This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This rating is causing a huge conundrum for me.
On one hand I LOVED all the supporting characters, possible love interests, friends, etc. I barely tolerated the MC at first, but she grew on me as things went on. I also think it’s grim yet politically manic fantasy world. Well put together, with elaborate magic and a lot going on. 5/5
On the other side, I HATED the ad nauseam overwritten descriptions, telling not showing, long internal monologues about in the book this happens and these people are related this way but in this portal version of the world it’s difficult because of XYZ, and blah, blah, blah. It’s like the writing team that is Ilona Andrews decided they were going to write epic fantasy and therefore that meant they got to be verbose and boring just because they could. 2/5
It gets more complex when you also learn that I’m dying at the cliffhanger!! And adore the complicated, but not too ridiculous love interests and circumstances. At times they ring a bit too romanc-y for me but I expect that from paranormal romance writers delving into Romantasy (aka: more fantasy but still a lot of yearning and such). Most important is the possible romantic interests here are all sooo engaging. Even side characters like the random kid of a soldier and the disowned lady’s maid managed to capture my heart to some degree.
Who is this for?
Fourth Wing readers who liked book 3 (aka, less sex, more politics). To be clear there is NO sex in this book. Just a lot of yearning, jealousy, and can they be trusted issues. I suspect the nasty will come soon however. I’m suspecting it could play out like Laurel K. Hamilton and Anita Blake’s first three books; lacking the smut, but then later books seemingly only had smut.
A Court of Thorn and Roses readers might be okay with this. But I doubt it. It’s too overwritten and probably too gory for them.
Grimdark fantasy readers (aka: Abercombie, Lawrence, Lynch, etc). I don’t think so. There are aspects you will love (grotesque serial killer) but it’s not the core of the story and I think the female MC will annoy you to the point you hope her name ‘Maggie the Undying’ isn’t as literal as it seems to be in the opening chapter.
See what I mean by conundrum?
Maybe this is a book written for the verbose fantasy reader out there. Someone (like myself?) who has spent time (and enjoyed it depending on mood) in: the paranormal romance world (pre-Romantasy existing), the cozy fantasy of Baldree, highly political fantasy of GRRM, the descriptive fantasy of Tolkien, the grimdark of Lawrence, and the complexity of Sanderson; and finds merits to all of it at any given moment.
Does that make any sense at all? (lol)
I think This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is one of those you have to try it to see if it’s for you. I’d encourage you to hang in until at least the 30% mark (as I was a bit bored up until then) and then see how you feel about it. I can say it went from meh to an absolute banger (twists abound) at the end. Hence why rating it is so darn difficult!
I think I’ll stick to 3.5 if I could half it. I’m rounding up here to 4 because I do want to read the next one.
Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.
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