CBR18 BINGO: 26, because it was published in 2026
Just shy of the halfway point in This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, I was struggling to understand why it came so highly recommended. At the start of the novel, the heroine, Maggie, finds herself alone and naked in a ditch, in a world that she knows from her favorite fantasy series. While not a completely new premise, it’s a provocative setup. Maggie’s initial challenge is to find food, clothes, and shelter, and for that she needs money. From her many rereads, she knows the precise time and place that a disreputable character is going to be crossing a bridge with a bag of coins. Desperate, she steals the bag and gets stabbed for her troubles, which is how she discovers she can’t die in this world.
Again, solid. This all happens in the first chapter, so the story starts with a bang. Then Maggie proceeds to brain dump everything she knows about this universe over the next 200 pages. “Show, don’t tell,” is a classic rule of fiction, but due to the nature of the setup, the author finds it more expedient to tell, and tell, and tell. Maggie makes a mental note not to give too much away to the people (characters) she meets, but she frequently violates her own rule. After describing a horror called the Night of a Thousand Fires to the swordsman Reynald, she pauses and says, “Too much?” Yeah, Maggie. Yeah, Ilona Andrews. It’s clear you didn’t need to tell him all that and the level of detail was for the reader’s benefit.
Then, around the midpoint, there is a definite shift in the storytelling. By then, Maggie has caused ripple effects so that she’s no longer sure what’s going to happen next. The story becomes much more engaging and there are some cracking good scenes, the best of which is one of the deaths Maggie undergoes. (She can still feel pain, and she’s not sure whether she’ll keep coming back indefinitely or whether there are limits to her immortality, so the stakes are high in spite of her unique situation.)
All this adds up to me being on the fence about this novel. It’s got a strong female lead, lots of great characters, and some exciting scenarios. However, the 200 pages of often-tedious exposition prevents me from raving about it. I wasn’t engaged for nearly half of the story, so even when there were twists and surprises, I wasn’t fully impacted because I had to flip back and remember why the particular development should be shocking. The story also leans a bit too heavily into romance, so this was probably never going to be a 5-star read for me.
Will I read the next installment when it comes out? Maybe. I probably won’t be rushing to put a hold on it the minute my library gets a copy, but there is enough going on that I can see continuing, especially since most of the backstory is out of the way.
