RogerBW's Blog

2023 romantic fantasy. Marguerite the spy has heard of a new invention which will change the shape of the world's economies. Unable to trust any old friends or colleagues, she needs bodyguards from the White Rat…

So yes it's another paladin romance, and yes the paladin spends a lot of time thinking he's unworthy. But so does Marguerite, which makes it a bit more even; and we hear more about other paladins, particularly Wren.

"Do you know that you can't fit an axe under these skirts? You'd think it would be easy, but no."

Her skirts were a froth of petticoats. They had been the cutting edge of fashion two years ago. The Rat's suppliers had done their best, but high fashion was where they fell short. The result made Wren look like a disembodied torso levitating over a particularly ornate cake.

So even if the repeated pattern of the romance is wearing thin for you there's fun to be had here in other respects. There's more about demons (very significantly more, particularly if you consider this series in the context of the Penric stories which coincidentally share some small amounts of cosmology), and court intrigue, and desperate travel. (No gnoles, alas; but also no Hanged Mother church, whom I didn't miss.)

Is Shane perhaps even further into feelings of inadequacy and guilt than the others? Perhaps so. But I still enjoyed reading about him.