This was quite the journey to go on. Anji was a relatable character and I enjoyed seeing her develop on the page. At times I felt the mask descriptions were a little off putting in the audio because they would just call them Hawk for example. And after a while you were like okay I get it. I think I would have liked the world and journey a little more if they mentioned the detail but associated the mask and ability with a persons name. Instead titles were used all the way to the end. It is like reading a book and then only calling them the king and we never say his name. After a bit we get he is the king. We don’t need to hear it anymore. I however get this made her concept and story unique but I felt to this extent it was unnecessary and less would have been more in this instance.

An excellent debut by booktok's Evan Leikam. Full of action and great character development moments. An interesting look at the difference age and experience make with young Anji's thoughts and actions juxtaposed with older and more experienced Hawk. The ending left me looking forward to the next installment and to see what happens to Anji next.

First and foremost, thank you to the publishers for providing an e-ARC of the book. This story was truly wonderful in its inventiveness. I was first introduced to this author through Instagram, and I was so excited to see he was writing a book!

I experienced this story through the audiobook, which was an absolute delight. The narration brought the characters and the world to life in such a vivid way. I especially enjoyed the character development throughout the book—it was so fun to watch the bonds between characters grow and to see how they worked together to solve challenges. The narrator did a wonderful job bringing the author's characters to life.

Four stars!

A propulsive fantasy novel that does not let up, Anji Kills a King is about the titular Anji, who does indeed kill the king, and her journey across her country to be turned in for her bounty by a heartless bounty hunter known as the Hawk. The Hawk is part of the menagerie, an animal-masked troupe of the best bounty hunters in the world. It's a Tolkien-esque journey told in the pace of an early Sanderson novel where our protagonists quickly go from episode to episode on their way south. Wonderfully written and great characters despite its brisk pace. An excellent standalone fantasy novel that also happens to be the first in a series.

In this debut fantasy, we're following Anji after she kills a king. This happens in the first chapter, and the adventure definitely doesn't just stop there. Along the way, she encounters different famous mercenaries who all want to claim the reward on her head.

One of the things that I enjoyed most about this book is the relationship between Anji and Hawk. Seeing the way that they evolve throughout the story kept me interested and strangely hopeful. The tropes that were used in these books were very familiar, yet Evan made them seem fresh and new instead of tiresome. Also, the ending of this book is everything that I wanted. There was a bit of a cliffhanger, but this book could still be read as a standalone in my opinion. I'm really looking forward to learning more about the world and the magic in the next book since the world building was on the more minimal side.

This book only comes in at about 344 pages, which is pretty short for a fantasy book, but I thought it was the perfect length. The language used was fairly simplistic so it was an easy read. The narrator also did a fantastic job with the material.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it!

Probably 3.5 stars. This book was good. I think what was missing for me was that I didn't feel emotionally attached to any of these characters. I liked Anji well enough but never really cared what happened to her. Also I found the story a bit repetitive. The writing is strong and the dialogue even stronger.

[3.5 stars rounded down]

Anji Kills a King is a story about Anji, a young woman working as a servant in the king’s castle, who shoves a letter opener through the king’s neck, gets pretty far away, and then is captured by a grizzled old bounty hunter who is dead-set on taking Anji back to the castle to collect the bounty. This is a decently strong debut and a good first book in the series. However, there were some pacing and character issues that bothered me throughout and stopped me from really enjoying the story.

Opening with Anji covering the king’s mouth and the letter opener already in his throat, we meet Anji at a strange moment in her life. Having lived in the castle as a laundress for the last six years, she is forced to grab her very meager belongings and slip out of the castle in an attempt to get anywhere away from there. The Menagerie, a team of five ageing bounty hunters who are just starting to become past their prime are sent after her, not to mention her poster on every open wall in the country. Warnings about the new governing power held by a fanatic religious organization, the new drug on the market and the monsters related to it, and the whispers of growing rebellion are developed over the course of this novel, all seen through Anji’s eyes as she’s chartered on a roundabout route to the castle by The Hawk - a member of The Menagerie.

Chapters in this book are short and plentiful. With nearly 50 chapters in a just over 350 page book, you are constantly moving with the two main characters (mind that this is mostly a travel story). Pacing of individual chapters is done very well. There are tight in-chapter arcs that never feel as though they meander too far from the overarching storyline. However, there are many moments where I wished we spent more time on a scene. Sometimes, I felt as though we barely met someone or were introduced to a place before we were rushed out of there alongside Anji and The Hawk.

