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I just finished T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Grace and had the interesting experience of being able to pinpoint exactly where I would have had the two characters fall in love if I were writing the book, and also if the romance plotline were not operating very strongly on genre romance beats.

Paladin's Grace is set in the same super D&D-influenced universe as Kingfisher's Swordheart and Clocktaur Wars with one crossover character from Swordheart (Zale, the fan-favorite practical genderqueer lawyer-priest) and one crossover theme from Clocktaur Wars ("let's explore what it's like to romance an angsty paladin!")

The paladin in this particular book is Stephen, a sad sock-knitting swordfighter whose god died of unknown causes a few years back, leaving Stephen and his fellow surviving paladins at occasional risk of unchecked berserker rages. In the first chapter, Stephen has a twenty-minute meet-cute with Grace, a perfume expert fleeing a terrible marriage (also a crossover theme from Swordheart, which I should probably have mentioned in the paragraph) and subsequently both of them, despite having been Off the Dating Market for the past several years due to their respective stressors, cannot stop thinking about each other!

The actual plot involves the arrival of a mysterious foreign dignitary who takes a fondness to Grace's perfume, several assassination attempts, and a probably-unrelated serial killer on the loose, none of which really impacts Grace or Stephen until the back half of the book, leaving them a lot of time to fill the front half with musing on how inconveniently into each other they are and how it can Never Be because a.) the other party couldn't possibly be into them (despite all signs to the contrary) and b.) they, themselves, are too sad and too convinced they don't deserve nice things to want a relationship anyway.

Stephen and Grace are both perfectly likeable protagonists and Kingfisher's pragmatic prose is always fun, but it did get me thinking again about how instant, intense attraction is one of the less interesting romantic tropes for me -- or maybe not even instant attraction, I don't mind that, people do meet people and start flirting right away, that's in character for some people. I guess the real thing is that I'd like some time for the characters to get to know each other as people before they start to think 'oh no, this is the person I'm going to act out of character for.' In a lot of romance novels, including this one, that beat kicks in extremely fast, because the fact that it's kicked in is part of what's driving the story forward. But I personally prefer a story that withholds that for a while so that when the characters do start acting out of their own self-perceived character as a result of their encounters with each other, you really feel the impact of it.

Anyway, the other thing I have to say is that the best character in the book is Grace's roommate and BFF Marguerite, a charming and mysterious spy whose plotline is entirely unresolved and whom I therefore trust will show up in subsequent books and continue to be the best character in them!

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As you know very well I extremely agree with this opinion!!

MEDIUM-TO-SLOW-BURN OR BUST

Zale is also still fun in this one :)

Zale IS great in this one, and generally; I am very glad they continue to be a recurring character!

Thank you for articulating the thing that made this book Slightly Less Fun for me. I found Swordheart was delightful (random carnivorous floating jellyfish aside) and was sadly baffled that Paladin's Grace was lacking.

a.) yep but b.) how did I manage to entirely forget the random carnivorous floating jellyfish??

the random carnivorous floating jellyfish??

What?

I GENUINELY DON'T REMEMBER AND I DON'T KNOW HOW THAT'S POSSIBLE

In a lot of romance novels, including this one, that beat kicks in extremely fast, because the fact that it's kicked in is part of what's driving the story forward

This is one of the things that ruins a lot of romance novels for me, even though I love romance plots :(

I think it's that so much of the appeal of Romance as a Plot for me personally is "these two people's personalities bring out interesting things in each other," but if it's just instant attraction right away there's no time to get around to the personality!*

*I make something of an exception for 'we knew each other long ago and have just re-met' or 'we knew each other long ago and forgot but remember a little' because there at least there is a little bit of an existing personality pattern to draw on

One of the big appeals of romances for me is the emotional effect they have on each other, so yeah, I need a baseline for the change to happen from. But I guess other people are there for Love Overcomes Obstacles or something. reminds self that people are allowed to like other things

instant, intense attraction is one of the less interesting romantic tropes for me -- or maybe not even instant attraction, I don't mind that, people do meet people and start flirting right away, that's in character for some people. I guess the real thing is that I'd like some time for the characters to get to know each other as people before they start to think 'oh no, this is the person I'm going to act out of character for.'
Completely agree. Love at first sight is one of my least favorite tropes.

I mean some people do fall in love at first sight a lot and that is also in character for them, but "oops I did it again" is also usually not the way these stories play it. :P (I did read one romance novel with a regretful serial insta-monogamist that I actually did very much enjoy!)

Yeah, I enjoyed that one but not as much as Swordheart, for much the same reason. I also found myself really interested in the non-romance plot elements, and kept getting frustrated by the romance intruding into the mystery-solving. The best books like this balance them better.

