Return to the world of Clockwork Boys in this all-new novel from T. Kingfisher!
Halla is a housekeeper who has suddenly inherited her great-uncle's estate...and, unfortunately, his relatives. Sarkis is an immortal swordsman trapped in a prison of enchanted steel. When Halla draws the sword that imprisons him, Sarkis finds himself attempting to defend his new wielder against everything from bandits and roving inquisitors to her own in-laws...and the sword itself may prove to be the greatest threat of all....
"Swordheart has been an amazing and refreshing fantasy romance read. The story follows main protagonist Halla who is a naive yet practical and very likable character. MMC is Halla’s bodyguard, Sarkis. He is strong, smart but he has some unusual circumstances that involve enchanted sword and he has some secrets. Book has potent humor and some mild spice, which makes it a delicious cozy read. Side characters are written to perfection. Sequel, Daggerbound is coming out later this year. I would highly recommend this book for fun and enjoyable read! ["
April 3, 2026Verified Purchase
Ms.Scriggles
Fun, Playful Read
"A fun little book. Interesting world-building. It was a quick, easy read and would likely be something easy to enjoy as an audio book while attending to other tasks. I liked all the characters and enjoyed their interactions. The plotting was tight and the ending satisfying. I only caught two errors throughout my read, which is par for the course even in the most tightly edited books from back in the day. (One POV switch without any break to signify it and one moment toward the end where the word "click" was accidently put in as "dick"-probably easy to miss because of the font used.) My one quibble is that the author's "voice" really didn't change noticeably between characters. Sometimes I was several paragraphs into a section before I knew whether it was Halla or Sarkis' POV despite the two characters having quite different personalities. Heading each section with their names as needed could have solved this without any further edits by the author. ["
September 29, 2025Verified Purchase
Kindle Customer
Fantastic!
"I LOVED THIS BOOK. I loved it SOOOOO much. Oh gosh, even just thinking about it while writing this review is making me want to read it again. Ok, let me try to be coherent. Swordheart is a fantasy story with a strong romantic subplot to it, which is kind of my thing. The main character, Halla, is such a great character. She’s been sort of a passive person most of her life, accepting her lot even if she hadn’t always been happy with it. She married young and when her husband died became a housekeeper to her in-laws in exchange for a place in their home (which was really so gracious of them, wasn’t it?). When the owner of the home passes away and leaves it to Halla, she suddenly finds herself in a situation where they’re trying to force her to marry to keep the home within the family. Not wanting to marry the odious man and, having been locked in her room and seeing no way, out she contemplates just ending it all. That’s when she reaches for a sword hanging on the wall, draws it–and that’s where our story really begins. Because the sword is enchanted and whenever it’s drawn Sarkis, an enchanted warrior attached to the sword, appears. And he isn’t very happy to discover someone trying to off theirself with his sword. One of the unexpected delights of this book for me was the humor. This book is funny. There’s so much hilarious banter and many humorous situations that I found myself giggling through half of the book. Reading this at work on my lunch break was funny because my coworker had to keep asking me what I was laughing at. Honestly the characters and their relationship is the best thing about this book. The plot is essentially to go on a journey to get some legal paperwork filed so that Halla can get rid of her nasty in-laws. Along the way they encounter various obstacles, friends and foes. They also pick up a fellow companion along the way who brings some added fun as well as depth to the story. There are some other things going on, mostly in the background until they aren’t, but for the most part the plot itself is pretty simple and straightforward. But back to our characters and their relationship. I love the way things played out between them. They’re two adults being very adult about things, but also kind of hesitant in a ‘feeling each other out’ sort of way. Halla doesn’t even have her mind on romance for a while because she’s too busy worrying about getting all this mess with the house straightened out. And Sarkis seems to fall pretty hard pretty fast but he’s an enchanted sword so there’s all kinds of pitfalls there and they’re both practical people at the end of the day. Something about their relationship felt very fresh with the way it was handled, even though it plays on a lot of familiar tropes. Their relationship to each other, first as friends, had each of them of rediscovering parts of themselves they had either long since buried or had never seen the light of day. Halla opens up and becomes a lot less passive, all while retaining her kindness, while Sarkis becomes a little less cynical. They’re a great balance for each other and one of the reasons they work so well together. I really loved this book. I’d suggest it to anyone who enjoys a good fantasy romance or a comedic fantasy, or just enjoys an uplifting read. 5/5 stars. ["
December 22, 2018Verified Purchase
Constant Reader
Creative, Funny, Romantic, Rich Adventure Story
