The Temple of the White Rat
The Temple of the White Rat is multiple series of fantasy-romance novels by T Kingfisher set in the same world; it’s named after an order of “god-touched” lawyers, healers, and social workers who provide a sort-of background infrastructure for the latter two series. There are currently eight books across three series, with another four books planned.
If you’re a man who’s about to close this tab because of the word romance, I ask that you at least give the next few paragraphs a chance, because there’s a particular strain of toxic masculinity that persists even among otherwise progressive men: a seeming allergic reaction to anything feminine-coded, and I don’t think there’s any genre of fiction coded that way more than romance.
A very worthwhile part of my growth as a partner, a parent, a progressive, and a person has been getting past that reaction, and so over the past few years I’ve read a few dozen romance novels, mostly recommended by my partner – though I came to these books on my own thanks to my enjoyment of Kingfisher’s other books. These books are more focused on the overarching fantasy stories and the development of relationships rather than the more squishy stuff. The sex scenes are mild by comparison to all the other romance I’ve read, there are far fewer of them, and they mostly act as a tension relief and sort of milestone marker in the budding relationships.
Most of the male protagonists are warrior types, and if you find that off-putting in the context of a story about a budding relationship, what would the difference be with the same character in the context of a more generic adventure novel? There’s a certain level of emotional vulnerability displayed by each of the protagonists, something that our society doesn’t teach men how to do well, and I’m glad to see it modeled here.
The protagonists so far have been cis humans, though the series does feature nonbinary characters, including one recurring one; in the eight books so far there have been five hetero relationships and two between men, though the next announced book looks to be between two women. Of the three remaining planned books, I think two of them will feature women warrior protagonists as well, though I don’t have much inkling as to the shape their relationships will take.
I’ve recommended books by T Kingfisher here before, though she writes few series (the horror series Sworn Solider being the only other so far) and in general I find it easier to recommend series than standalone books – if for no other reason than required effort, though I’ve read most of her books and enjoyed almost all of them. They’re not formulaic, but there’s a certain comfort to the way her stories tend to pan out. These books stand out to me for a handful of reasons:
Almost all the protagonists are dealing with a particular kind of trauma around self-worth and how that relates to either their self-perceived viability as a romantic partner, or whether they “deserve” to be loved; this is something I struggled heavily with until my mid-thirties and still took another decade to really get a handle on. It’s been both gratifying and healthy to me to read about fictional characters grappling with the same things.
If we limited loving to just the sane, undamaged people, the next generation would have about three people in it and presumably humanity would die out shortly afterward.
— Paladin’s Grace
The world-building, plotting, and general quirkiness is what I’ve come to expect from a T Kingfisher book, except that there’s more of it in both breadth and depth. I came away from books like Hemlock & Silver or Nettle & Bone wanting more; and while these books are in decidedly different worlds, they do provide more. Kingfisher strays from the typical fantasy formula into magically-tainted landscapes, sentient species derived from non-Tolkeinesque mythologies, and a mysteriously extinct ancient precursor species which evokes horror.
They’re also funny as hell, while also maintaining a sharp commentary about society. I’ve heard a lot of comparisons to Discworld and find them apt.
Slate stepped in, her face as cool and detached as a woman doing long division.
— The Clockwork Boys
Halla rolled her eyes at him, licking bacon grease off her fingers. Sarkis’s gaze locked on her mouth, and it took her a moment to think why. Oh. Uh. Licking my fingers. Yes. Men get very interested in that. Should I try to flirt? Or am I supposed to lick something else? She was out of bacon and probably nobody found licking a tin cup sexy. Licking the wagon was right out.
— Swordheart
There was something about poverty that was a little like war. Either you had been there or you hadn’t, and it wasn’t really possible to explain it to anyone who hadn’t.
— Paladin’s Grace
The larger part of power was understanding the power you had over others, even if you would rather not have had that much power in the first place.