That said, I am still happy I read it and will continue to read just about anything Ursula writes. Pragmatic heroines FTW.

I'll admit it was a little frustrating to me that half of the mysteries didn't actually get solved! I mean I'm sure they will in future versions, but I was INVESTED in what was up with the creepy porcelain heads ...

(Zale, the fan-favorite practical genderqueer lawyer-priest)

I mean, I haven't even read the books and they're probably my favorite.

[edit] I am fine with people liking each other on first sight, but insta-bone is significantly less interesting to me, and I agree that if part of the drive of the romance is how it changes the participants, we should have some kind of baseline idea of them first.

Edited 2020-04-06 17:55 (UTC)

They are the favorite of everyone I know, for very good reasons. :D

Yeah, I enjoy people meeting and being like "oh, that person looks interesting, I'd like to know them better" perfectly well! I think writing this out helped me pinpoint that what bugs me is when people immediately start thinking to themselves about how they never act like this about a person, why are they acting like this about this person, they just met this person, and I'm sitting back here with folded arms like "yeah? Yeah, why ARE you? PRAY, ELABORATE."

they never act like this about a person, why are they acting like this about this person, they just met this person

It's called limerence, it can lead to bad decision-making; good day.

And today I learned a new word!

And today I learned a new word!

Hooray!

I've been trying to write a romance novel on and off since NaNo last November, mostly just to keep myself occupied, and I think this is one of the things I'm struggling with most about it. Love (or even attraction) at first sight has never been particularly interesting to me, and I tend to like/enjoy writing/relate to characters who are only slowly coming to understand their own feelings. I'm finding it harder to fit that into standard romance beats.

Yeah, it's genuinely not easy -- the book that's about to go on sub is about halfway to being a romance novel, and even that halfway was kind of tricky! (I more or less got myself round the early bits by having both protagonists be competitively flirtatious people who spend a lot of time peacocking around each other for points but don't actually catch proper feelings until two-thirds of the way through.)

I'd love to hear more about the one you're working on, though, if you feel like sharing. :D

I think I will write to you about it in the letter that I send you whenever my stamps finally arrive!

I shall look forward to receiving it!

Hmm, I've only dipped my toe into modern romance (though much is 'historical') and slow burn isn't a trope I've seen much. That ties into my complaint, in general, that a lot of fiction has everything!! happening over a very short time frame so hard to have a lot of slow burn unless the slow is in the past.

I'll still try Paladin's Grace, because from the blurb it does have a lot of things I think I'll like. Eventually. The TBR is a mighty dragon.

Yeah, I often really find myself digging 'from the past' because it makes it so much easier for me to believe in the intensity of emotion required for the romance novel beats developing over ... the rapid time period required by the romance novel beats. It's also, I think, why tropes like 'fake dating,' 'marriage of convenience,' 'required to cohabitate,' 'trapped in an inn' etc. are so timeless (and do indeed work very well for me), because when you get a lot of forced intimacy in a short timespan it can sort of do the work of standing in for a more normal relationship development over a much longer timespan.

But all this is not to say that Paladin's Grace is not enjoyable in many ways, it super is!

The frustration I had with this one, aside from the simultaneous mutual chorus of "I am totally into him/her but he/she could not possibly be into me" being a bit much, was that before it came out I looked at the description, and I read the opening excerpt, and I thought "Oh, a paladin who survived the death of his god and has to keep going, that'll be an interesting take on the mundane realities of coping with profound loss." And it just...wasn't, at least not in the way I was looking for; Stephen barely seems to grieve his god at all. Instead it's all basically about the trauma of the violence he committed after his god's death and his fear that without the god it will happen again--and then even that gets undermined by his doing it again, not really hurting anyone, and being chided for being so dramatic about everything. I did enjoy it, but I would have liked to read the version the opening seemed to be promising.

I ALSO FELT THIS. I'm so interested in stories about the deaths of gods and what that means for people who profoundly believed in or whose lives were woven up in those gods, and that's just ... not what this book is. It's much more about Stephen's fears and insecurities about his own capacity for violence than his sense of loss, really, which is also certainly a relevant story but a much more common one for a romance novel IMO. (Did we ever even find out why the god died?)

chag sameach!!

Chag sameach to you as well! :D I hope you are finding a way to be festive in this particular Pesach-time!

But I personally prefer a story that withholds that for a while so that when the characters do start acting out of their own self-perceived character as a result of their encounters with each other, you really feel the impact of it.

Strong agree! The book I'm reading right now, Rebel of the Sands, has its issues but it's great for showing the heroine being ruthless to people so she can survive - including drugging, robbing, and leaving the hero at one point - so it's bigger when she stays with him and massively risks her own life.

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