Title:

Swordheart

Author:

T. Kingfisher

Category:

Fantasy / Science Fiction

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

November 17, 2025

have enjoyed several of the prolific Kingfisher's works, but Swordheart isn't one of her best books. I didn't really like the characters, nor the plot, and it went on for much too long (436 pages) considering the story it had to tell. (What was the point of the chapters where they ventured into the Vagrant Hills?). Kingfisher appears to be attempting a humorous story, but the jokes did not connect with me. Nor did the continued repeating of the jokes make them any funnier. The heroine, Halla, asks too many questions when she gets nervous. The hero, Sarkis, realizes that asking questions is a coping mechanism for Halla, yet still it is annoying to read so many pages of her endless questions. When confronted, Halla has learned to ramble on in long, stupid tangents, which leaves her antagonisers baffled and frustrated - it is Halla's theory that poor, stupid women just get ignored by villains, and unfortunately, in Swordheart, Halla encounters bad guys many times. I am surprised the bad guys didn't simply stab Halla just to shut her up. And so the reader is treated to many long digressions about goats, biscuits or whatever - I know this is meant to be funny, but I just found it annoying.

Halla is a widow in her late thirties. Her Uncle Silas just died and surprisingly left his entire estate to Halla, who had worked as his housekeeper in his final years. The rest of Silas's relatives are not happy. They lock Halla in a room until she agrees to marry the clammy-handed Cousin Alver. Halla would rather die than be married to that odious toad. Fortunately, Uncle Silas was a collector of all sorts of bizarre objects; Halla finds a giant broadsword in the bedroom where she is locked. Halla imagines falling on the sword to kill herself, though she is not clear on how that is done. But when she draws the sword, there is a flash of blue light and muscular, immortal warrior named Sarkis stands there. It turns out Sarkis is magically trapped inside the sword, and will come forth to defend whomever draws the sword from its scabbard. Sarkis is quite puzzled to discovered that his new wielder is a middle-aged widow threatened by scheming relatives - not quite the sort of rescue to which he is accustomed.

Halla and Sarkis escape from the relatives easily enough (indeed, I wondered why they didn't simply toss the greedy relatives out, since they could not hope to stand against a awordsman such as Sarkis.) What follows is a long road trip to Amalcross, where Halla hopes to meet Uncle Silas' relative Bartholomew and also to seek out the priests of the Temple of the White Rat, who are said to be good at handling lawyer matters such as desputed inheritances. Along the way to Amalcross, Silas and Hallas encounter bandits, the nasty priests of the Hanged Motherhood and various other challenges. Most of the time is spent bantering between the two. Halla discovers that she is attacted to the hulking immortal warrior, but of course he would never notice a middle aged widow like herself. Halla must blush about 100x in this story. I think that all of the blushing was meant to be another joke, but it also grew tiresome. Sarkis, meanwhile, finds much of the "decadent Southlands" (yes, he repeats that phrase too many times) strange, but he is fascinated by Halla, though of course he cannot reveal his feelings because he is supposed to be her guard, not a besotted lover. The awkwardness between the two protagonists fills up a lot of pages - I told you this book was too long.

Eventually Halla and Sarkis join forces with the priest Zale, and gnole named Brindle who drives an ox-cart. Then there is another long journey from Amalcross back to Rutger's Howe, and more confrontations with various villains along the road. You'll never guess how the relationship between Sarkis and Halla turns out, or the fate of her conniving relatives.

There is already a sequel to this story, Daggerbound, but I think I shall skip it. The prolific T. Kingfisher has written many other books that I have not yet read, and I suspect I would enjoy those more than any additional stories written in this style.