Action sequences are also written very well. I listened to the audiobook and every fight scene was a standout. Descriptions are clear enough to keep track of where everyone is while also developing the movement and grit within them. Violent scenes are written out gruesomely without stepping into splatterpunk territory and are the perfect amount of them where they neither feel out of nowhere nor overused. Scenes that are just as high tensioned, though not necessarily action scenes, are also utilized well and, except for a few moments with Anji talking too much, hold the perfect amount of tension. These scenes of high caliber action and tension are the best in the novel and I hope that he leans into this with his future works even more.

The most common complaint I see in other reviews is of Anji herself. I, personally, did not find her nearly as unbearable as some others seem to have. She is a chatty protagonist, yes. She is purposefully causing issues and provoking The Hawk, yes. It’s understandable, though. She thinks to herself early on that she is trying to provoke The Hawk into letting something slip that Anji can use against her or to escape. She’s knowingly doing this, both as a character trait and as a plan. I really don’t read books with this chatty of a protagonist, nor one with so much focus on back and forth spats between the two main characters, so for me this was a pretty fun change of pace. There were two main moments, though, where Anji became unbearable to me. Like, it felt unnecessarily drawn out that she did not shut up after the first time The Hawk told her to and it felt forced. Her thought process has some errors as well where, at times, Anji would flip back and forth between opinions with no reasoning for her choice changing. There were a few moments like this from either main character scattered, though not a constant or overbearing issue.

The Hawk is an enjoyable character. I have a lot less to say about her than Anji - maybe a bad thing as she left a lot less of any impact on me - but she was enjoyable enough most of the time. I’m glad that she was allowed to be an older woman who spit and lied a lot. We spend most of the time with her either interacting solely with Anji or an occasional guard or religious order member, so it was refreshing to see how she changed when meeting with an old friend at a later point.

The author is also very good at showing, not telling things. Instead of relying on a character just telling us that people have been struggling under the king’s governance and poverty is horrible right now, we get a scene between Anji and an orphaned kid in a town. We hear about the local lamplighter going missing at the same time one of the new monsters has been spotted near town. We see our main characters interact with members of the religious order. Though there are times where the audience lacks information because of this (we learn next to nothing about the magic system or how it works, though mind that this is both the first novel in the series and the magic is not a major part of the plot), it reads as really skilled writing from the author. It’s not the most in-depth worldbuilding you will find in a fantasy/second world novel, but what we get is done very well and works with the plot and characters.

Moving onto more strictly criticisms, I think that the overall pacing was an issue. I said earlier that the individual chapter pacing was done well, but as a whole there were many moments that felt like we were going nowhere. The beginning arc of this novel is the biggest issue. It is very formulaic with “The Hawk has Anji captured, Anji thinks that she wants to escape. The Hawk seemingly lets her guard down slightly. Anji tries to escape but fails miserably. The Hawk admonishes her. They eat or interact with their horse or sleep.” Rinse and repeat. I don’t think the amount of scenes or page numbers is the issue. If Anji did not repeatedly try to escape, I would have been frustrated with her and thought it to be out of character. Her stubbornness and arrogance at times is key to her character, and her repeated escape attempts capture that well. If this was 20% of a longer novel, it would work just fine. However, this takes up around 40% of this novel. After this point, the plot takes off, but I don’t feel that the pacing ever quite recovers from this initial stagnation.

The novel peaks in the middle and stumbles greatly at the end. The middle, where we meet several different great characters in a few nice changes of setting and pace works well. The terror in the first of these two parts are palpable, the comfort and lingering dread of the next is fresh. It’s also refreshing to see Anji interact with characters other than The Hawk after all this time, and the same goes for The Hawk towards others as well. I think the ending stumbled greatly, though. The leadup to the ending leads to a strange detour, an under-explained fight sequence, and an overly convenient solution to all their problems. The ending itself was surprising, yes, but I don’t feel like it was fully earned. I felt like the author wrote the ending before drafting the lead up to the ending, but was so determined to keep the novel this short that he had to cram in the lead up. Both pacing and characters falter, and several reveals are not earned and feel unsatisfactory. No plot holes or anything abysmal like that, just not the best writing. Even another fifty pages could have really helped.