— Paladin’s Strength
Up until the most recent book (Daggerbound), they were published in chronological order. The official page for the series is currently a bit outdated and recommends reading them in published/chronological order, and it would be hard to go wrong with that. There three series are set several years apart, and you could really tackle them separately:
The Clocktaur War consists of two books: The Clockwork Boys and The Wonder Engine, two books following the same four characters, and centering largely on the developing relationship between Sloan, a convicted forger, and Caliban, a disgraced Paladin, as they set about a last-ditch suicide mission to gather information on the automatons threatening the city-state from which they hail. They’re accompanied by Brenner, a convicted assassin whom Sloan has had an on-again, off-again relationship for some while before, and Learned Edmund, a scholar from a misogynistic order who’s the only one not magically compelled to be there, he just wants to help his order learn more about the automatons. It’s worth reading these books before Daggerbound to get the character growth for Learned Edmund.
I didn’t enjoy either of these books as much as I did any of the later ones, but I did enjoy them and they’re useful in setting up some of the worldbuilding. I read three of the other books (Paladin’s Grace, Paladin’s Strength, and Swordheart) before reading The Clockwork Boys and did just fine.
The Sainted Smith (also referred to as the Swordheart series) consists of three books, the last of which is scheduled for release next year: Swordheart, Daggerbound, and Shieldborn. They center on three mercenary warriors from long ago who were imprisoned in magical swords, forced to serve their wielders. Both of the warriors from the released books bear a lot of emotional scars from the hundreds of years they’ve been forced to serve people who see them only as weapons, and both end up being drawn by someone very different from those people finding themselves in – for the first time in their lives – situations where a sword just might come in handy.
I enjoyed both of these books quite a bit: the adventures are fun, the relationship development is sweet, character growth is heartwarming; Halla’s defensive way of confusing people is hilarious, the Dervish’s self-assured suaveness does a great job of walking the line of overconfidence as trauma response, and Learned Edmund’s path away from a culture of misogyny in his initial appearance in The Clockwork Boys is the sort of thing I’d like to see more of. I’m really looking forward to Shieldborn.
The Saint of Steel consists of four books so far, with presumably another three planned if I’m reading the presented structure correctly. There are so far four books: Paladin’s Grace, Paladin’s Strength, Paladin’s Hope, and Paladin’s Faith which as you might guess center on a set of Paladins (or, as Kingfisher describes them, the angsty and armored) whose god the Saint of Steel died three years before the first book. The paladins’ order is one of berserkers guided by their god; when the god died they all went wildly berserk, killing off everyone around them, including the rest of their order. Only seven of these paladins survived, taken in by the Temple of the White Rat: the order of lawyers, social workers, and healers which first properly appear in Swordheart and provide a backing structure for this series. As you might imagine, the surviving paladins bear a lot of guilt about what they did, which has become especially tangled up in their worth as a person since they no longer have a god to serve, and their trustworthiness as a partner, for they fear going berserk again.
These books provide the best sense of breadth to the world so far, and their plots start with investigating a grotesque serial killer and get into court intrigues, the leftover technologies of the ancients, and towards the end of the fourth book start asking questions about what led to the death of the Saint of Steel. They’re full of wonderful characters and locales, deal with the mucky details of economics and politics of a pre-modern world, and feature such great set pieces that I’d love to see these books adapted to a visual series.
It’s also this series that I imagine would get the most pushback from the romance-avoidant man: the four paladins thus far are men, warriors whom by necessity maintain a fitness level that veers into Fabio territory. There are a lot of reasons to feel cautious about this, particularly around body image, though I would like to remind any men still reading this page that we deal with less societal pressure about this than anyone else, and I think it’s worth confronting that pressure and discussing whatever comes up around it with a therapist. If you are straight, to whatever degree you find yourself attracted to the societal standards of beauty for women, consider any discomfort you have about this as something you’re privileged to not have to deal with otherwise.
Regardless, of the three remaining paladins, two are women, so at some point we may see a reversal; one of the four published books features a male/male pairing with a counterpart who is very much not a warrior-type; all the male protagonists have to deal with emotional vulnerability in a way that is very healthy to see represented; and as I would expect from Kingfisher, the women protagonists all hold their own and I hope they manage to make appearances in subsequent novels.
I enjoyed these books a lot, and if you like well-written fantasy in the vein of Pratchett I think you’ll like these books as well. They are a very mild introduction to the fantasy-romance genre, perhaps as gentle to the seeming-allergic reaction men tend to have to the genre. If you’ve avoided the genre based on reputation but are open to trying something new, it’s worth picking up Swordheart or Paladin’s Grace, and I hope the wonderful world-building and adventurous stories will help carry you through the budding relationship-building and mild sex scenes.