Paladin
Okay, in parts, this is well-trodden fantasy ground. You have an order of warriors dedicated to fighting demons. You have a scrappy girl who prefers martial pursuits to marital ones. She joins the aforesaid order in disguise because girls aren’t supposed to fight.
So, some of the standard bits, needing to stay disguised, etc. And a bit of romance (which is nicely not straightforward, but does go a little overboard on a couple occasions). The world building is a bit sparse, but there’s hints of much more background than we see. Notably, demons nearly overran everything once, and were sealed away ages ago. There’s still minor ones around to cause occasional problems, but it’s not the world-ending catastrophe it was. The Paladins still keep an eye on things, and fight the occasional lone demons that are out there.
On the other hand, there only seems to be one country in the world (no others are mentioned), and the government is undefined. There’s the Paladins… and apparently no other fighting force. There is a king mentioned… but the main authority shown is the head master of the Paladins.
But, everything that happens is more-or-less internal to the Paladins, so there’s not much chance to see much else. In fact, the focus is fairly tight, with three major characters (who all get some time as the viewpoint), and a bare handful of other characters, most of which don’t have much screen time. (There’s maybe three important secondary characters for the book as a whole.)
But that is enough, as their characters and interactions drive things forward nicely. That is easily the best part of it all, though the writing does have a certain passion for the story it is telling that also carries you forward with it.
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