Overall, a decently strong debut and first novel in a promising fantasy series. As long as you like a chatty protagonist and ribs back and forth between the two main characters, you’ll enjoy this one. I am really looking forward to more of this world in the future books of the series!

This was a wild ride and so were my opinions about it. At first I was totally on board. Then there was a part in the middle where I started to wonder whether the author had a plan…but then the character development suddenly kicked into high gear and led to a satisfying (and somewhat surprising) ending!

Anji is a very realistic feeling protagonist…in the sense that she is sometimes kind of stupid. The book is overall very gritty, in the sense that it is gross. The author loves to describe bodily fluids, particularly snot, urine, etc. Probably realistic given the number of fight scenes in cold weather, living in campsites, etc. But maybe a bit excessive at times, for my personal liking. Very grim in that anyone can die (again, sometimes maybe verging on gratuitous, and sometimes tragic).

The slow, satisfying character growth, in both of the two main characters, pays off well in the end. I wish that character development had started earlier but it did work (she gets less stupid, for one thing). Similarly, the world-building: we are thrown right into the middle of the action, and it takes a long time for information to be revealed. Maybe slightly too long, and maybe not quite enough information, but enough for the plot to make sense and to keep me interested.

With all of that said, I would recommend this book. It was engaging and gritty, and very consciously plays around with a lot of fantasy tropes; also, the audiobook narrator, Moira Quirk, is great.

Wow! What a remarkable adventure!

Remember when Arya Stark and the Hound from Game Of Thrones were road companions? That’s the feeling I got from this book. I absolutely loved it.
It was funny, it was violent, it was action packed, the world building was really cool but kind of simple so it’s easily digestible fantasy.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc, the first book hasn’t even been released yet and I’m impatiently awaiting book 2! That ending was wild and I never saw that coming.

This was so, so good! I went in blind and I really enjoyed it. It was a fun and engaging fantasy. The writing and characters and plot are very compelling and kept me very interested in the story. I initially devoured this book, as Leikam's writing style is generally easy to read, and easy to follow. Later on some parts came through as somewhat repetitive and slow, I think they could have been condensed in less pages and the pace of the plot could have been handled better. For the most part, however, Leikam's world building is beautiful, detailed, and well worth the read. When all the pieces click, it's really fun and it kept me hooked.
If I’m 100% honest, high fantasy has always felt a little too sanitised for my taste. Blood and death have a brutal honesty that is difficult to ignore. And Anji Kills a King walks the line between them perfectly. I had a really great time with this one, I was entertained throughout it. All in all, if you enjoy fantasy with complicated heroines, interesting world building and stunning writing then I deeply suggest you pick up Anji Kills a King .
Last but not least, I listened to an audio version and it was marvelous. All in all a very satisfactory reading experience! HUGE Recommend.

Ahoy there me mateys!  This is a debut and the first in a series from a "co-host of the Book Reviews Kill podcast, and a book influencer on TikTok and Instagram."  I have not heard of the author before this and picked up the book based on the fact that it deals with an assassin on the run.  Cause, aye, Anji killed a king.

Anji is not yer typical assassin.  She is a teenage laundress with no real skills.  Her assassination plot was all chance and luck.  Anji flees in terror at her success and manages to get caught fairly quickly by one of the kingdom's famous bounty hunters named Hawk,

Hawk is a member of the Menagerie.  These mercenaries have magical animal masks and are considered heros by the populace.  The reality isn't so pretty.  Hawk is a dying drug addict in for one last take.  The reward for the murderer of a slain king is astronomical.  Hawk will stop at nothing to get the loot - including acting against the Menagerie.  The Menagerie members in pursuit are actually vicious and have no redeeming qualities.  Torture is fun.  Ugh.

The world building and history of the kingdom is rather light with nothing much about the dead king or the kingdom of Yem's politics or the neighboring countries.  There are hints about Nine Gods, Sun Wardens, Order of the Inheritance, and a state religion.  I don't feel I know anything about them.  I also really don't understand the magic system called Maxia and what it can do or how it works.  I would have preferred to receive a lot more details about the whys and wherefores of things.

