end, but it kind of pissed me off, because he’s still immortal and bound to a sword. That makes things weird at best, and nobody’s really talking about it. I can only assume that with a trilogy this is going to come up at some point, so I’m holding out hope for that. I really hope we see more in the coming books about separating the humans from the mythical objects because otherwise I loved this book.
THE TWIST WE DIDN’T SEE COMING
Bartholomew’s betrayal. I really didn’t see it coming, and I don’t know why, because I knew the addition of Nolan the historian meant something, I just thought he and Bartholomew would have more of a scholarly helpful interest, not that they would betray her. Colour me surprised by that one!
THE CHARACTER WE LOVED TO HATE
The Motherhood priests. They’re relentless, and I’m wondering if they’ll play a bigger part in the coming books, because there has to be some reason they were constantly picking at and harassing Halla, Sarkis and Zale. There’s just something about them and their persistence.
WOULD WE REREAD IT?
Yes. I don’t know when, but it was definitely good enough for a reread.
WHO IS THIS FOR
Anyone who loves atmosphere, adventure and a good tale. T. Kingfisher is most excellent at spinning those.
WHERE TO GET THIS BOOK
📖 Physical Book
Amazon US | Amazon CA | Bookshop.org
🎧 Audiobook
Audible US | Audible CA | Libro.fm
📚 More from the Swordheart Trilogy
- Book 1 — Swordheart | Reviewed by CJ | ⭐ 4.25/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — You are here
- Book 2 — Daggerbound | Review Coming Soon
- Book 3 — Shieldborn| Release date of August 2027
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Ready for more reviews from CJ? Find More Here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
📖 | Series: Swordheart Trilogy Book 1 | Genre: Fantasy Romance | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
TAGS: Swordheart, T. Kingfisher, Swordheart Trilogy, Clocktaur Duology World, Fantasy Romance, Romantasy, Spoiler Review, Book Review, Open Door Romance, Adventure Fantasy, Banter, Plot Twisted, Does Sarkis Get Freed From the Sword, How Does Swordheart End, Do Halla and Sarkis Get Together,