Hello, everyone! Today I have a real treat, my review of Swordcrossed by Freya Marske. I adore Marske’s The Last Binding series and was excited to get a copy of her new book so early. This book doesn’t come out until October, but it was burning a hole in my Kindle because I just could not wait to read it. So, here comes my very early review of Swordcrossed…

Low stakes. High heat. Sharp steel . . .

Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. Sword-challenge at the ceremony could destroy all hope of restoring his family’s wealth, something that Matti has been trying—and failing—to do for the past ten years. What he can afford, unfortunately, is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere.

Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his hometown. He didn’t plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible—and inconveniently handsome—wool merchant like Matti.

However, neither Matti’s business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem. As the days count down to Matti’s wedding, the two of them become entangled in the intrigue and sabotage that have brought Matti’s house to the brink of ruin. And when Luca’s secrets threaten to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer the question: how many lies are you prepared to strip away, when the truth could mean losing everything you want?

***Thank you to Bramble for providing an early copy of Swordcrossed via NetGalley. My review contains my honest thoughts about my reading experience.***

I’m going to rip the Band-Aid off here at the start. I did not love Swordcrossed as much as Marske’s last series. It took me a while to get into this book because there wasn’t a whole lot going on at first. The cover was not lying when it advertised the book as low stakes, which made it difficult for me to stay engaged with the story. Luckily, the characters were great, and the story did pick up some as it went along, especially once all the secrets started coming out. By the end, I was having a great time and enjoying all the schemes and humor.

The world-building in Swordcrossed was a mixed bag. I loved all of the detail explaining the fabric industry and the role of sword dueling in this fantasy world, and the queer normative culture was fun to explore. The political system, however, could have been clearer. There were guilds, houses, councils, and multiple cities/states. I never got a great sense of how it all fit together. It was convoluted, and a bit more information early on would have been helpful in parsing it all out.

The real draw of Swordcrossed, and all of Marske’s work, was the characters. She did such a fantastic job of bringing Matti and Luca to life. They each had their issues and well-developed personalities. Matti was obsessed with duty and bringing his house back into prosperity at the cost of his own health and happiness. Whereas, Luca was just a mess. He was a con man, a criminal, and an absolutely dashing rogue with secrets galore. They complemented each other really well and pushed each other in ways that led to quite a bit of growth. The supporting characters also had depth despite not having as much page time, and they each added something special to the story.

The romance between Matti and Luca was sort of enemies to lovers, with its start in a con and blackmail, and all of their secrets caused a ton of problems for their relationship. They had an instant attraction, but they also slowly developed intimacy as their relationship deepened and their layers were peeled back. There was so much yearning in Swordcrossed, which eventually led to some pretty hot sex scenes. The heat wasn’t as high as I’d expected, though, and it does take the characters quite a while to get physical. So, if you are looking for tons of super explicit scenes, you might be disappointed, but there were lots of clever sword-play innuendos that had me cackling.

Overall, Swordcrossed was not my favorite book by Marske, but I still had a great time with it. Once the plot kicked into gear and I became attached to the characters, I rarely wanted to put the book down. The romance had a lot of humor and plenty of sexual tension, and I enjoyed seeing how Matti and Luca impacted each other’s lives, both inside and outside of the bedroom. Therefore, I give Swordcrossed a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

Have you read Swordcrossed or any of Freya Marske’s other books? Let me know your thoughts on them down in the comments!