This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews
2026 | Adult Fantasy | USA | 470 pages | Maggie the Undying #1
When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy and naked in a gutter, it doesn’t take her long to recognize Kair Toren. It’s a city she knows intimately from the pages of a famously unfinished dark fantasy series. Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic and mayhem? Her encyclopaedic knowledge of the plot, the setting and the characters’ ambitions and fates. But while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters she’s coming to love.
Maggie joins a motley band that includes a former lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures and a dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to return home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes – and attentions – of duelling princes, dukes and villains. This all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the ending she’s seen on the page: a cataclysmic war.
This was my most anticipated release of 2026 by a long way and I am happy to say that I was not disappointed. (The only disappointing thing about this book is that I now need to wait for the sequel!!!!)
Plot
Ilona Andrews’ books always have great plots – exciting, engaging, not entirely predictable and generally well-paced. I was also very happy with how they engaged with certain isekai tropes. Isekai fantasy is a common trope/subgenre within a lot of East Asian media and involves a person from our world finding themselves reincarnated or otherwise transported to another world – commonly (but not necessarily) the world of a book or film. Maggie, our main character, shows an awareness of these tropes and this allows her to avoid some of the annoying pitfalls I sometimes come across in other iterations of the trope. For instance, Maggie doesn’t spend a lot of time wallowing or thinking she will be able to wake up back in her own life and is also quick to realise that the world she has woken up in is far more complex and real than the world from the book.
Of course, it is completely reasonable for someone who wakes up in a new world to want to get home or deny their new reality, but when these characters show awareness of these types of plots and still follow these obvious (and frustrating to read) plot lines despite all precedent from other shows/books indicating the futility of doing so it does get annoying pretty quickly. For this reason, I would say that although we do get some references to Maggie’s original life and Maggie has a great amount of prior knowledge of events, I think this book would equally appeal to people who enjoy straight high fantasy, or who only like isekai storylines when the characters start to actually care about the world they’ve landed in and its outcome.
Worldbuilding
The worldbuilding is one of the best parts of this book (and most of Ilona Andrews books) but it is also the part for which I have seen the most criticism, and I agree with both sides. Like with all Ilona Andrews books, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is full of unique worldbuilding, although this one is perhaps slightly less experimental than some of their other series. I also especially love that both tea and braids/hairstyles form an important part of this world’s society and culture, since they are two of my favourite aspects to find in a world. Apart from that, there is a rich imagining of the city, a variety of magic and creatures, yummy tasting food and pretty much anything else you could want from this kind of setting.
The main criticism of the book that I’ve seen is not the actual world itself, but rather the way we learn information about the world (including character back story, political events etc.) and that is because it can be slightly info-dumpy at times. This is because Maggie lands in the world with a lot of prior knowledge that becomes imminently pertinent. I will say, however, that this element did not negatively affect my own experience of the novel and I didn’t feel like most of the book was spent explaining things that happened off-page. The amount of information that is told decreases over time and there is a decent amount of organic exploration and discovery of the world that happens once Maggie has to start actually living everyday life within it. If you struggle to process a lot of worldbuilding information at the beginning of the story, you might find this to be a bigger issue, but it personally didn’t negatively affect my enjoyment of the book as a whole.
Characters
Apart from consistently engaging plots and unique worldbuilding, perhaps Ilona Andrews’ greatest strength is writing characters that you can’t help but care about and this is no exception. Not only do we have very compelling, intelligent and loveable main characters, but the cast of side characters is also impeccable – including the animal sidekick that truly deserves a fandom of her own. If found family or character casts you can fall in love with are a big draw for you, this book will definitely not disappoint – and if you have read this book, I would love to hear who your favourite characters are so far.
Verdict
If you like previous Ilona Andrews books and are up for something a little bit more epic, then this is definitely for you. If you’ve never read an Ilona Andrews book before, this is also definitely for you – but also check out my post on Instagram (or I will have a blog version coming in a few days) for advice on where to go next, because Ilona Andrews’ works are a rabbit hole you’re unlikely to climb back out of.
I’ve been trying to resist the urge to reread this book again already as I enjoy Ilona Andrews’ books more and more with every reread and with such an expansive story I’m sure there are things I missed, but I’m going to try and hold off for at least a bit.
Buy this book!
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Have you read this book? What did you think?
Keira x
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