Review by Booklist Review
Leikam's debut novel starts off with a bang--or, more accurately, a stab: Anji has indeed killed a king and is frantically attempting to stave off the blood flow and keep him quiet before he finally keels over. She immediately goes on the run and is found by Hawk, one of the Menagerie, a legendary group of bounty hunters. Hawk takes her captive, and they embark on a journey fraught with danger and peril. Anji soon learns that Hawk has her own agenda. Hawk broke away from the Menagerie, and it's clear that they're not the group of well-intentioned people fighting to restore justice, as Anji had been led to believe; rather, they are a group corrupted by power, who will do anything to uphold the status quo. Anji and Hawk unexpectedly grow closer, bonded by their respective traumas, and discover they have more in common than they'd thought. Anji Kills a King moves at breakneck speed, sweeping readers along for a ride they won't want to disembark from, with a conclusion hinting at an action-packed sequel.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Leikam's rousing epic fantasy debut and Rising Tide series launch opens on Anji, a royal servant, plunging a knife into the throat of Rolandrian, King of Yem, and the pace never eases up. Anji, who held the monarch "responsible for every horrid thing happening in the world," manages to escape the castle and the capital city, but a huge reward offered for her capture puts a target on her back. She evades capture for two harrowing days before being cornered in a dive bar by a formidable female warrior: the sword master known as the Hawk, a member of the elite group of bounty hunters in service to Rolandrian. The Hawk intends to return Anji to the capital and claim the million Rhoda for doing so, leaving Anji to be tortured and publicly executed. This goal is soon threatened by several other bounty hunters, making the women's journey to the castle suspenseful. The details of Leikam's fully imagined realm, and the meaty backstories of his two main characters, will captivate readers. It's a promising start. (May)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT When a laundress finds herself alone with a terrible king, she takes the opportunity to slit his throat. Anji pins her hope for survival on two facts: people should be glad the king is dead, and no one pays attention to the servants. Unfortunately for her, the heroes of the realm are on her trail--a band of warriors known only by their animal masks. Though she's soon captured by the Hawk, a fight with the Lynx tells Anji things are more wrong than she knew. If her captor is fleeing her fellow heroes, why is she delivering Anji to torture and execution? Despite her impulsiveness and inexperience, Anji will show them all that no one is just a laundress, and she might even survive her captor. This debut is full of violent banter that will delight fans of Christopher Buehlman's The Blacktongue Thief; it also has the messy, complicated politics that Joe Abercrombie readers crave. There are many ways to corrupt a hero and no easy fixes for the world's woes, but maybe a would-be hero can convince a fallen one to let her live. VERDICT Leikam's grim, yet often charming debut won't let readers escape its riveting pages.--Matthew Galloway
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