• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
FanFiAddict

FanFiAddict

A gaggle of nerds talking about Fantasy, Science Fiction, and everything in-between. They also occasionally write reviews about said books. 2x Stabby Award-Nominated and home to the Stabby Award-Winning TBRCon.

  • Home
  • About
    • Reviewers
    • Review Policy
    • Stance on AI
    • Contact
    • Friends of FFA
  • Blog
    • Reviews
      • Children’s / Middle Grade Books
      • Comics / Graphic Novels
      • Fantasy
        • Alt History
        • Epic Fantasy
        • Fairy Tales
        • Grimdark
        • Heroic Fantasy
        • LitRPG
        • Paranormal Fantasy
        • Romantic Fantasy
        • Steampunk
        • Superheroes
        • Sword and Sorcery
        • Urban Fantasy
      • Historical
      • Science Fiction
        • Aliens
        • Artificial Intelligence
        • Alt History
        • Cyberpunk
        • Dystopian
        • Hard SciFi
        • Mechs/Robots
        • Military SF
        • Space Opera
        • Steampunk
        • Time Travel
      • Thriller
    • Guest Posts
    • Lists
    • Neurodivergence in Fiction
    • Why You Should Read…
    • Interviews
      • Book Tube
      • Authorly Writing Advice
  • Fear For All
    • Demons
    • Ghosts
    • Gothic
    • Lovecraftian
    • Monsters
    • Occult
    • Psychological
    • Slasher
    • Vampires
    • Werewolves
    • Witches
    • Zombies
  • SFF Addicts
    • SFF Addicts Clips
    • SFF Addicts (Episode Archive)
  • TBRCon
    • TBRCon2025
    • TBRCon2024
    • TBRCon2023
    • TBRCon2022
  • FFA Book Club
  • FFA TBR Toppers
    • Advertise Your Book on FFA!
  • Writer Resources
    • Artists
    • Cartographers
    • Editing/Formatting/Proofing

Review: Anji Kills A King (The Rising Tide #1) by Evan Leikam

May 9, 2025 by Will Swardstrom Leave a Comment

Rating: 9.25/10

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 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.

Review:

Anji Kills a King is a brutal, action-packed, grimy fantasy and I had a wonderful time with it. So often in fantasy stories, our heroes ride horses down packed dirt roads on a journey from a fire in the middle of a woods one evening to a tavern in a random village the next. In those stories, we don’t get the brutality and dirtiness as a character, but in Evan Leikam’s debut novel (releasing next Tuesday, May 13), he took the nature of the world and made it a core feature of Anji’s story as she has to grapple with the consequences of her actions. 

Leikam starts quickly with the plot. The book isn’t about Anji in her journey and process to kill the king. Instead, the assassination happens almost before we are more than a few beats into the book. The plot, instead, is about what happens to Anji afterwards — the ramifications of her actions on the world and her future. Her killing of the king might have been correct — might have been justified — but she is still a royal assassin and has to be held accountable. 

That’s where the Hawk steps in. The Hawk is one of the members of the Menagerie who are like a Seal Team 6 for this fantasyland with animal-themed names and masks. There’s a lot more to the Hawk’s story that takes a lot of coaxing and time by Anji to discover and the Hawk’s backstory ultimately shows what the story beyond this book will be. 

The interplay between Anji and the Hawk is brutal and rough. Anji has a big mouth, and at first, the conversations between the two are entirely one-sided and as a reader, it was a bit understandable when Anji was told to shut up or threatened with violence. But even with the Hawk’s treatment of Anji, we see that it could be worse when other members of the Menagerie show up. 

I really liked this book, but I can totally see where someone might claim this book was just a giant set-up for the next book in the series. The ending is a huge payoff for the journey that Anji and the Hawk go through and helps to show what’s really at stake and what our protagonist will be up to once the second book starts (presumably with a bang). 

Evan Leikam did really well for a debut novel and I’ll be on the lookout for the second book in The Rising Tide series down the road. And as always, Moira Quirk did an excellent job in narration for the book, capturing Anji’s fresh attitude and the Hawk’s war-weariness. 

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Tor Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. Anji Kills a King releases on May 13, 2025.

Filed Under: Epic Fantasy, Fantasy, Grimdark, High Fantasy, Reviews Tagged With: Book Review, Debut Author, Epic Fantasy, Fantasy, Grimdark, Macmillan Audio, Tor Books

About Will Swardstrom

Will S. loves books of all varieties, but thrives on Fantasy and Sci Fi. He spends his days in Southern Illinois teaching middle school history and learning all the latest Internet trends from pre-teens. He enjoys spending time with his wife and kids and watching British detective shows. In previous lives, he's dabbled in radio, newspaper, writing his own speculative fiction, and making Frosties at Wendy's.

Other Reviews You Might Like

Review: Bloodless by G.J. Terral, book 3 of The Binding Tenets

Review: The Girl in the Walls by Meg Eden Kuyatt

Review: The Vengeance (The Vampires of Dumas #1) by Emma Newman

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Sponsored By

Use Discount Code FANFI For 5% Off!

FFA Newsletter!

Sign up for updates and get FREE stories from Michael R. Fletcher and Richard Ford!

What Would You Like To See?(Required)
Please select the type of content you want to receive from FanFi Addict. You can even mix and match if you want!

FFA Author Hub

Read A.J. Calvin
Read Andy Peloquin
Read C.J. Daily
Read C.M. Caplan
Read D.A. Smith
Read DB Rook
Read Francisca Liliana
Read Frasier Armitage
Read Josh Hanson
Read Krystle Matar
Read M.J. Kuhn

Recent Reviews

Recent Comments

  1. Mark Matthews on COVER REVEAL: To Those Willing to Drown by Mark MatthewsJanuary 7, 2025
  2. Basra Myeba on Worth reading Jack Reacher books by Lee Child?January 5, 2025
  3. Ali on Review: Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav BarsukovJanuary 5, 2025
  4. Carter on So you want to start reading Warhammer 40,000? Here’s where to start!January 4, 2025
  5. M. Zaugg on Bender’s Best LitRPG reads of 2024January 3, 2025

Archive

Copyright © 2025 · Powered by ModFarm Sites · Log In