Ultimately this is a travel story focused on the relationship between Hawk and Anji.  They end up begrudgingly relying on each other.  I have to admit that I ended up enjoying Hawk a lot more than Anji.  Anji is, frankly, a very annoying protagonist and hard to root for.  She is stubborn to the point of stupidity, loud, and irritating.  Given how she was raised, she is discussed as being intelligent.  I just wanted her to shut up and think.  Or shut up and die.  Listening to her continually go against her best interests was frustrating.  Even her being tortured led to no sympathy because she caused it by frank stupidity.

Even though I had a lot of issues with the book, it was fasted paced and the narrator, Moira Quirk, did an excellent job.  Also Anji's actions at the very end of the book were surprising and kinda fun.  I am not sure I would pick up the next book as this felt like a very good standalone.  I will have to see what direction the author chooses to take Anji's next steps in.  Arrr!

3.5 rounded up

Anji Kills a King is an absolute masterpiece in story telling - a fantasy focusing on Anji's journey after she has killed a king and is subsequently captured by the Hawk, part of the menagerie, a fearsome group of mercenaries and bounty hunters. As the Hawk works to bring Anji to justice, we learn more about their world and the political and religious machinations keeping people in their places. The novel is a classic journey with peril and adventure along the way.

I initially was drawn to the book because I absolutely love anything that Moira Quirk narrates, and this is no exception - Quirk brings so much life and personality to each of the characters, I could not stop listening. But the writing itself is truly fantastic. The world building is done in such a smart way and where the layers of the world and characters are slowly peeled away. I am blown away that this was a debut novel and look so forward to more of Evan Leikam's work. Get this book on your TBR as soon as possible.

Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio and to NetGalley for the advanced listening copy.

I started Anji Kills a King because of the cover.  I didn’t read the synopsis (I did read the tagline because it was on the cover), and I didn’t read any of the reviews.  I just went into this one blind right from the cover art.  I kept listening, despite the myriad of content issues (see warnings at the end of the review on my blog), because the presentation—including the narration—was absolutely fantastic.  

First and foremost, Anji delivers epic fantasy under 400 pages.  It is also, blessedly, not a romantasy.   For a story that really just follows characters as they travel, this should not have been as interesting to me as it was.  Travel narratives bore me, even if the travel happens for only a segment.  Leikam keeps the pacing tight, and it, as Margaret Atwood says, “hold[s] my attention.”  

The biggest strength in this book lies in the world building and characters.  The world feels like any other typical medieval kind of world, but the addition of The Menagerie and interesting ways in which magic works gives a bit of a subtle feel that prevents the plot crutch some fantasies lean on when there’s an imbalance.  Many books with fantastic world development lack a proper plot, and many books with a decent plot lack adequate world building.  I didn’t feel that here.

Or main character, Anji, steals the show.  Anji’s situation is terrible, but she just can’t help her tendency toward agitating everyone around her.  The Menagerie reminds readers to never get to know your heroes.  Some things just don’t make all the sense or add up until the end when the last piece falls in place.  Then, some of the character development happens all at once as the big, twisty realization hits.  The ending really, for lack of a better term and though I hate the phrase because it’s overused in the book influencer world, left me reeling.  

Overall, 4/5 for the story and 5/5 for the narration.  At its core, it is a great story told fantastically.  I definitely have some reservations about the content, but I haven’t read a plot like this where the characters just travel and fight stuff that didn’t bore me to tears in forever.  I also checked all of Quirk’s narrated titles, and I plan to listen to some just for the narration alone.  

My thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC, for which I willing give my own, honest opinion.

I knew very little about this book going in, other than the fact that there’s a girl named Anji and she offs a king. And that happens in the first two sentences!

Anji kills a king is, more than anything, I think a story about relationships and hardships. There is certainly a plot, but it is second to the overall dynamic between Anji and the one who catches her, the Hawk. I spent half the book fully certain the Hawk was going to be her mom because I never believe anyone is dead in books until the book is done. Proven wrong, but I stand by it.

It’s interesting because Anji doesn’t quite develop a Stockholm syndrome situation with the Hawk. She does spend a majority of time trying to get away, but you can definitely see their dynamic shift after a while. They come to, unexpectedly, look out for each other and protect one another. Both say it’s in the name of either keeping the bounty alive or trying valiantly to escape without being lost in the middle of nowhere, but it feels like more.

