Book: Anji Kills a King
Author: Evan Leikam
Publisher: Tor Books
Year: 2025
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Anji works as a castle servant, doing 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 was, 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 Anti’s face, and may change the course of a kingdom.”

Review : A couple things to note right off the bat: if you’ve been around for a while you’ll notice that I gave Anji Kills a King the lowest score I’ve ever given – a score I extremely rarely dole out – 1 star. I also want to preface this review by telling you I did not finish (DNF) this book, I made it as far as page 107 (out of 348 in the advanced copy) before I called it quits. I generally try to give a book it’s fair shot by finishing it, and as you’ll note, over the last year I only DNF one other book out of approximately 30 that I received. Anji Kills a King was one of the most upsettingly bad books I’ve attempted to read in quite some time; I chose to DNF and shelve it rather than forcing myself through something I genuinely did not enjoy. Let’s get into it.

After spending years reviewing books online, Anji Kills a King is Evan Leikam’s debut novel and I found it an incredible disappointment to encounter such a poorly written book by a fellow reviewer. Anji Kills a King is being billed as a recommendation for fans of Joe Abercrombie’s work, and as someone who literally just finished a massive tome by Joe Abercrombie, I feel uniquely qualified to say : no. There is simply no universe in which I’d compare Leikam’s writing to that of Abercrombie’s. It is a far, far cry from the dry, witty, enjoyable work of a master talent like Abercrombie, to say the very least. Anji Kills a King begins with, well, Anji killing a king. There’s absolutely nothing to ease us into the story, there’s no lead-up, there’s just Anji, the king, and spurting blood. It’s from the very get-go that we go awry as the pacing absolutely stumbles headfirst through our entry into this fantasy world Leikam has created – and I use the term “created” loosely, as I could hardly tell you what the world was like, I have no idea what it was called, and couldn’t even begin to picture it if I tried. So many aspects of the book feel rushed, almost as though they ended up on the page by mere accident, yet simultaneously we find ourselves trapped in Anji’s inner world for an excruciating amount of time. It makes for a stilted and unenjoyable read from the very first page and doesn’t get better over the next 106 pages, either.

It’s hard to understand why Leikam wrote Anji the way he did, as I found her to be wildly unlikeable. It doesn’t make sense to create a book in which your reader is forced to endure nearly 400 pages with a protagonist who is intolerable to read. Anji is entitled, she’s brash, and she’s incredibly annoying. The annoying aspect is something I’d like to address, because I believe it comes down to poor writing, rather than an intentionally annoying character. Either way, Anji cannot seem to keep her damn mouth shut, and by that I mean Leikam has written dialogue that relentlessly travels the same ground over and over and over, making Anji appear to be dimwitted, though she isn’t written to appear dim outside of dialogue so I have to assume this is the sign of poor dialogue development, and not so much a character trait. The dialogue was so difficult to read I nearly stopped several times prior to page 107, but stubborn me, I wanted to get through it so I could give you a clear idea of the totality of this work – ha!

Sadly, Leikam’s work is not the breakneck fantasy book I was lead to believe it was. Instead, it was intentionally disgusting, not in any way that might have furthered the plot, but in a way that made me feel that Leikam chose to lean on the crutch of foul descriptors and disgusting scenes in order to bring grit to the book he created and instead made this reader feel nausea. Rather than the dark, gritty tone someone like Abercrombie might have achieved through a balance of humor and dry wit, Leikam instead managed to merely create something needlessly gross. With a narrator I couldn’t stand to read, pacing that made no sense, and absolutely no semblance of world building, it’s no wonder that by the time Leikam brutally killed not one, but two animals in his storyline, I closed the book and said “No more.” I couldn’t stomach another page of this truly unenjoyable book. As someone who holds onto the advanced copies they receive, whether good or bad, I hope I can impress upon you exactly how I feel by sharing that this book will go where it belongs : in the recycling.

Advice : If you enjoy Joe Abercrombie’s work, this is not for you. If you like fantasy books that include world building, that paint a picture for you, and that do the work of actually creating systems of magic that actually make sense, this is not for you. Don’t waste your time, it isn’t worth it. Avoid this one at all costs.