TL;DR Review: A grimdark fantasy adventure, an indefatigable character, and cleverly woven mysteries that had me spellbound until the last page.
Synopsis:
An unlikely assassin struggles to escape a legendary bounty hunter in this breakneck fantasy debut that will grab you by the throat―perfect for fans of Joe Abercrombie, R.F. Kuang, and Christopher Buehlman.
She killed for a cause. Will she die for it too?
Anji works as a castle servant, cleaning laundry for a king she hates. So when a rare opportunity presents itself, she seizes the chance to cut his throat. Then she runs for her life. In her wake, the kingdom is thrown into disarray, while a bounty bigger than anyone could imagine lands on her head.
On her heels are the fabled mercenaries of the Menagerie, whose animal-shaped masks are magical relics rumored to give them superhuman powers. It’s the Hawk who finds Anji first: a surly, aging swordswoman who has her own reasons for keeping Anji alive and out of the hands of her fellow bounty hunters, if only long enough to collect the reward herself.
With the rest of the Menagerie on their trail, so begins an alliance as tenuous as it is temporary―and a race against death that will decide Anji’s fate, and may change the course of a kingdom.
Full Review:
It’s safe to say I have never read a book quite like this! I mean, how many fantasy adventure stories can you think of where the protagonist and heroine spends quite nearly the ENTIRE time (like 95%!) shackled and held prisoner?
But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Anji Kills a King follows Anji, a palace laundress who has, surprise surprise, killed a king. Really, that’s where it starts with Anji standing over the body of the tyrant king she just finished murdering. Realizing what she’s done—and what’ll be done to her when she’s discovered—she collects what few belongings she has and flees.
She gets, oh, about, three days away before she makes the sort of ridiculous mistakes most first-time fugitives would, which leads to her getting caught by The Hawk, a member of the Menagerie, one of the five most famous bounty hunters in the kingdom.
And thus begins Anji’s lengthy—most of the book, really—incarceration. She’s not only manacled, but she is tethered to The Hawk by magic (called “maxia”) which works like a long leash to keep her from getting more than a few hundred yards away from her captor.
What makes this story so interesting is that though Anji spends most of it as a prisoner, she never stops trying to fight and flee. She has balls of steel, Anji does, with a fiery spirit and sharp tongue to match, so every chance she gets, she’s going to try to take The Hawk down, break free, or find some way to escape.
She’s smart enough to play docile at the right times, and there are plenty of moments when the realization that she’s never going to escape her highly trained professional captor could cause her to crumble. But like strong steel, she always snaps back. She bends but never breaks, and that makes her a character we absolutely love to follow.
From the beginning, we’re introduced to a fascinating mystery: why is The Hawk so insistent on delivering her to justice in person, why has she been missing from the public eye for years, and, most important of all, why is she so willing to kill her own fellow Menagerie members?
Never do we get quick, easy answers to anything—about The Hawk, about Anji’s past, about the darkness flooding the world—but it’s well worth the patience, for when they come…well, it’s safe to say a few of these big reveals saved up for the end had my jaw on the floor.
The world feels wonderfully grimdark, the violence is savage, and bloodshed is always just a breath away (quite literally, at one of my favorite scenes in the entire book). It works perfectly as a standalone and wraps up all the story threads to perfection while still keeping us interested enough in the world and what’s to come that I would not at all be mad if future books were set in this same realm with the same characters (those who survived this story, at least).
All in all, a book I absolutely devoured and a hell of a debut for the author.
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