It’s not quite a mother daughter relationship and not exactly a mentor/pupil dynamic either. It’s a unique thing all its own. The tides really turn when they meet friends of the Hawk and Anji gets a glimpse at her past and who she was before the mask and the drugs that took over her life.

This isn’t high fantasy by any means. There’s no real magic, but it is in a Fantastical setting. Again, this one is more of a character study and how you can learn to understand someone and how they came to be the way they are.

Spoiler alert but wow the end actually shocked me. No guys no glory Anji will stab if the opportunity arises. I’m excited for book 2! Thank you NetGalley for the early audio ARC!

This book was real easy to dive into, riding in on the banter between a murderous, wisecrack laundress and a jaded bounty hunter who captured her.

Story Structure
• The story had an interesting opening, where in Chapter 1, the MC, Anji, kills the king, and the story that follows is of what happens when she is immediately apprehended afterwards. I feel like this is a departure from what we'd normally see, where the death of a monarch is usually a climax point of tension rather than the intro, so Anji Kills a King I appreciate the novel entry for a plot.
• It's told from 3rd person POV, tightly coupling the reader to Anji's perspective. The bounty hunter captures Anji and tries her best to be as terse at possible in replies, which is definitely tested as Anji seems to compulsively need to speak and fill in the silence hilariously. It's a fairly linear story, where you go from point A of capture to point B of turning the criminal in to receive a bounty, no complicated multi-storylines or multi-timeline or multi-universe or whatever to keep track of.

Thoughts
• The strongest part about this story was definitely the banter between Anji and the Hawk (bounty hunter). It made getting into the story easy.
• And the world building from the magic drugs to the magic tethers were used in a logical way that did not feel gimmicky/ overly convenient way to resolve all the strife the that characters are encountering, which is a plus. Additionally the cult-like fervor of the team of guards/mercenaries/fighters that the bounty hunter is a part of all was believable (as in yup, y'all are crazy and brainwashed).
• However, a drawback is that I felt like this story felt a bit to simplistic. It was definitely a linear story line, get from point A to B, where a few events happen in the middle to slow down your progress to get to point B. I was waiting for the plot to get more complicated, but it never came--which was surprising and a bit disappointing, because Leikam's writing that does make an appearance feels so airtight and cleaned up that you definitely think he absolutely could write something more expansive, but just didn't.

Narrator
• Just wanted to shout out to Moira Quirk, who narrated this story as well as other books I loved, including Gideon the Ninth. She's fantastic!!
• Very adept at making distinct character voices, which could be pretty tricky if you're a voice actor with not as much finesse as Quirk for this story, b/c there are actually several female characters (main character, parade of villains, etc.) and you don't want them to all sound the same and confuse the living daylights out of the listener.
• If you have the option of listening to this story and not just reading the print, highly recommend you do so.

Overall, 3.5 ⭐️'s, rounding up. Looking forward to what I hope will be a sequel, where we can hopefully explore more of the world and hopefully get a more complex and intricate plot to stick the interesting characters into.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC in an exchange for an honest review.

From the moment I saw the title Anji Kills a King and the classic fantasy-inspired cover, I was hooked. The premise—Anji on the run after assassinating a king—immediately promised a gripping, high-stakes adventure, and the book definitely delivered.

The story wastes no time pulling you in, and I found myself quickly immersed in both the world and the characters’ journeys. While the worldbuilding takes more of a backseat, the fast pace and strong character focus more than make up for it. The writing is clean, accessible, and perfect for readers who might be newer to fantasy or just want a fast, engaging read.

What really stood out to me was the dynamic between Anji and the Hawk. Their banter, tension, and gradual character development were highlights that kept me turning the pages. Even in the darkest moments, their humour and chemistry added a spark that brought the story to life.

Overall, Anji Kills a King is a strong, adventurous fantasy debut filled with sharp dialogue, unlikely allies, and a protagonist you can’t help but root for. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever this author writes next.

I also loved listening to this via audiobook. The narrator did a fantastic job as always!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for this audio copy to review.

