2019/15: Swordheart -- T. Kingfisher

"It's a sword."
"Yes, but you came out of a sword. It seems redundant."
He stared at her as if she had lost her mind. "I can't very well wield myself, lady."
Oh. Perhaps he'd go blind. [p. 18]

Halla, a widowed housekeeper, has just inherited a great deal of money from her great-uncle. Tragically, the rest of his family are feeling cheated: their proposal is that Halla marries her clammy-handed cousin, and they lock her in a room to consider her options. Suicide seems preferable to being controlled by the loathsome relatives, and Halla -- in her night-dress -- unsheaths the ornamental sword hanging on the wall.

Except that the sword is not merely ornamental, and it harbours Sarkis, an immortal warrior who was imprisoned in steel long ago, after ending up on the losing side of a forgotten war. Sarkis is haunted by the memories of his similarly-incarcerated friends, Angharad Shieldborn and the Dervish: luckily Halla's lack of martial skill encourages Sarkis to distract himself by helping her.

And Halla helps Sarkis, too: helps him discover what became of the lands he called home, and explores the limitations and limits of his prison.

I should also mention that Swordheart is absolutely hilarious: Halla's sensible, sardonic manner and Sarkis' world-weariness offset one another very nicely, even before romance sparks between them, and there is some very entertaining dialogue. This is a light-hearted novel, but it has dark elements -- for instance, the pet bird left behind by the great-uncle, which occasionally roars about 'the end of the world and the screams of the damned' -- and I suspect future books in this projected trilogy will explore the ambiguities of saints and sinners hinted in this volume.

WARNING: Swordheart is set in the same world as The Clockwork Boys and its sequel, The Wonder Engines, and contains spoilers for the latter (which is why The Wonder Engines is in my 'unfinished' Kindle category) ...