Paladin's Strength

Seit ich den ersten Teil der Paladin-Reihe gelesen habe, bin ich ein großer Fan von T. Kingfishers Schreibstil und Humor. Der Schreibstil ist auch in diesem Teil sehr lustig und unterhaltsam. Clara und Ishtvan sind sympathisch geschriebene Hauptcharaktere, die im Gegensatz zu vielen anderen Protagonist*innen im Romantasy-Bereich keine Teenies und/oder Auserwählte sind, was für mich mal eine erfrischende Abwechslung war. Einen Stern habe ich abgezogen, weil sich die erste Hälfte des Buches doch ein bisschen gezogen hat, aber die zweite Hälfte hat das für mich definitiv ausgeglichen! Ich freue mich schon drauf den dritten Teil der Reihe zu lesen, der auch schon bei mir rumliegt :D

I adore all the Paladins in this Series but I gotta say that Istvan is my favourite. I love how he is funny and lighthearted jet also thoughtful and caring. In this book he and Galen pose as mercenaries to follow the trail of the misterious smooth men from book one in the series. Clara is a lay sister with a secret of her own and a stromg female lead. Like in book one you get both, a slow burn romance and an unfolding mystery. Both are very well done and well balanced. The slow burn is really slow which is a lot to handle if you‘re used to romantasies where the leads fall head over heels for each other on the first few pages and are wildly kissing basically by the third chapter. With the brooding Paladins and their respectable love interests it’s more like mutual pining and thinking one is not a good enough person for the other to love them back for more than two thirds of the books. But even though it had me sigh in frustration a lot of the time I am appreciating how these relationships develop and progress slowly as it is ultimately more relatable. You also get fun side characters, a lot of banter and witty dialogue as well as twists and turns that had me gasping.

I like this series and I absolutely like Kingfisher's genius for including funny and interesting details in her worldbuilding. And, of course, the antagonists are still great, slightly horrible and a bit sad. The Smooth Mens' scenes are by far the most creepy in the whole book. I love Clara and her...hm...talent as a character and I love Istvhan as a paladin. It's only... Stephen in the first book is more of a stereotypical paladin and I totally expected him to go the route of self-flagellation and self-denial, but Istvhan was build up a little differently, so... I was maybe a little disappointed that the romance of Clara and Istvhan tasted kind of similar as the romance of Grace and Stephen in the first book, even though they are completely different characters. That's the only reason I am not quite as taken with the second book as with the first one. I guess, it's a little bit the things to be expected from this trope but on the other hand I got to know Kingfisher as an author who keeps breaking tropes... Oh well. I had fun and I will definitely read the third volume!