This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews
When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy, and naked in a gutter, it doesn’t take her long to recognize Kair Toren, a city she knows intimately from the pages of the famously unfinished dark fantasy series she’s been obsessively reading and re-reading while waiting years for the final novel. Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic, and mayhem? Her encyclopedic knowledge of the plot, the setting, and the characters’ ambitions and fates. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes—and attentions—of dueling princes, dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the way she knows their stories will end: in a cataclysmic war.
By Lília
“I had read enough fantasy books to fill a library, but that very first series was my special treasure. Set in the city of Kair Toren, capital of the kingdom of Rellas, the story revolved around the power struggles of eight noble families, and it was so full of fantasy tropes, it would be clichéd except that the superb writing moved it right past stereotypical into classic. The characters felt so real, they practically jumped off the page.”
A lot has already been said about this book by both Naomi and Damla, and you can check their reviews here and here.
The first time I read about This Kingdom was on the authors’ blog a couple of years ago as Maggie the Undying. I kept reading references about Maggie, but nothing concrete. I was a bit curious, but since it was still a secret project by then, I simply concentrated on other things they were showing on the blog. And other titles being published.
From time to time, there would be a reference to Maggie the Undying, and it became an even bigger mystery to me. When they finally announced they had sold the story to Tor, it was actually because a fan had read it somewhere else.
And then it became a slowly increasing fever. The manuscript was getting longer than they expected, the story grew more complex, and the curiosity grew exponentially. Now I wanted to read it! When were they going to publish it?
Manuscript done and publishing date announced, there were finally ARCs to be read. The perks of being a bookseller! By then colleague Naomi had just read it and was super excited about it. Digital ARC in hand I started reading it and could not stop!
I kid you not. This is an intense story, full of unexpected twists and a lot of information about the world being shared without you getting the feel of an info dump (at least I didn’t!). I’m used to their style and the way they present necessary information in a way I feel fits well into the narrative.
Maggie suddenly wakes up in Kair Toren, the main city of a fantasy novel series she loves and has read many times. It is a harsh world, full of betrayal and intrigue. Realizing she has no way out, at least for now, she does her best to adapt to her new situation and, at the same time, prevent the devastating war described in the books. She knows the world and its people, but events keep changing, and the fact that the author never published the third volume of the trilogy leaves her with a hole in her knowledge of what would happen.
The world-building is phenomenal, Maggie is not exactly “Undying” -but dying still hurts!-, and the pace never stops. I love all that Ilona Andrews writes as a duo, but this one made me obsessed. I want to read the rest of Maggie’s story now! Too bad volume 1 is just being published, and we will have to wait to read the rest. The authors are working on volume 2 as I write this, and as mentioned above, it’s a long process. But we will be waiting for the rest of the story, and rooting for Maggie and her friends.
