The Armored Saint

I admit that some of my disappointment for this book stems from the cover. I was expecting a female character who fights and is powerful-- a rare thing in fantasy-- and I got a character who... fights eventually. I don't know, that's probably a Me problem.

I will say this novel feels a little half-baked, not least because it seems to exist without any breathing room. We're hurled from one plot twist to another, and the shock value seems to rely on preexisting understanding of tropes, rather than the events happening within the novel.

That said, all the characters act in ways that make complete sense for their world and background, and all the beats feel more or less earned. I just came to this wanting dark fantasy featuring a female protagonist, and got an endless series of rug pulls and Warhammer references. (Like, seriously. This book owes a huge debt to WH40k, I cannot even begin to tell you.)

Can't quite decide between three and four stars for this one, so I'm erring on the side of generosity. The world setting is intriguing; a religious dictatorship of some sort where the use of magic has the potential to let literal demons enter the world, so The Order (some sort of holy police force) patrol the lands to ensure all magic use is eliminated - and along the way they clearly allow plenty of corruption and abuse of power too, as you'd expect in such a force. The head on dealing with essentially police corruption and brutality was an unexpected choice too. To fight the magic and the demons, we have tinkered mech suits that turn the wearer into unstoppable armored warriors. These suits are built by tinkerers and forbidden to any except the Emperor himself. So yes, overall a very interesting world and setting, and the action is nonstop, keeping you reading all the way to the end.

Now the down side; the main character, Heloise, is REALLY annoying. She's supposedly 16 but acts about 6; almost every bad thing that happens in the book is her fault, and it's hard to believe that a girl growing up in such a harsh would could possibly be such an undisciplined brat. A 16 year old spoiled American kid in that situation? Sure, might act like that. But someone who's grown up in that world and that environment, or with any type of serious discipline as a child? No. So, it's REALLY hard to fully enjoy a book with a main character I want to slap most of the time. The ending also felt a bit abrupt, and as mentioned, was hard to enjoy because all of it was Heloise's fault in the first place.

So... if you like the idea of medieval type fighters in steampunk-ish mech suits; if you like LGBT and ACAB themes; and if you can managed to deal with a heroine who should have been smacked to within an inch of her life after the first time she put her entire family's life at risk, then pick this one up I guess? Clearly there are or will be sequels, I'm a bit on the fence about whether I'll pick them up though because if they're also told from Heloise's point of view I may have to strangle someone.

I wrestled between a 2 and a 3 here, and opted for the 2. This could just be a matter of me wanting more from a book than it was giving me. It's fantasy with a touch of power armor. Warhammer fans will feel right at home here, with an Emperor on a Golden Throne who keeps devils from crossing the veil. If there's a bright point in the story, it's the protagonist, though this is tempered by the fact that she's hailed as a hero merely by cleaning up the mess she made. She's driven by her passions, not her brains, which might not be surprising considering she's a teenager.

Ultimately, I think this is a YA novel that's not billed as one. There are some good ideas here, but Cole's breezy narrative and action movie plotting generally turned me off. Again, maybe I just want more than this book is giving.

I'm really hesitant to give out 5 star reviews, especially for authors I know, whose work I enjoy, and who I generally respect for their lives outside of being authors... But The Armored Saint deserves it. I might knock a quarter point off (if I could with the Goodreads rating system) because it's so short, and I have to wait till October for part 2, and who knows how long after that for part 3.

The grimdark fantasy, where demons are real, and power armored heroes protect the world isn't a new idea, and is very warhammer-ish, which meshes well with the Joan of Arc theme going on. It's a fairly brutal read, with lots of death, little hope, and over far too quickly.

I managed to not finish this in one sitting, but that wasn't by choice. I was burning through the pages at a wonderful clip... and now that I've finished, I'm itching to create a diorama of the climax of the book.