I’ve read two books of this series, but I will just put all of my review into this one.
I picked up Paladin’s Grace as an audiobook because I’d heard T. Kingfisher is an up-and-coming fantasy author, and I needed something easy to listen to while I was out for a run. I was about 8k in when I realized that “Grace” was a person, and not a virtue, and that I was somewhat unwillingly reading my first ever romantasy novel. I didn’t want to fuss around with Libby while I was running, so I was held hostage for the next 12k, and developed a Stockholm- Syndrome-like desire to finish the book… and then the series.
The difference between a book like this and, say, a Brandon Sanderson novel is a metaphor for the difference between the male and female orgasm. 20 pages into the Brandon Sanderson book and heads are already flying, people are stabbing eachother with magical lances, the mystery is afoot and all protagonists have started on their heroic journeys. 100 pages into this book and all that has happened is that our female lead has spent a lot of time thinking about hands, our male lead (a hulking, magical berserker with a sword) has navigated an attempted assassination solely through the powers of his gentle yet confident voice, and both leads have spent two whole chapters hugging.
The book was a bit annoying at times, because most of the drama was just from the two MCs having trouble communicating because of their insecurities. They are almost comically daft at talking about their feelings, and the whole story was pretty much 10 cycles of: person (A) does/says something that they don’t quite mean, person (B) interprets it incorrectly, then they both get a chapter ruminating about what happened to the tune of “oh I am such a fool, how could I ever have expected person A/B to like me when I have characteristic (C)”. The only motivation to keep reading is to get *ahem* that moment. You know which one.
If you want a low-stakes book with a slight bit of hanky-panky and a lot of descriptions of shoulders and curves (and smells) go ahead. If you like fantasy books, or are a seasoned romantasy reader, probably pass this one by.
Edit: The second book was much more exciting, sexually and gladiatorially.