"This author tells such a good story! Every time that I begin one of her books I am quickly caught up in the action and the characters. This book returns to the world that held Paladin’s Grace and several of her other books. This book would stand alone, but I did enjoy returning to a world that I had seen before with an entirely new story. A few familiar characters from other books make brief appearances or are referred to in passing and while I loved those bits, a new reader would not be confused if they are not familiar with them. Highlights of the world include the well-developed and interesting religious groups and, of course, gnoles. The book is humorous, clever, and wildly entertaining. Halla is an attractive and clever heroine. Zale, her traveling companion and legal champion for much of the story is also a terrific character. Sarkis, our hero is an apparently immortal warrior trapped within a sword. Brindle, a gnole, is also an important part of the enjoyment of this story. You get the point here: the characters are engaging, complex, and interesting. You can care about them, believe them, and enjoy them. The writing is excellent, and the plot is engrossing. The humor is humorous and at times very, very funny. (Some of the humor is in double entendre.) The romance is romantic and sometimes a bit sexier than you might expect. The pacing is very quick even as the ox lumbers along, and the pages turn quickly. I was sorry when I turned the last page. If you have not read anything by this author, lucky you, because you have many hours of enjoyment waiting in her back list. ["
March 25, 2022Verified Purchase
Waites Family
*Review from The Illustrated Page*
"I can’t remember the last time I laughed this much while reading a book. Swordheart is a romantic fantasy novel that’s brimming with humor. Everything Ursula Vernon writes is delightful, and I will continue to eagerly rush to read anything by her. However, my enjoyment of Swordheart is tampered by displeasure at some issues with asexual representation. Halla is a respectably widowed housekeeper who spent more than a decade looking after an old man… who just died and left everything to her. Unfortunately, his relatives want to keep the money “in the family” and have locked her in her bedroom until she agrees to marry Cousin Alvin. Halla’s taken up the old sword that hangs on the wall and started wondering how to fall on it when she summons the Sarkis, an ancient warrior who has been magically bound to the sword and commanded to defend its wielder. He’s more used to battling armies than in-laws, but Sarkis will help Halla escape and reclaim her inheritance. Swordheart is probably more of a romance than I normally tend to read. I’m just not usually a fan of stories driven by romance! But I did like Swordheart, and I think it comes down to the humor. I do a lot better with romantic comedies than romantic dramas, and Swordheart was hysterically funny. The best comparison I can think of is a cross between Robin McKinley and Terry Pratchett, although really, it’s 100% Ursula Vernon (side note — if you haven’t read anything by Ursula Vernon, you should do that right now!). Swordheart‘s also good with consent, and Halla and Sarkis didn’t treat each other terribly, which is a must for any romance subplot. As usual with Ursula Vernon, the characters are delightful. Sarkis is very much of the “grizzled, Viking warrior” type but without the sexism that often accompanies such characters. Halla is a middle-aged widow who doesn’t expect much out of life and has realized that it’s sometimes beneficial to appear stupid. She’s constantly chattering and asking questions, and I love the scenes where she uses inane rambling to make people underestimate her. Halla and Sarkis are the main characters, but around halfway-in, we get a major supporting character: Zale, a nonbinary priest/lawyer. Zale’s gender is never in question, and they’re as intelligent and hilarious as the rest of the cast. Also, I love the whole fantasy religion of the White Rat, which values practicality among all else and whose priests are mostly lawyers and clerks. While Swordheart clearly works to be queer inclusive, I was not a fan of the way it treated asexual people. If you’ve been following my reviews for a while, then you probably know that I’m asexual and have seen me talk about this sort of thing before. Anyway, Swordheart has some cringy lines about Sarkis’s attraction to Halla making him feel like a normal man, Halla saying she’d have to be dead not to be attracted to Sarkis, and Sarkis saying his religion has no use for someone who can’t please a man or a woman in bed… but all those are kind of run of the mill type things. They crop up in practically every book I read, and I’m pretty good at ignoring them. Unfortunately, Swordheart goes beyond that. Halla’s dead husband with whom she had a highly unsatisfying sex life is described in a way that reads as asexual. Here are some excerpts from the conversation between Halla and Sarkis about it: “A man would have to be half-dead not to be interested in you” “He just wasn’t interested in that sort of thing in general. No by-blows, no complaints from the servants.” “I don’t blame any man for not enjoying bedsports, but why marry and condemn his wife to the same?” “He had no choice in the matter… His mother was determined to see him wed someone.” “They knew, I think, that he had problems. I don’t think they expected him to consummate the marriage at all” So. I’ve got a lot of feelings about this, and fully unpacking everything about why I dislike this would take more time and emotional energy than I want to invest. I think it comes down to the depiction of asexuality as a problem (that language is specifically used!) and as a difficulty to people who aren’t asexual. In addition, I can’t help thinking about what would become of me if I were forced into a marriage or some of the horrific stories I’ve heard from other ace people. All together, Swordheart winds up suggesting asexual people are broken and wrong, and those are the ideas I have had to struggle a lot against to find self-acceptance. I have enough faith in Ursula Vernon to believe that she didn’t do this on purpose, but the way Swordheart treated asexuality still hurt. I cannot help but love a book that makes me laugh as much as Swordheart, and I do hope that lots of other people find it and love it even more than I did. However, I do want to give other ace readers a heads up. ["