Excerpted from my blog - full review is at:
https://overentertained.wordpress.com/2025/04/10/anji-kills-a-king-evan-leikam-review/

People…I’m happy to say I was wrong. This book f*cking rocked. This is a killer debut and I am somewhat shocked with how much I liked it

As usual, I’ll avoid recapping the plot – the blurb on the book does a perfectly adequate job of giving you the basics. There is some interesting, but not overwhelming, world building that Leikam engages in that I found fascinating. Not too much detail…but enough to give you the gist of what’s going on (and played out slowly over the course of the novel). The Menagerie are a truly fascinating and terrifying group of psychopaths on Anji’s heels – in lesser hands they would have been played as more “grey” than they are in Leikam’s novel. I half expected them to show up and be the “rescuers” of her…and was happy when they proved themselves to be much worse than I could have imagined.

Leikam’s world feels true and lived in. I mention grimdark above because there is definitely an element of that here. This is NOT an easy read – nasty things happen to a lot of people, guilty and innocent, and his world is not for the feint of heart. There are a ton of interesting ideas of religious extremism and the “power behind the scenes” stuff that made for a lot of interesting discussion in the book. The use of drugs, the blatant corruption, the various powers who will use the death of the king in different ways and for differennt reasons.

Have I mentioned how absolutely terrifying The Menagerie is? Dear Gods. The Goat alone…whew.

I really liked this. In this particular case, I listened to the audiobook, read by Moira Quirk (whom I’ve never heard before) and she was outstanding. It moves along at almost breakneck speed at times and there is a fantastic “reveal” towards the end that I really didn’t see coming (though in hindsight…maybe I should have). There’s enough here for future novels and…man…I was wrong. Here is a “book influencer” who has written a fantastic novel that is outside my current comfort zone and yet…I really dug it. He deserves all the kudos I’ve seen for it.

There are a couple of quibbles here and there, mostly with the ending (I won’t spoil it here…I just found it somewhat…implausible maybe? It works…but it comes across as too neat for my taste. Too easy and maybe unrealistic. It requires a suspension of disbelief I simply struggled with). But that’s really minor. This is a terrific debut that I was absolutely wrong about. 4.5 stars – it is just short of a 5 star…even if I’m rounding up for GR.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a chance to read/listen to an advance copy of this in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and are uncompensated. Anji Kills a King is out May 13th from Tor and Macmillan Audio and you can preorder it here.

Anji Kills a King gives western buddy comedy meets grimdark fantasy vibes in the weirdest but most interesting way. Anji and bounty hunter Hawk's burgeoning relationship provides some dark humor that starkly highlights the absolute brutality of the world they occupy, and especially the brutalism of the other bounty hunters. Every time I felt myself veering into annoyance with Anji - an adolescent murderess who must face the consequences of her crimes - Evan Leikam both slapped Anji and the reader with the dark realities of her situation, kicking the bite out of Anji and surprising me as a reader. I personally struggled with some of the darker, more violent moments because this fantasy is truly cruel, but the character work pulled me right along. Add on an absolutely brilliant narrative performance from Moira Quirk, and I would highly recommend this audiobook to any epic fantasy reader.

🌳Anji Kills a King by Evan Leikam.

4/5⭐️

I have been waiting for this debut for a long time. And boy what a debut and so full of adventure! I had the opportunity to experience this story through ARC audiobook (thank you Macmillan Audio). The narrator Moira Quirk did an amazing job with the narration of each character. I was not made to guess which character was speaking. The pacing of the story was fast, action packed and engaging all through out.

Although the world build was lighter than some fantasy novels I have read, I really enjoyed the fact that it was character focused. The relationship and character development between the two main characters was outstanding and kept me engaged. I can’t wait to see what’s next for Anji.

I recommended to anyone who loves
Epic fantasy, journeys with unlikely allies, hard truths and unique magic.

4.5 stars!!

Anji Kills a King was such a solid debut! The writing was really simple and accessible, but not too simple to where anything felt stilted or awkward. I liked how young and headstrong Anji was and how it lead her to make some mistakes. I enjoyed her growth by the end and I am really curious to see her development throughout the series. There wasn’t as much world building as I would have liked. A lot of it happened in conversations between Anji and the Hawk, but I would have liked to learn a bit more. Hopefully the next book expands on it! This is a travel story, so it did feel slowly paced at times, but I enjoyed seeing Anji and the Hawk’s interactions in the various places they travels to and with the various characters they encountered along the way. The ending was wild and it has me excited for book two! Moira Quirk did an amazing job narrating the audiobook!

Thank you so much to Tor Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.