The Sword-Witch’s Heart by Tavia Lark (Radiance Book 3) is a captivating MM romantic fantasy featuring Leth, a taciturn sword-witch who loathes demons and demon magic, and Evain who’s, well, a demon in disguise.
We met them both in the preceding book (The Paladin’s Shadow) as they helped free the bound gods. But Leth was forced to betray his high-ranking family, who are not happy about the unbinding, and he’s now aimless and searching for meaning.
Enter Evain, former despised “demon-bound” colleague, who has a plan to close some of the inter-spacial rifts harrying a neighbouring nation and letting demons in. Leth (who is an elite fighter) reluctantly joins Evain’s group of paladins, fighters and mages and heads north.
I really enjoyed the adventure aspects of this book. Tavia Lark has a talent for creating a cast of diverse characters that are all distinct and entertaining. Several of them are paladins from two different orders — including Arthur from book 1 (The Necromancer’s Light), accompanied by Shae (said necromancer). I loved seeing them again.
We also have the romance between Leth and Evain. Despite being former colleagues, they don’t like each other at the start; but they gradually get to know each other better… (It gets quite spicy.)
Poor Leth has a lot to deal with in this book. Aside from inevitably discovering Evain is truly a demon, he has major family issues going on — since it transpires his brother (a senior general who is very unhappy with his little brother) is also in the icy north with a company of soldiers and dastardly plans of his own…
Overall, The Sword-Witch’s Heart is fabulously entertaining epic / sword and sorcery fantasy — not too long or overly complicated (or overly violent), great banter between characters, available on audio, a mix of sweet and heart-wrenching.
It has monsters, blizzards, only one bed /sharing a tent, magic hair-beads, a demonic black stallion called Daisy… all the feels.
I’ve read and/or listened to this whole series a few times now and suspect it’ll be one I keep coming back to. It just hits the spot!
Ellen Gregory 
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